Seville: Where the Inquisition Lit Its First Pyre

You are in the Santa Cruz quarter. Look at the white alleys, the window grilles full of flowers, the courtyards. It is the most photographed corner of Seville. It was the Jewish quarter. For centuries one of the largest Jewish communities on the peninsula lived here. In 1391, an archdeacon named Ferrand Martínez spent months preaching against the Jews. On 6 June, a mob broke into this quarter. They looted houses, burned synagogues and killed hundreds of people. Many others were forced to be baptized to save their lives. The violence spread across the whole peninsula. Several synagogues bec…

You are on Calle Susona. Look on the wall for a tile with a skull. It recalls one of Seville's darkest legends. In 1480 the first inquisitors arrived in the city. The richest conversos understood at once what was coming: arrests, confiscations, pyres. One of them, Diego de Susán, a powerful merchant, met with others to organize armed resistance. They had money, weapons and men. His daughter, Susona, was in love with a Christian knight. She overheard the plot and told her lover. He alerted the authorities. The conspirators were arrested. Diego de Susán was among the first to die at the stak…

You are on the Prado de San Sebastián. Today it has gardens, a bus station, people hurrying past. Five centuries ago this was open ground outside the city walls. On 6 February 1481, Seville held the first auto-da-fé of the Spanish Inquisition. Six people were burned alive. Soon afterward, the authorities had a permanent burning place built on this field. A stone platform decorated with four statues of prophets. The work had been too much for an improvised pyre. A chronicler of the time, Andrés Bernáldez, estimated that hundreds were burned in Seville in the first years. Many of the accused…

You are facing the Real Alcázar, next to the Lion Gate. It is one of the oldest royal palaces still in use in Europe. In 1477, Isabella and Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs, spent a long stay in this palace. They wanted to bring order to a rich, turbulent city full of noble factions. During that stay, several clergymen pressed one issue on them: Seville's conversos, they said, were still secretly practicing Judaism. The monarchs asked the pope for permission to create a tribunal of their own. In 1478, Sixtus IV granted it. The novelty was huge: the inquisitors were appointed by the crown, n…

You are facing the Archive of the Indies, a sober, square sixteenth-century building. It was built as an exchange, so merchants would stop doing business on the cathedral steps. Today it holds millions of documents on the conquest and government of the Americas. Eighty kilometers of shelving. Among those papers appears an obsession of the age: purity of blood. To hold many offices, join certain orders or sail for the Indies, you had to prove you did not descend from Jews or Muslims. Going back generations. Neighbors were questioned, family trees were checked, witnesses were paid. One conve…

You are facing the cathedral, with the Giralda, the old minaret of the mosque, pointing at the sky. It is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. On the day of the first auto-da-fé, in 1481, a Dominican friar, Alonso de Ojeda, preached the sermon. He had been one of the tribunal's great promoters. Soon afterward he died of plague. The condemned who were not sent to the stake received another penalty: the sambenito. A yellow tunic with a cross, to be worn in public. When the sentence ended, the sambenito did not disappear. It was hung in the church of the condemned person's parish, with t…

You are in Plaza de San Francisco, facing the carved facade of the Town Hall. This was Seville's main square. It held bullfights, festivals, executions. And autos-da-fé. An auto-da-fé was a meticulously organized spectacle. Stands were built for the authorities, the clergy and the nobility. The common people packed the square from dawn. The condemned paraded in procession, in sambenitos and corozas, painted conical caps. Sentences were read out one by one. It could last all day. Most were reconciled: penances, fines, prison. Those sentenced to death were handed over to the secular arm, mean…

You are next to the Torre del Oro, on the bank of the Guadalquivir. The Almohads built it around 1220 to guard the river. A chain linked it to another tower on the opposite bank. From 1503, Seville held the monopoly on trade with the Americas. All the silver of the Indies came up this river. So did things the Inquisition wanted to keep out. The tribunal watched the ships. It searched holds for forbidden books. From 1559 there was an official index, listing titles no Spaniard could read. A man named Julián Hernández, nicknamed Julianillo, smuggled Protestant books into Seville. According to …

You are on the Triana bridge. Look at the wide river and, ahead, the Triana quarter with its colorful houses and, to the right of the bridge, the market. This iron bridge dates from 1852. Before that, for centuries, the crossing was a bridge of boats: vessels chained together with planks on top. That bridge of boats was the prisoners' route. Those arrested in Seville crossed the river to the Inquisition's castle on the far bank. What happened on the other side was secret. The accused did not know who had denounced them. They did not know the exact charges. Months could pass without a hearin…

You are in the Triana Market. Among the stalls of fish, ham and spices, look for the entrance to the Castle of San Jorge. It is beneath your feet. From 1481, this medieval castle was the seat of the Inquisition in Seville. Here were the offices, the audience halls and the secret prisons. They were called secret because no one outside knew who was inside. Prisoners could spend years in these cells, by the river, with the damp and the floods. The procedure began with an edict of grace: a period in which everyone could confess their faults or denounce those of others. Many denounced out of fea…

You are in the Callejón de la Inquisición, the Alley of the Inquisition. It is a narrow, white-walled passage running down from the street to the river. Tradition says prisoners and tribunal officials passed this way, between the castle and the bank of the Guadalquivir. Stop for a moment in the middle of the passage. Listen to the noise of the neighborhood on one side and the silence of the river on the other. The Spanish Inquisition lasted more than three centuries. It is estimated to have tried some hundred and fifty thousand people. Most did not die at the stake, but they lost their prop…

You are on Calle Betis, on the Triana bank. Look at the colorful houses behind you and, opposite, the city: the Torre del Oro, the Giralda peeking out, the rooftops of the center. From this bank, the castle's prisoners could see Seville. The city they had been torn from, so close and so far. The Inquisition was abolished several times and restored just as often. Napoleon suppressed it in 1808. Ferdinand VII brought it back. The Cortes of Cádiz abolished it. It returned again. The last execution was in 1826, in Valencia: a schoolteacher, Cayetano Ripoll, hanged for teaching deist ideas. On …