While most people spent Christmas with family members, spreading holiday cheer and enjoying the company of loved ones, I went to gaze upon the grisly torture devices on display at the Medieval Torture Museum in St. Augustine, Florida.
Located on the main drag of the city, St. George Street, this museum houses hundreds of torture tools and apparatuses, using lifelike wax figures as the bloodied victims to demonstrate exactly how a machine would break your bones, dismember you, or degrade you in some macabre way.
Overall, the museum is a great way to shake up your itinerary with something a little offbeat and peculiar. You just may learn something, too; the exhibits all have small information plaques and a free audio guide that describes how a device was used, during what time period, and by whom—the Spanish Inquisition seemed responsible for a great number of the horrible methods on display.
Using the “Spanish Tickler” (or “Cat’s Paw”) on a woman on the torture table.
Some stuff looks shockingly real, especially in the dim lighting of the museum. I used a flash for almost all of my photos, which makes the exhibits much easier to see, but also makes them look a little more fake.
The gallows. We all know this one.Remember this scene from 2 Fast 2 Furious? I didn’t know that using a rat to eat through a man’s chest can actually be traced back to medieval times!Breaking on the wheel. You’re affixed to the wheel and rotated around while someone breaks your limbs with a hammer.The pendulum. You can interact with this one to make the pendulum rock back and forth.The guillotineAnother guillotine which you can interact with. They’d use a basket to catch the head of the decapitated, lest it roll away.The brazen bull was hollow and made of bronze. It gets heated up from the fire below, and someone is stuffed inside of it.This guy’s cooked.Shame masks that originated in EnglandYou don’t wanna know what these were used for, but I’ll bet you can guess.The whipping post—I made that up, sounds legit though.No flash for this one. Just an old-fashioned stake through the chest. Very effective against witches, and later, vampires.Tongue cuttingA wooden horse or Chevalet as it was called in Spain.The Judas cradle—that’s a creative one.Flaying: The slow removal of skin from the body, while you apparently dangle by your ankles.
