Palace of the Inquisition

Look at the corner: instead of a right angle, the building slices it off diagonally and places its doorway there. This is the Palace of the Inquisition, seat of the Tribunal of the Holy Office in New Spain, and that angled entrance, designed by architect Pedro de Arrieta, allowed the door to face the square head-on.

1The tribunal

The Inquisition was established in Mexico in 1571, and this building was completed in 1736. People accused of heresy, Judaism, blasphemy, bigamy or witchcraft were tried here; Indigenous people, by contrast, fell outside its jurisdiction. The gravest sentences were read out at public autos-da-fé, and executions took place at the San Diego burning ground, beside the Alameda. The tribunal was finally abolished in 1820. The palace then housed the School of Medicine, and today it is the UNAM's Museum of Mexican Medicine.

2The Mulata de Córdoba

One of Mexico's most famous legends is set within these walls. A woman from Córdoba, in Veracruz, known for her beauty and her remedies, was accused of witchcraft and locked in the cells of the Holy Office. On the eve of her punishment she asked for a piece of charcoal and drew a ship on the wall. "What's it missing?" the jailer asked mockingly. "Only to sail," she replied, climbed aboard and vanished before his eyes.

There are many versions and no document proving the escape: the Mulata lives in books of legends, not in the tribunal's archives.

Chroniclers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Luis González Obregón, fixed the version that is told today.

3What to look for

• The angled doorway, with its columns and the balcony above.
• The tezontle walls, running along Calle Brasil and Calle Venezuela.
• The barred windows of the ground floor.