Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T18:32:39.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“The Root is Hidden and the Material Uncertain”: The Challenges of Prosecuting Witchcraft in Early Modern Venice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Jonathan Seitz
Jonathan Seitz*
Affiliation:
Drexel University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The rich archival records of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Venice have yielded much information about early modern society and culture. The transcripts of witchcraft trials held before the Inquisition reveal the complexities of early modern conceptions of natural and supernatural. The tribunal found itself entirely unable to convict individuals charged with performing harmful magic, or maleficio, as different worldviews clashed in the courtroom. Physicians, exorcists, and inquisitors all had different approaches to distinguishing natural phenomena from supernatural, and without a consensus guilty verdicts could not be obtained.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , Spring 2009 , pp. 102 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This material is based upon work supported by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0115198. Thomas Broman, Libbie Freed, Erika Milam, Michael Shank, and John Tedeschi kindly read earlier versions of this paper and provided very helpful advice, as did Richard Kieckhefer and an anonymous referee.

References

Beier, Lucinda McCray. “Evil Humours: Witchcraft, Illness and Healing in Early Modern England.” Bulletin for the Social History of Medicine 41 (1987): 20–23.Google Scholar
Borromeo, Agostino. “A proposito del ‘Directorium inquisitorum’ di Nicolas Eymerich e delle sue edizioni cinquecentesche.” Critica storica 20 (1983): 499–547.Google Scholar
Bouwsma, William James. Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation. Berkeley, 1968.Google Scholar
Bylebyl, Jerome J. “The School of Padua: Humanistic Medicine in the Sixteenth Century.” In Health, Medicine, and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, ed. , Charles, Webster, 335–70. Cambridge, 1979.Google Scholar
Carena, Cesare. Tractatus de officio Sanctissimae Inquisitionis, et modo procedendi in causis fidei. Cremona, 1655.Google Scholar
Castelli, Patrizia. “‘Donnaiole, amiche de li sogni’ ovvero i sogni delle streghe.” In Bibliotheca lamiarum: Documenti e immagini della stregoneria dal Medioevo all'età moderna, 35–85. Ospedaletto, 1994.Google Scholar
Castro, Alfonso de. De iusta haereticorum punitione. Venice, 1549.Google Scholar
Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. New York, 1997.Google Scholar
Cohen, Thomas V, Elizabeth, Storr Cohen. Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates. Toronto, 1993.Google Scholar
Cohn, Norman. Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom1975. Rev. ed., Chicago, 2000.Google Scholar
Contreras, Jaime, Gustav, Henningsen. “Forty-Four-Thousand Cases of the Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data Bank.” In The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe (1986), 100–29.Google Scholar
Dall'Olio, Guido. “I rapporti tra Roma e Bologna in materia di inquisizione: Note dai carteggi dell'Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede (1557–1571).” In L'Inquisizione e gli storici: Un cantiere aperto; Tavola rotonda nell'ambito della conferenza annuale della ricerca: Roma, 24–25 giugno 1999, 147–58. Rome, 2000.Google Scholar
Davidson, Nicholas S. “Rome and the Venetian Inquisition in the Sixteenth Century.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988): 16–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Nicholas S. “The Inquisition in Venice and Its Documents: Some Problems of Method and Analysis.” In L'Inquisizione romana in Italia (1991), 117–31.Google Scholar
Del Col, Andrea. “Organizzazione, composizione e giurisdizione dei tribunali dell'Inquisizione romana nella Repubblica di Venezia (1500–1550).” Studi storici 25 (1988): 244–94.Google Scholar
Del Col, Andrea. “L'Inquisizione romana e il potere politico nella Repubblica di Venezia (1540–1560).” Critica storica 28 (1991a): 189–250.Google Scholar
Del Col, Andrea. “L'Inventariazione degli Atti Processuali dell'Inquisizione romana.” In L'Inquisizione Romana in Italia (1991b), 87–116.Google Scholar
