Toledo

A view over the courtyard of San Juan de los Reyes.

Solemnity, seclusion and sin at San Juan de los Reyes Monastery

Posted on by The Gothic Dispatch

Matthew Lewis’s novel The Monk is full of gothic obscurity. I travelled to Toledo to get as close as possible to the novel’s setting – as long as you don’t mean geographically.

Greetings from San Juan de los Reyes Monastery, where Franciscan monks lived and studied in solemnity and seclusion. Discover the corridors and chapel of the monastery built for Spanish royalty. Wonder at the possible sins and secrets kept behind the many locked doors. And succeed where the monk Ambrosio and I have failed, in staying on the path of virtue.

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The interrogation chair, a torture device of the Spanish Inquisition, in Toledo’s Museum of Torture. Iron spikes on all surfaces leave little to the imagination.

The Museum of Torture and the “painful questions” of the Spanish Inquisition

Posted on by The Gothic Dispatch

So, you’ve been accused of heresy in 15th century Spain. What’s next? I won’t keep you in the dark. That, after all, is the job of the Spanish Inquisition.

Greetings from the Museum of Torture, a collection of “painful questions” put to the accused during the reign of Fernando II and Isabella I. Look back with regret at the events leading up to accusation and incarceration. Browse the cruel and merciless methods used to extract confessions from enemies of the state. And ask yourself if, maybe, you were better off kept in the dark.

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