The Casa da Inquisição Castelo de Vide, also known as Casa do Morgado, is a museum space dedicated to the Portuguese Inquisition and to New Christians accused of Judaism. It opened on 16 March 2023 inside the Casa do Morgado, a historic house on Rua Nova, in Castelo de Vide.

The Casa do Morgado Name

The building is known as Casa do Morgado because it was associated in the nineteenth century with Manuel Maria dos Santos Cordeiro, known as Morgado Cordeiro. The name Casa da Inquisição refers to the present museum function created inside the house.

Casa da Inquisição Castelo de Vide

The exhibition presents the procedures of the Holy Office through scenography, period objects, archaeological materials, bilingual panels, hyper-realistic figures, and augmented reality. Its contents are based on inquisitorial procedure, especially the Regimento do Santo Ofício of 1640.

One of the figures used in the museum narrative is Guiomar Mendes, a New Christian woman from Castelo de Vide. She was arrested in Lisbon on 28 November 1662 and burned in the auto-da-fé of 17 August 1664, at Terreiro do Paço.

Documentary Context

The permanent exhibition also includes texts prepared by researchers from the FRONTOWNS project, connected to the sixteenth-century municipal tombo of Castelo de Vide.