ITALY became a nation-state in the 19th century.Perhaps the most striking aspect of it’s witchcraft trials is that their bloodiest phase occurred in the Renaissance. Only 5 complete archives of the original 45 provincial tribunals in Italy proper have survived intact. (Herzig 2013.)
🇮🇹From the late fourteenth until the mid-fifteenth century, witchcraft scares ending with capital punishment broke out in Milan in 1385 and 1390, and in 1457 and 1472, And in 1515 and 1519.
As well as in the region of Como in 1456, 1460–82, 1487, and in 1512–17 and 1519–22.
🏔️Witch trials in Como had begun in the 1480s, with the burning of perhaps as many as forty-one witches. Prosecutions were renewed three decades later. The records of their proceedings were burned in 1782, when Emperor Joseph II suspended the inquisitorial tribunal in Como. One sixteenth-century chronicler describes the burning of three hundred women in Como in 1514.
The discrepancies among the sources are too great to arrive at any consensus, and estimates of the number of executions, range from about thirty to several hundreds.
Carlo Ginzburg's theory helped to understand the shamanistic roots of witchcraft beliefs. In addition, he shed light on how the theories of the elite filtered the narratives of the people and transformed them into Sabbath beliefs.
According Duni (2021) there were 650-750 executions in All Italy region -trials, between the 14th-18th centuries. Total number of trials was estimated to be 22000-33000.
😇In Milano & Como Cardinal Borromeo was directly involved with 7 of executions and indirectly in 64-100 cases.
🔥In 1569, the more moderate cardinal-inquisitors had the upper hand, when the Congregation refused to confirm the death sentences of seven women from Lecco who had confessed to participating in the witches’ sabbath and causing the death of children. One of the accused died as a result of her incarceration, but the Congregation prevented the execution of six others, notwithstanding pressure from Borromeo (1538–1584), archbishop of Milan, who wished to secure their death. ☠️
🛐St Borromeo (1538-84) was one of very few saints with the responsibility for holding a significant number of witchcraft trials. He was as relentless in his determination to punish anything related to magic and superstition as he was against Protestants.⛪️
In the Ancient Rome the other two types were: erotic curse tablets & circus curse tablets - for chariot races & gladiators.
”It was also rather normal for prostitutes to be practitioners of magic themselves. Their livelihood depended on their capacity to retain clients at all costs.” (Moretti 2019)
The Judical curse was seen in the Devil’s Advocate. Santeria priest binds the prosecutor’s fluent speach by using cow’s tongue and nails.
This long tradition of folk beliefs was more common in Italian witch trials also in the Early-Modern era - Sabbatical beliefs were more rare - usually the accused was on trial for the crime of heresy. Devil was more uncommon than other older gods in the court records.
Debora Moretti (2019). Angels or Demons? Interactions and B... Religions, 10.
Duni, Matteo. 2019. Witchcraft and Witch Hunting in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy
Herzig, T. (2013). Witchcraft Prosecutions in Italy.
Paolo Portone; Translated by Shannon Veneble.BORROMEO, ST. CARLO (1538–1584).
