The Catholic Monarchs founded the legendary Spanish inquisition in 1478, and their first actions took place in Seville. On this guided tour, you will learn about the operation of the Holy Office, who were the inquisitors, who were their victims, the convictions they suffered, the methods used during the process, and the reasons of its foundation and its continuation for centuries in Spain.
Go beyond the Black Legend to approach the reality and the facts of this court that was active until the 19th century. In this experience, the focus is on the remains of one of its main headquarters, the Castle of San Jorge, and you will learn about the most important personalities: the prisoners tortured or died in their cells, but also the inquisitors and the torturers, and you will have the opportunity to feel or imagine, how those unfortunate condemned felt, in the very same place where almost everything happened. You will see the remains of the houses of the “familiars”, the doorman and the Nuncio, you will know how this fortress was like a small city into the suburb of Triana, and you will stand in front of those abhorrent secret prisons where so many suffered isolation, diseases, starvation and even a lonely and painful death.
The trial proceedings of the Inquisition were completely documented by notaries and secretaries, so we can approach to the personalities of some of the most remarkable inquisitors, and also the victims: a handful of important artists died here or suffered prison before they were burned at the stake. Also religious people whose ideas were close to humanism or the Lutheran reformism, some of them were declared saints for the Catholic Church, others were martyrs for the protestant church but remain forgotten. only one could escape from these cells.
The Inquisition invented an original and perverse punishment: the “Sambenito”, a sack-cloth that the condemned had to wear always outside their homes for a period of months or years, to keep them marked as sinners, blasphemers, heretic, false converted, bigamist… You will have the opportunity to feel like one of them.
But before the Inquisition, the place had already a very interesting story as a Muslim graveyard and then a fortress, very important during the siege of the city by Ferdinand III in the “Reconquista”. Nowadays, is a lively fresh market of the popular neighborhood of Triana…and it is said that during the nights you can hear the cries and screams of the prisoner´s ghosts.
Come and relive the Inquisitions in Seville in this unique experience.
Professional guide
Gratuities (optional)
