Palace of the Inquisition Museum in Cartagena, Colombia Visitor Guide

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The Spanish Inquisition conjures visions of witches, torture, and religious persecution. The Palace of the Inquisition in Cartagena served as the seat of the institution in the colony of Nueva Granada and remains a reminder of the Inquisition’s reach into the New World and its connection to colonial authority.

The Palacio de la Inquisición in Cartagena is located in a gorgeous building and today doubles as the city’s official historical museum and an Inquisition museum. You’ll find exhibits on the city’s founding, colonial era, and independence in addition to the Inquisition as a whole and its presence in Cartagena.

It’s one of the most popular museums to visit in Cartagena and can be a great way to learn more about the city’s history.

Read on for a complete guide to the Palace of the Inquisition Museum in Cartagena, Colombia, including its historical significance, what you can see today, and information on tickets and entry fees.

Palace of the Inquisition Museum in Cartagena Overview

The Palace of the Inquisition in Cartagena is located adjacent to the Parque Bolívar, inside Cartagena’s Walled City.

It’s located in a beautiful 18th century mansion late colonial era mansion, befitting of the name Inquisition Palace.

This was the location of the Inquisition, or the Tribunal del Santo Oficio in Cartagena. It was responsible for the colony of Nueva Granada that included roughly modern Venezuela and Colombia and the Caribbean islands, and it operated until independence.

Today, the Palacio de la Inquisición is officially known as the Museo Histórico de Cartagena (MUHCA).

On the upper levels of the museum, you’ll find several rooms with exhibits on Cartagena’s history, from its pre-Spanish indigenous peoples through independence. While I think the Museo Naval is a bit better done as a Cartagena history museum, the exhibits here are well done and most of them are translated into English.

On the bottom floor, you’ll find exhibits on the Spanish Inquisition generally as well as its operation in Cartagena. There used to be a variety of torture devices here, but most have been removed.

Still, it’s a neat opportunity to learn more about the Inquisition and its impact on Cartagena and Spanish America.

Palace of the Inquisition Tickets and Visitor Info

Here is what you need to know to plan a visit to the Palace of the Inquisition in Cartagena, Colombia.

Cartagena’s Inquisition Museum Hours:

• Monday-Saturday: 9 am-6 pm
• Sundays and Holidays: 10 am-4 pm

Cartagena’s Inquisition Museum Tickets and Entrance Fees:

• Adults: $24,000 Colombian Pesos (COP)
• Children: $20,000 COP
• Children under 5: Free
• Students/Teachers: $20,000 COP
• Senors: $20,000 COP
• Last Sunday of the Month: Free to everyone

These hours and prices were confirmed in November 2024. You can double check them at the museum’s official website here.

Also, the free entry on the last Sunday of the month applies to both Colombians and foreigners, unlike at the Castillo San Felipe Fort and some other places where it only applies to Colombian citizens and permanent residents. Check the museum’s Instagram, to confirm the free entry date and see if there are any special events, presentations, or exhibitions.

Guided Experiences

There is no way to buy tickets ahead of time online, and it isn’t necessary.

There are however, a couple guided tours in the city that include entrance to the museum:

• Private City Tour (Choose the 7 hour option that includes museums)
• Cruise Shore Excursion to Cartagena’s Highlights

That covers the basics of planning a visit to the Inquisition Museum in Cartagena.

You can read on to learn a bit more about the history of the Inquisition in Cartagena, the building, and exactly what you’ll see at the museum.

History of the Inquisition in Cartagena

Cartagena was a center of Spanish trade and military power during the colonial era.

Therefore, it was a logical location for an office of the Inquisition, a tool to enforce the power of the Catholic Church and Spanish crown.

The office was founded in Cartagena in 1610, the third site of the Inquisition in the Americas after those at Veracrúz, Mexico and Lima, Peru. Previously Cartagena and pretty much the entirety of the South American continent had been under the authority of the office of Lima.

