The Pit and the Pendulum Charles III and Charles IV only four persons were condemned. The Inquisition was, however, abolished during the period of French intervention (1808–13). The original source of the pendulum torture method is one paragraph in the preface of the 1826 book "The history of the Inquisition of Spain " by the Spanish priest, historian, and activist, Juan Antonio Llorente. relating a second-hand account by a single prisoner released from the Inquisition's Madrid dungeon in 1820, who purportedly described the pendulum torture method. Most modern sources dismiss this as fantasy. One theory is that Llorente misunderstood the account he heard; the prisoner
The Pit and the Pendulum and falls, his chin landing at the edge of a deep pit. He realizes that had he not tripped, he would have fallen into this pit. After losing consciousness again, the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is strapped to a wooden frame on his back, facing the ceiling. Above him is a picture of Father Time, with a razor-sharp pendulum measuring "one foot from horn to horn" suspended from it. The pendulum is swinging back and forth and slowly descending, designed to kill the narrator eventually. However, he is able to attract rats to