Patio of the Inquisition: The Inquisition Courtyard owes its name to the group of buildings of historical and architectural value which ran from 1566 until its dissolution in 1821, the Inquisition. In addition to the building that was headquarters of the Inquisition Coimbra, the court assembled the original College of Arts. After excavation and adaptation works in some old high school buildings, since 2003, the Center for Visual Arts (CAV).

To combat the heresies that rose against the Catholic faith, Pope Gregory IX in 1231 created the courts of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, whose function was to identify and exclude possible elements of society and disruptive protesters from the Christian order, and ensure their proper functioning . The tried and convicted by the Inquisition were delivered to the administrative state that would carry out the sentences. Penalties ranged from confiscation of property to death in fires, where the secular arm in force in the execution of those condemned by the people. The interrogation was marked by torture, an instrument of terror very common at the time, but not free contradições.O Manual of inquisitors, a kind of guide practice in the trade inquisitorial, written in 1376 by the Spanish Dominican Nicholas Eymerich, then revised and updated in 1578 by Francisco de la Peña, states that: "The purpose of torture is to force the suspect to admit guilt silent. Can qualify for all these bloody judges today who so easily resort to torture, without trying, through other means, to complete the investigation. The judges will impose bloody torture to the point that kill the defendants, or leave them with broken limbs, patient forever. The interrogator must keep in mind that the accused should be tortured so that get healthy to be released or executed. " The Inquisition in Portugal was established at the request of the king John III in 1536, and includes a historiographical mystery of the darkest and paradoxical until today because we know John III financed studies in other countries and encouraged the search field ( which demonstrates the interest in new ideas) but to greater centralization of power would have opted for adoption of the Inquisition, he insisted that the precepts of scholasticism, he preached the Aristotelian know, based on comment taken as reference works and incontestáveis.A Inquisition acted during 285 years in Portugal, being eliminated in 1821. Therefore, it is clearly stated the power to control moral behavior and representing the Church and the Inquisition, that through fear and terror often guilty could invent, as well as sustain its own structure with the taxes and confiscations, needed to conquer new territories and reaffirm the Catholic faith shaken by the ideas brought by the new interpretations of the Bible made in Europe in the so-called Reformation. Bibliography: "Inquisition in Portugal", by Jesse Chahad, 2007.