Palace of the Inquisition (Museo Histórico de Cartagena)
Baroque palace of 1770 on Plaza de Bolívar, now Cartagena's historical museum.
The Palacio de la Inquisición faces Plaza de Bolívar inside Cartagena's walled city and is among the finest civil buildings of the Spanish colonial Caribbean. A tribunal of the Holy Office was established in the port in 1610, making Cartagena one of only three seats of the Inquisition in Spanish America. The present palace was completed in 1770 in a late Baroque manner, with a carved stone doorway, deep wooden balconies, two interior patios and thick masonry walls suited to the tropical climate.
The tribunal was abolished with independence, and since 1953 the building has housed the Museo Histórico de Cartagena de Indias, known today as MUHCA. Displays trace the city's foundation, its fortifications and its role in the Atlantic slave trade, alongside colonial furniture, religious art, arms and documents. Rooms devoted to the Inquisition explain the workings of the tribunal and show instruments associated with it, while the upper galleries cover the independence period and the republic.
Highlights
- Carved Baroque stone portal dated 1770
- Two shaded colonial patios and wooden balconies
- Galleries on Cartagena's foundation, fortifications and slave trade
- Rooms explaining the Holy Office tribunal established in 1610
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