The tribunal hall
A raised seat for the inquisitor, a low one for the accused.
Mandyy88 โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Berthold Werner โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Frank Vincentz โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Mandyy88 โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Most cases were not doctrinal heresy but everyday practice: magic and charms, eating on fast days, words against the clergy โ and punishments were usually public penance or a fine rather than death.
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One of the few surviving inquisitorial palaces in the world and the only one open to the public: built in Birgu in 1530 as a civil courthouse, it became from 1574 the seat of the Pope's inquisitors in Malta โ sixty-two of them in succession, two of whom later became popes. The visit walks the route the accused walked: the tribunal hall with the inquisitor's raised seat and the deliberately low seat for the accused, the interrogation rooms, and the cells below with inscriptions prisoners cut into the walls โ instruments of torture displayed alongside panels explaining how canon law restricted their use. The display does not settle for horror: a large section covers daily life in early modern Malta and what people were actually tried for โ witchcraft, superstition and breaking the fast far more often than doctrinal heresy. The building itself, with its two courtyards and stairs, is among the finest things in Birgu.
A raised seat for the inquisitor, a low one for the accused.
What prisoners cut into the walls.
Main Gate Street, Birgu