Museo Criminale Medioevale - San Gimignano - Tuscany

San Gimignano is also known for a truly original museum: a museum dedicated to torture. Also known as the Museo Criminale Medievale (Medieval Criminal Museum), it is located in an eerie underground environment and houses a large number of genuine medieval torture devices.

On display are medieval torture devices and techniques, some of which were also used for capital punishment, as well as documents from the period of the Holy Inquisition, the ancient tribunal established by the church to track down and punish heretics.

The material on display constitutes an important historical documentation, as it dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Among the main attractions of the museum is certainly the so-called Nuremberg Virgin, a kind of sarcophagus equipped inside with sharp points that were used to pierce the bodies of the tortured, the guillotine, the chair of the inquisitor, swords, axes and chastity belts.

Willem Vandenameele