Early on in the story, the narrator talks of how his dungeon has stone floors, just like the "condemned cells at Toledo." This is undoubtedly an allusion to the Spanish Inquisition, as the city of Toledo was one of its main centers. Between 1486 and 1492, the Inquisition in Toledo burned 467 people at the stake for heresy and imprisoned many others. Those condemned to die would've been housed in the kind of dank, filthy dungeon occupied by the narrator—or so he imagines, at any rate.

That this allusion should come so soon after mention is made of autos-da-fé provides further evidence that the Spanish Inquisition and its horrors are very much on the narrator's mind. (An auto-da-fé, or act of faith, was a public act of penance that condemned heretics were required to undergo prior to their execution.)

Later on, there's another allusion to Toledo. But the narrator doesn't appear to have much detailed knowledge of the Inquisition and its grisly workings. All he has are ghastly rumors and fables about its many horrors. The narrator's lack of knowledge only adds to the mounting tension. He doesn't know exactly what's in store for him, but he knows it can't be good.

The setting for "The Pit and the Pendulum" initially seems rather vague. The Latin quatrain in the epigraph refers to the Jacobins, not the Inquisition, and the references in the first paragraph to white-lipped, black-robed judges could refer to any tribunal, real or imaginary. Most of the incidental references in the story are of the same type, even those which use the term "inquisitorial," usually without the capital "I." They could refer to any judicial proceeding.

It is only after the narrator has just avoided falling into the pit that he refers directly to the Inquisition—to say that the death he had just avoided was exactly of the type that he had always "regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the Inquisition." There are a few more direct references to the Spanish Inquisition when the narrator says that hope whispers even to the death-condemned in their cells and later when he realizes, conversely, that his escape from one means of death is a trivial matter, since the Inquisitors have been watching him constantly and have prepared an even worse death for him.

Finally, when General Lasalle rescues him, announced as a savior by trumpets and thunder, the narrator announces that the Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies. This, rather surprisingly, places the story in the early-nineteenth century, probably during the Peninsular War in 1808 when Lasalle fought several battles in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition was not disbanded until 1834, so this date would be possible, but the Inquisition was scarcely at its height in the nineteenth century, and it is probable that Poe intended to keep his references vague to emphasize that the horror was more important than the history.

Looking at the first paragraph of Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," there are several references making an allusion to the Spanish Inquisition, which was a nearly 400 year tribunal (1478-1834) of secular and religious nature, established by the Spanish crown with the Pope's blessing, that viciously violated Spanish law in its quest to find and subdue heresy and non-Catholic religious belief. An allusion is a literary device whereby a concept is given a broader and deeper meaning by associating it with a well-known historical, legendary, mythical or literary event, story or work. Today allusions are also often made to sports, television shows and films, as in "He's a terminator."

Since the Inquisition was a type of court where religious cases were heard and judged--sometimes on charges and in manners that were in opposition to standing Spanish law--any reference to judgement, courts, judges, sentencing, crimes, etc. may indicate an allusion to the Spanish Inquisition. How would one differentiate between an allusion to any court and legal proceeding and an allusion specifically to the Spanish Inquisition. One certain distinguishing element would be a reference with the word "inquisition" in it in one form or another.

The first paragraph starts out with a general allusion to imprisonment with "at length unbound me," but this general allusion stirs no association with the Spanish Inquisition. Nor does the next, which is "the dread sentence of death." It is the third allusion that clarifies the association with the Spanish Inquisition, though it does it indirectly, in true allusion style, and requires the reader to call upon his/er recollection of Spanish history: "the sound of the inquisitorial voices."

The allusion is continued with "black-robed judges"; "decrees of what to me was Fate"; and "the intensity of their expression of firmness—of immoveable resolution—of stern contempt of human torture." There is also "seven tall candles," which may represent the Jewish Menorah (candelabrum with seven candles) and may connect the persecution by the Inquisition of Jews in Spain to the rest of Spanish Inquisition allusion.