The Inquisition in Cartagena originally operated out of two homes, which were demolished to make way for a new building in 1630. Later, the office was further expanded and the current Palacio de la Inquisición de Cartagena de Indias was complete in 1770, just 40 years before it would cease to function after Cartagena’s Declaration of Independence in 1811.

Despite its deservedly dark reputation, the Inquisition tended to be much less brutal in the Americas than in Spain itself, and that was particularly true in Cartagena.

The city was an important international trading center, after all. Therefore, it had a relatively cosmopolitan quality that tended to lead to less strict enforcement of the Inquisition in Cartagena. Non-Catholics, including Jews, were often involved in trade, be they merchants or crew. Religious persecution usually took a back seat to business in a port town like Cartagena.

Portuguese Jewish merchants and slave traders were targeted in the 1630s and 1640s, but that appears to have been motivated as much by politics, economics, and a desire to remove the Portuguese monopoly on the slave trade.

For much of the rest of the 1600s, the Inquisition in Cartagena likely played a larger role enforcing class and social relations than sincerely hunting heretics. There were almost assuredly cases of settling scores with neighbors and rivals as well.

African slaves made up nearly all of the accusations of witchcraft, although occasionally even aristocratic white women were accused of the lesser charge of using love spells. Interestingly, despite the fact that Cartagena’s Inquisition tried more witches than any other tribunal in the Americas, none were sentenced to die, a stark contrast to the treatment of supposed witches elsewhere.

This article from History Today covers the interesting story of Paula de Eguiluz, who was tried for being a witch three times in Cartagena.

By the mid to late 1700s, with Cartagena only having become more cosmopolitan, the Inquisition here was focused primarily on stopping the spread of prohibited books and ideas of the Enlightenment.

While numbers vary from source to source, during its 211 years in operation from 1610 to 1821, the Inquisition in Cartagena appears to have sentenced no more than 6 people to death by hanging. It is true that more were tortured though, many were publicly shamed, and many also had their belongings confiscated..

Still, the numbers of people tried in Cartagena pale in comparison to the numbers persecuted in Spain or at the stricter colonial tribunals in Lima and, especially, Mexico, which was much harsher.

The Inquisitors fled Cartagena upon its Declaration of Independence in 1811. The office was reinstated during the Spanish reoccupation from 1815-1821, after which it was permanently disbanded.

What to See at the Inquisition Palace in Cartagena

Honestly, the coolest thing about the Cartagena Palacio de la Inquisición is the building itself. It’s a gorgeous complex of several houses connected by a gorgeous central courtyard.

The upstairs parts of the museum house the Cartagena Historical Museum.

You’ll find exhibits here on the history of the city beginning with the Pre-Colombian indigenous peoples through the independence era up to Cartagena’s long 19th century.

While the collection of artifacts here is pretty sparse due to a number of robberies in the 1990s and early 2000s, there is a lot of text that does a decent job explaining important aspects of Cartagena’s history, and most of that text is translated pretty decently into English.

In the downstairs sections, you’ll find the Inquisition Museum.

This area was heavily renovated in the 2010s. While it used to house a number of torture devices, only a few remain today.

There are also some exhibits on the global Inquisition during the colonial era and a few stories of trials that were conducted in Cartagena as well as on the syncretism of European, African, and Indigenous cultures and its impact on Cartagena.

There are also art exhibits and occasional temporary exhibits on the bottom floor, and the building also houses the city’s historic archives.

Be sure to head outside to the neat courtyard, where you can find a replica guillotine and gallows.

Ready to Visit Cartagena’s Palacio de la Inquisición?

I hope you found this guide to the Cartagena Inquisition Museum useful. The museum is neat and worth a visit if you have the time. If you only have time for 1 museum, I’d choose the Museo Naval over it, but the torture devices and beautiful building here are certainly neat.

You can also check out the always free Cartagena Museo del Oro Gold Museum just on the other side of the Parque Bolívar.

If you do go, I hope you enjoy it, learn something, and aren’t accused of witchcraft, sacrilege, or using any love spells while you’re there.

Cheers and Happy Exploring!