Was the swinging pendulum an actual torture device employed by the Spanish Inquisition, or indeed by any other legal inquisition in history?
Added it to my DVD collection. Blimey, I STIll cringe every time I watch that razor-sharp pendulum swinging down, nearer and nearer, to the strapped-down guy's stomach!
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No, it was not
Nos perituri mortem salutamus nobis semper sit amor.
according to to art director of the film, Daniel Haller, it did exist: "I found that such a pendulum actually was used during the Spanish and German inquisitions. At first we tried to use a rubberized blade and that's why it got stuck on Kerr's chest."
share'Surviving History' on the History Channel did an experiment on the feasibility of such a pendulum. It was believed possible after the experiment. I would like to see this episode issued on dvd.
shareUnlikely; the evidence is slim. Also, it is an execution device, unsuited for torture (of course, prisoners have been subjected to false executions in order to break them--as happened to Dostoevsky).
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It does seem like a crazy expensive way to go about executing someone. It must have required a lot of craftsmen of the time to construct such a thing and maintain it. I can see it being used as a tool to extract a confession, but to actually kill someone, probably not.
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