WITCHCRAFT IN ITALY            

HISTORICAL CONTEXT    16th C. German Reformation: 1517 Martin Luther breaks with the Church

1540’s start of Catholic Counter-Reformation:: reform of Church in response to Reformation

1540-70 Roman Inquisition: through 1560's: suppression of Lutheran & Calvinist heretics in Italy
            1570’s onwards: reform of popular culture: suppression of popular superstition and
                                    magical   beliefs, including benandanti

I. Why was there no Italian witch panic?

      Argument from "backwardness" of 16-17th C. Italy: lack of rapid social change = less tension?

      Roman Inquisition (1540-1790's): types of trials

            1540-1560's Protestant heresy: "Lutherans"
            1560-1650's "superstition": magical beliefs
            1650-1780's  heretical blasphemy

      Procedures: centralized control from Rome
            Regulation of torture: limited, permission required
            Supervision of trial procedures
                        1620 "Instructions on forming trials against
                        witches and sorcerers": urges moderation

      Trials for "superstition" and magical beliefs

          Context of general "reform of popular culture"
          Types of offenses (statistics from Modena, Italy):
            magical healing 70%; love magic (mostly prostitutes) 15%
            divination 8%; miscellaneous protective magic 7%

          Healers as witches: trial of Maria Mariani, 1579
                     "Who knows how to heal, knows how to harm."
          Ambiguous position of local clergy and exorcists:
                     1599 trial of Fra Azzolini of Modena

EXORCISM as "ecclesiastical medicine"

      GIROLAMO MENGHI, Franciscan exorcist and theorist
            1598: Flagellum Daemonum (Whip of Demons)

      Inquisition trials for superstitious exorcism:    
            popular recourse to exorcists against maleficium
      Implications for Keith Thomas'argument on remedies:
            did available remedies prevent Italian witch panic?

BENANDANTI ("those who walk well"): trials 1575-1650
see Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles

      Agrarian fertility cult: Friuli (N.E. Italy); Slavic influences in border lands
           Counter-witches, protect crops against witches
           Selection: born with caul, organized dreaming
           Implications: a) for Margaret Murray's theory?
                b) for origins of leaarned witch theories in demonization of remedial magic

      Inquisition tries benandanti as witches:
                1575, Paolo Gasparutto & Battista Moduca deny they are witches
                by 1650's some benandanti confess to witchcraft  loss of self image

See discussion questions on benandanti under Friday section link