Housed in the lower floors and basements of the 14th-century Palazzo Chiaromonte Steri, Palermo's newest museum offers a chilling but fascinating look at the legacy of the Inquisition in Palermo. Thousands of 'heretics' were detained here between 1601 and 1782; the honeycomb of former cells has been painstakingly restored to reveal multiple layers of their graffiti and artwork (religious and otherwise). Excellent guided visits of the prison and the palace itself are available in English with advance notice.
Guides help point out small details that would otherwise be easily missed. Depicted are religious themes such as Christ tortured by Spanish soldiers and images of local protector saints San Rocco and Santa Rosalia. Also depicted are profane themes, including hearts pierced with arrows or instruments of torture, elaborate maps of Sicily where other prisoners were invited to add missing details, an inquisitor holding the scales of justice, or a caricature of another inquisitor astride a defecating horse adjacent to the latrine.
Look also for two works by noted Sicilian modern artist Renato Guttuso: first, a graphic depiction of the strangulation murder of inquisitor De Cisneros by the handcuffed 22-year-old prisoner Diego La Mattina; and Guttuso's masterful 1974 painting of the Vucciria market, whose vibrant colors jump out at you after so many rooms full of prison art executed in simple reds and blacks (the red from crumbled bricks, black from burnt wood and candles).