Del Col, Andrea. “Minute a confronto con i verbali definitivi nel processo del Sant'Ufficio di Belluno contro Petri Rayther (1557).” In Le scritture e le opere (2002), 201–37.Google Scholar
Del Col, Andrea. L'Inquisizione in Italia: Dal XII al XXI secolo. Milan, 2006.Google Scholar
De Renzi, Silvia. “Witnesses of the Body: Medico-Legal Cases in Seventeenth-Century Rome.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 33 (2002): 219–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Simplicio, Oscar. Autunno della stregoneria: Maleficio e magia nell'Italia moderna. Bologna, 2005.Google Scholar
Estes, Leland L. “The Medical Origins of the European Witch Craze: A Hypothesis.” Journal of Social History 17 (1983): 271–84.10.1353/jsh/17.2.271CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estes, Leland L. “The Role of Medicine and Medical Theories in the Rise and Fall of Witch Hunts in England.” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 1985.Google Scholar
Eymeric, Nicolau, Francisco, Peña. Directorium inquisitorum … cum commentariis Francisci Pegnae. Rome, 1587.Google Scholar
Farinacci, Prospero. Tractatus de haeresi. Rome, 1616.Google Scholar
Ferber, Sarah. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France. New York, 2004.Google Scholar
French, Roger K, Andrew, Cunningham. Before Science: The Invention of the Friars’ Natural Philosophy. Brookfield, 1996.Google Scholar
Gentilcore, David. From Bishop to Witch: The System of the Sacred in Early Modern Terra d'Otranto. Manchester, 1992.Google Scholar
Gentilcore, David. “‘All That Pertains to Medicine’: Protomedici and Protomedicati in Early Modern Italy.” Medical History 38 (1994): 121–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentilcore, David. Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy. Manchester, 1998.Google Scholar
Grendler, Paul F. The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540–1605. Princeton, 1977.Google Scholar
Grillando, Paulo. Tractatus duo: Unus de sortilegiis … alter de lamiis. Frankfurt am Main, 1592.Google Scholar
Harrington, Joel F, Helmut, Walser Smith. “Confessionalization, Community, and State Building in Germany, 1555–1870.” The Journal of Modern History 69 (1997): 77–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hummel, George Joseph. “Medicinal Exorcisms: The ‘Ritual Virtues’ of the Remedia Efficacissima, and the Work of Girolamo Menghi.” PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 1999.Google Scholar
The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies on Sources and Methods. Ed. Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi, in association with Charles Amiel. Dekalb, 1986.Google Scholar
L'Inquisizione romana in Italia nell'età moderna: Archivi, problemi di metodo e nuove ricerche: Atti del seminario internazionale Trieste, 18–20 maggio 1988. Ed. Andrea Del Col and Giovanna Paolin. Rome, 1991.Google Scholar
Instructio pro formandis processibus in causis strigum, sortilegiorum, et maleficiorum. Rome, 1657.Google Scholar
Ioly Zorattini, Pier Cesare. Processi del S. Uffizio di Venezia contro ebrei e giudaizzanti. 14 vols. Florence, 1980–99.Google Scholar
Jobe, Patricia H. “Inquisitorial Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: A Preliminary Handlist.” In The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe (1986), 33–53.Google Scholar
Keitt, Andrew W. Inventing the Sacred: Imposture, Inquisition, and the Boundaries of the Supernatural in Golden Age Spain. Boston, 2005.Google Scholar
Larner, Christina. Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland. London, 1981.Google Scholar
Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 3rd ed., New York, 2006.Google Scholar
Locati, Umberto. Praxis iudiciaria inquisitorum. Venice, 1583.Google Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan. Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study. New York, 1970.10.4324/9780203259481CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malavasi, Stefania. “Processi di magia e stregoneria a Rovigo durante il secondo Cinquecento.” In Eresie, magia, società nel Polesine tra ’500 e ’600: Atti del XIII convegno di studi storici, Rovigo, 21–22 novembre 1987, ed. , Achille, Olivieri, 47–55. Rovigo, 1989.Google Scholar
Malavasi, Stefania. “L'archivio del Sant'Ufficio di Rovigo.” In L'Inquisizione romana in Italia (1991), 133–41.Google Scholar
