The Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana and the Representation of Torture in German Criminal Codes during the Time of the Enlightenment

In 1769, during the rule of Queen Maria Theresia, the criminal code (Strafgesetzbuch) called Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana appeared in the Habsburg Empire. This still not well understood code expresses a contradiction in the criminal law during the time of the Enlightenment and is a kind of paradox in the representation of torture and physical pain in the 18th century. If, on the one hand the reforms of Maria Theresia tried to implement civil rights and reduce the use of torture as punishment for witchcraft and other crimes considered as archaic, then on the other hand the Constitutio shows one of the roughest representations of torture in the history of the European penal system. Through various plates, which ironically recall the ones of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert, the techniques and instruments of torture are illustrated. The paper will be a reflection on the plates of the Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana as a contradictory crossroad between the principles of the Enlightenment (the deceptive similarity to the "didactic" plates of the Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie) and the traditional fierce representations and descriptions of physical punishment in the Strafgesetzbücher of the German tradition.