In a 1794 letter to his friend Bernardo de Yriarte, he wrote that the painting shows a yard with lunatics, and two of them fighting completely naked while their warder beats them, and others in sacks; (it is a scene I witnessed at Zaragoza).[9] It is usually read as an indictment of the widespread punitive treatment of the insane, who were confined with criminals, put in iron manacles, and routi