Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy

This book explores the relationships between ancient witchcraft and its modern incarnation, and by doing so fills an important gap in the historiography. It is often noted that stories of witchcraft circulated in Greek and Latin classical texts, and that treatises dealing with witch-beliefs referenced them. Still, the role of humanistic culture and classical revival in the developing of the witch-hunts has not yet been fully researched. Marina Montesano examines Greek and Latin literature, revealing how particular features of ancient striges were carried into the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and into the fifteenth century, when early Italian trials recall the myth of the strix common in ancient Latin sources and in popular memory. The final chapter also serves as a conclusion, to show how in Renaissance Italy and beyond, classical accounts of witchcraft ceased to be just stories, as they had formerly been, and were instead used to attest to the reality of witches' powers.

List of contents

Introduction.- Prototypes: Magic and Witchcraft in Greece.- The Witch as a Woman: Tales of Magic in Rome.- Maleficia: From Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages.- 'A Company That Go the Course'.- 'Let's Send Up Some Incense to the Lord!'.- The Italian Quattrocento.- 'Twelve Thousand Circes'.- Bibliography.- Index.

Report

"This volume ... is a study that is genuinely valuable and that should be of interest to all historians interested in the origins of the European witch-hunt." (Jan Machielsen, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 70 (4), 2019)

Product details

• Authors: Marina Montesano
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 04.01.2019
• EAN: 9783030063580
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3006358-0
• No. of pages: 278
• Dimensions: 151 mm x 18 mm x 210 mm
• Weight: 379 g
• Illustrations: IX, 278 p. 3 illus. in color.
• Series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; B, Cultural History, History, European History, Social History, Social & cultural history, Ancient History, Civilization—History, History, Ancient, History of Italy, Italy—History, History of Medieval Europe, Europe—History—476-1492, myths;Ancient Greece;folklore;Ancient Rome;religion