There is nothing to see here or commemorate or remember that Coimbra was a site of Inquisition activities. Do not bother to visit. Spend your time elsewhere in town.

Locals say that the last witch burnt at the stake in Portugal met her death in this square, but the majority of the hundreds who met their deaths in this square would have been Jews. Voltaire wrote in Candide that '... it having been decided by the University of Coimbra that burning a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.' It was even given a name, 'auto-da-fé' - the burning of a heretic. Now there is not much to see in the square and it is a short climb up a narrow street to get there. It is said that the worn stone in the square was where people were executed, but I doubt this. What axeman would chop into stone? The square is worth visiting for its historical significance and you can always close your eyes to image the victims screaming as the flames 'slowly' burnt them alive, while hundreds of locals looked on cheering. (Public executions were a popular spectator event throughout Europe.)