Brasero (heater)

A brasero (Spanish: "brazier") is a heater commonly used in Spain.^[1] It is placed under a table covered with a cloth that extends to the floor to provide heat for people sitting at the table. This arrangement (which is called a mesa camilla) is similar to the Japanese kotatsu or Iranian korsi. Braseros were traditionally heated with small pieces of charcoal, called cisco or picón; nowadays they are usually electric. Modernly, certain deposits of burning embers, such as the upper compartment of solid fuel heating boilers, are called braseros.^[2]

By extension, the term was used to define the place where certain criminals condemned to the stake were executed,^[3] generally Jews or infidels victims of one of the most common methods with which the "secular arm" executed those condemned by the Inquisition.^[4]