y-es travel chapter: Ronda and its eclectic Lara Museum

Southern Spain has many pueblos blancos, white towns, often on hillsides; Ronda is one of these, perched on a magnificent gorge. While we had wheels we visited several white towns in Andalusia. Ronda was the most spectacular: occupied since neolithic times, settled by the Celts in 500 BCE, eventually by the Romans, sequentially by the Visigoths, the Arabs, the Moors and finally the Spaniards. It has a violent history, and lovely mixed architecture. Ronda's historical use of it's gorge/cliffs for executions is considered to be the inspiration for Hemingway's account of executing fascists sympathizers by throwing them off the (fictional) town's cliffs in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The town center spans the gorge.

We began to tire of churches, especially after over-consuming in Portugal -- the guilt, the gilt, the blood, the tears, the pain and suffering, and incredible wealth; it became easier and easier to turn away from yet another gorgeous Spanish cathedral. Instead of Ronda's cathedral we went to its Lara Museum, a wealthy family's odd collections (collecting was a popular thing for the wealthy in Victorian times) these folks collected guns, implements of the Spanish Inquisition, typewriters, music boxes, ladies watches, movie paraphernalia, pharmacy equipment, fans, etc. Here are bits:

In the gun collection, this revolver was made in Chicago in 1883. Don't quite know how it worked. The round part was about 3" in diameter.

Captain's gun, about 12" in length, designed for quelling a mutiny by firing more broadly.

Collection of early phones, the lower left one is shown larger below and looked kind of like Homer Simpson.

One of many early typewriters.

No signage and no idea what this did -- do you know?

Oak Park homeboy Ernest Hemingway shown here in a photo taken in Ronda, with members of the Ordonez family, one of Spain's legendary bullfighting families. Ronda is the home of the country's first bullfighting ring.

These were in the pharmacy section, ampules about 10", ca. 1880s. Don't know.

I had no idea that folks dueled with anything other than guns. These were dueling knives and a drawing showing the practice. Participants were supposed to have the same knife style to duel, so there were boxed sets.

The museum's Spanish Inquisition area was scary, troubling, gruesome, fascinating. Life size beseeching sculptures in a sunken cell set the stage for what was to come.

Chair of nails, confessional aid.

A wooden dress for drunkards to wear around town.

This special chair had spiked wheels on the back that turned different directions and could slowly drill into a
seated umm sinner who was buckled in place.

The Judas Chair - infinitely customizable, through use of the directing chains. The victim, male or female, would be lowered onto the spike/ "chair", targeting nether parts, depending on the physical structure and crimes, or more likely the delight of the operator.

Below left is the head crusher, which included a description of the process -- how the eyes pop out at a certain point, and the brains ooze later; below right is the "heretic's fork" -- it rendered the heretic almost mute pretty quickly. I left out the knee crusher, the iron maiden, and many other handy confessional tools. It was scary and very troubling.