Judas Cradle: Shimmy You Down

What do you get when a Renaissance lawyer decides that the best way to keep someone awake is to slowly shove a pyramid up their ass?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan explore the disturbing history of the Judas Cradle, one of the most infamous torture devices ever associated with interrogation, confession, and punishment.

We’ll travel back to Renaissance Italy and the work of Ippolito Marsili, before following the device into the Spanish Inquisition and the broader history of European torture. We’ll look at the different variations of the Cradle, the ways it was supposedly used, and how the device earned its reputation as one of the most horrifying forms of physical and psychological torture.

But there’s a problem. The Judas Cradle is one of those historical torture devices whose reputation has become almost impossible to separate from the evidence. So we’re also going to dig into the history behind the history and ask how much of what we think we know about the Judas Cradle can actually be proven.

We’ll examine its alleged use in Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, the stories surrounding the Spanish Inquisition, and the claims that modified versions of the device may have continued into the modern era.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring their own deeply inappropriate sense of humor to a torture device that makes the phrase “take a seat” sound like a genuine threat.

If you’re interested in the Judas Cradle, Spanish Inquisition, Ippolito Marsili, torture devices, interrogation, sleep deprivation, medieval and Renaissance torture, historical myths, dark history, and the bizarre ways torture has been portrayed throughout history, this episode is going to be an extremely uncomfortable to sit and listen.

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