Museum of Torture and the Death Penalty, San Gimignano

The Museum of Torture (Museo della Tortura) examines historical torture methods and devices and the death penalty respectively. The museum is two buildings located near Saint John's Gate (Porta San Giovanni), the south entrance to the walled Old Town. The emphasis seems to be on the exhibition of human depravity in its lethal systems of Justice.

The Museum of Torture has a vast collection of machines and implements devoted to the infliction of suffering on felons and "heretics." The displays are staffed with life-like human models giving and receiving torments that boggle the imagination. But all this, while absorbing, is not meant as entertainment.

A chair at the museum is "upholstered" with 1300 spikes. The chair is equipped with bars and restraints to force a body against the spikes. Some chairs come with a "hot seat," heated with hot coals.

The Maiden of Nuremberg is an upright sarcophagus with a spiked inner chamber and a woman's face. As the door is closed the victim is penetrated by the spikes. It made for a lasting and painfully confining experience.

"Branks" were all-enclosing head masks covering the eyes, mouth and ears. The masks were shaped to humiliate and silence persons as they were tortured. The "heretic's fork" was used to penetrate the clavicular notch and the chin. Any movement was painful.

Death penalty exhibits include the garrote and the guillotine. One section of the museum is dedicated to witchcraft, witch hunts and the Inquisition Tribunal.