Though the Agony is Eternal: Voices from Below, from Anywhere. Exhibit of Dungeon Graffiti in Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri, Palermo

Abstract

Exhibitions and museums about the Inquisition are usually focused on trial procedures, which involved torture. This form of violence is typically exhibited through recreated torture devices and repeats a narrative that leaves out the bodies and subjectivities of the prosecuted. In this paper, I argue that, by displaying prisoners’ graffiti and providing context, the Steri Palace in Palermo, Sicily, produces a form of collective knowledge about early modern confinement rooted in the captives’ experience and self-representation, instead of reproducing the power relation that inquisitorial sources tend to present. I also argue that the Steri exhibition responds to the ‘morality’ issue prevalent in dark tourism studies.