AUTO

da Fe, or Act of Faith, was the baroarous and horrible ceremony at the execution of heretics under the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. It was generally on All-Saints’ Day, and ended of course with the burning alive of the heretics. If they recanted at the last, they were strangled before being burnt. The king and court generally attended, and the most ‘splendid’ was saiato have been celebrated at Madrid in 1680 in the presence of Charles II. As late as 1829 a Jew was burnt at Valencia under the forms of an A. da F.