The Inquisition Palace and the Zorro legend

The Inquisition Palace, and the Zorro legend.

On the NE of the square, you will find the Inquisition Palace built in 1736 by Pedro de Arrieta at that time the finest architect in Mexico, another work by Arrieta is the old Guadalupe Basilica.

The ¨Puerta Chata¨ (beveled portal) faces the square, a façade of great dignity, with two stories and a gable, the portal is a semi octagonal arch flanked by columns and pilasters with Corinthian capitals, the second floor it has a balcony with another semi octagonal arch and a long rail covering the entire with of the façade, the gable has the emblem of the Inquisition sustained by two angels, the south lateral façade made of tezontle (a porous reddish volcanic stone)  has on it emblems of the passion dawn in darker stone.

The interior is a space of great elegance with columns and arches surrounding the courtyard, the arches on the corners without column support, a great staircase with contrasting arches gives access to the second floor, to the NE the  entry to the old Inquisition prison known as ¨la Perpetúa¨ where the man who served as model or archetype of the zorro was jailed and managed to escape once, just to be arrested again an executed. 

This man was William Lampart an Irishman who was a protégé of the Count-Duke of Olivares, favorite of king Philip IV and who came to Mexico by mid XVII c, after a while he was  very much concern about the living conditions of the Indians and blacks and try to start a rebellion against the Spanish crown, he was arrested an escaped from this building, during the time he was free, he used costumes and masks to perpetrate robberies, he founded  a robbers brotherhood know as the ¨leaf¨(hoja) or the ¨Rama¨ (branch) and with the proceeds of his robberies he tried to fund the rebellion, finally he was burned at the stake.

 Two hundred years later a Mexican writer Riva Palacio, a free mason, wrote a book on him, based on this book an American, Johnston Mc Cullen, another free mason, wrote El Zorro and based the action in California and finally Douglas Fairbanks, also a free mason, made the film, it is said that the Z is a Masonic symbol that means to straight wrongs, finally president  Porfirio Díaz ordered in 1910 to place a sculpture of Lampart inside the Independence Column (the Angel).