The history of torture records many devices that worked on the principle of the anthropomorphic container with two doors, fitted
with spikes on the inside that pierced the victim upon the doors being shut. The most famous example has always been the so
called “Iron Maiden of Nuremberg”, destroyed in the air raids of 1944. It is difficult to separate legend from fact concerning this
contrivance because most published material is based on nineteenth century research distorted by romanticisms and by fanciful
popular tradition. The first reference to an execution with the Maiden that has yet come to light stems from August 14, 1515,
although the instrument had been in use for several decades by then. That day a forger of coins was placed inside, and the doors
shut “slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms, and his legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his
bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulders, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him; and so he
remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died”. Probably the spikes of that time were movable among
various sockets drilled into different places on the inside, more or less lethal, more or less mutilating, according to the
requirements of the sentence