Tortures of the Holy Inquisition: culla di Guida Return
Under the Holy Inquisition, various forms of torture machinery
were employed. The "culla di Guida" is only one such kind of
torture. Religious people expended great efforts in the pursuit
of religion, thinking up more and more different but ingenious
forms of torture! Perhaps Pironesi's prisons were intended to
be disorienting as, jut as torture is not normal, is disorienting
for human beings?
Esther Lederberg and her second husband Matthew Simon visited an
exhibit by Amnesty International at the Preseideo in San Francisco.
The exhibit was about the subject of torture. Various torture
machinery was on display such as a bejeweled silver cross about a
foot in length that concealed a dagger; the culla di Guida; the
brass "Brazen Bull" 1.
1
The "Brazen Bull" was a hollow figure made of brass that looked
like a bull. It was constructed with a door on its side that could
be opened and a living person pushed into the brass bull, the door
locked. A fire was then set under the bull to burn the victim to chars.
While being incinerated, the victim would scream in pain. The bull was
designed so that the screams would sound like a bellowing bull. The bull
was designed by a man named "Perillos", given as a gift to tyrant "Phalaris"
of Sicily. Phalaris had Perillos murdered in the Brazen Bull as his reward.
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