![]() Typically the medieval torture chamber was windowless and often underground, it was lit by a few candles and was specifically designed to induce “horror, dread and despair”. ![]() In Venice, the Palazzo Ducale had its own torture chamber, which was of such importance that renovations started in 1507, so that the chamber walls could be kept strong and secure. Virtually all Castles in Europe had prisons and torture chambers. The replicas we created include a cranium crusher, a spiked chair, a hanging cage, and a stretching rack, all made of hand-forged iron and centuries-old wood to better approximate the real things. Inspired, I brought the piece and arranged for shipping it to California.Īccomplished blacksmith Giorgio Mariani and I meditated on this uncomfortable truth as we fabricated the rest of the pieces in the torture chamber, basing their designs on numerous photographs, measurements and firsthand inspections of actual devices. This quickly sparked ideas about including a torture chamber at the castle with the iron maiden as its centerpiece. Then, as I looked more closely, I became captivated by the attention to details that had gone into creating the horrible instrument. At first I was intrigued by the frown on the face of the woman depicted on the outside of the device. On this particular day, one of the stores had an iron maiden of solid bronze for sale. I was walking through the town of Arezzo near Siena one day and passed through it’s beautiful old center, which has many well-respected antique shops. The genesis of Castello di Amorosa’s torture chamber has its root in happenstance. Virtually all castles had a special room like this for entertaining unwanted guests. “Adjacent to the armaments room is the torture chamber, which has three prison cells to complement the oubliette in the armaments room.
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