Martin, Ruth. Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650. Oxford, 1989.Google Scholar
Masini, Eliseo. Sacro arsenale, Overo prattica dell'Officio della S. Inquisitione. Genoa, 1625.Google Scholar
Mayaud, Pierre-Noël. “Les ‘Fuit Congregatio Sancti Officii … in … coram …’ de 1611 à 1642: 32 ans de vie de la Congrégation du Saint Office.” Archivum historiae pontificae 30 (1992): 231–89.Google Scholar
McGough, Laura J. “Demons, Nature, or God? Witchcraft Accusations and the French Disease in Early Modern Venice.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 80 (2006): 219–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Midelfort, H. C. Erik. Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations. Stanford, 1972.Google Scholar
Miele, Michele. “Malattie magiche di origine diabolica e loro terapia secondo il medico beneventano Pietro Piperno (†1642).” Campania Sacra 6 (1975): 166–223.Google Scholar
Milani, Marisa. Antiche pratiche di medicina popolare nei processi del S. Uffizio (Venezia, 1572–1591). Padua, 1986.Google Scholar
Mirto, Alfonso. “Un inedito del Seicento sull'Inquisizione.” Nouvelles de la république des lettres 1 (1986): 99–138.Google Scholar
Monter, E. William. Witchcraft in France and Switzerland: The Borderlands During the Reformation. Ithaca, 1976.Google Scholar
Monter, E. William. Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily. New York, 1990.10.1017/CBO9780511523434CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Neil, Mary. “Magical Healing, Love Magic and the Inquisition in Late Sixteenth-Century Modena.” In Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe, ed. , Stephen, Haliczer, 88–114. London, 1987.Google Scholar
Palmer, Richard. “Physicians and Surgeons in Sixteenth-Century Venice.” Medical History 23 (1979): 451–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Richard. The Studio of Venice and Its Graduates in the Sixteenth Century. Padua, 1983.Google Scholar
Paolin, Giovanna. “Il cancelliere e l'inquisitore: Alcune considerazioni.” In Le scritture e le opere (2002), 183–99.Google Scholar
Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 1 (1994): 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomata, Gianna. Contracting a Cure: Patients, Healers, and the Law in Early Modern Bologna. Baltimore, 1998.Google Scholar
Porter, Roy. “Medicine and the Decline of Magic.” Bulletin for the Social History of Medicine 41 (1987): 24–27.Google Scholar
Prosperi, Adriano. “L'Arsenale degli inquisitori.” In Prosperi, L'Inquisizione romana: Letture e ricerche, 311–24. Rome, 2003.Google Scholar
Pullan, Brian S. The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550–1670. Oxford, 1983.Google Scholar
Romano, Andrea. “Medici, streghe e fattucchiere nelle fonti giuridiche siciliane del tardo medioevo e della prima età moderna.” In Stregoneria e streghe nell'Europa moderna: Convegno internazionale di studi: Pisa, 24–26 marzo 1994, ed. , Giovanna, Bosco, Patrizia, Castelli, 273–86. Rome, 1996.Google Scholar
Romeo, Giovanni. Inquisitori, esorcisti e streghe nell'Italia della Controriforma. 2nd ed., Florence, 2003.Google Scholar
Ruggiero, Guido. “The Status of Physicians and Surgeons in Renaissance Venice.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 36 (1981): 168–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggiero, Guido. Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance. New York, 1993.Google Scholar
Ruggiero, Guido. “The Strange Death of Margarita Marcellini: Male, Signs, and the Everyday World of Pre-Modern Medicine.” American Historical Review 106, no. 4 (2001): 1141–58.10.2307/2692942CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santosuosso, Antonio. “The Moderate Inquisitor: Giovanni Della Casa's Venetian Nunciature, 1544–1549.” Studi Veneziani n.s., 2 (1978): 119–210.Google Scholar
Sarra, Mariangela. “Distribuzione statistica dei dati processuali dell'Inquisizione in Friuli dal 1557 al 1786: Tecniche di ricerca e risultati.” Metodi e ricerche 7 (1988): 5–31.Google Scholar
Schutte, Anne Jacobson. Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750. Baltimore, 2001.Google Scholar
Scribner, Robert W. “The Reformation, Popular Magic, and the ‘Disenchantment of the World.’” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1993): 475–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le scritture e le opere degli inquisitori. Verona, 2002.Google Scholar
Seitz, Jonathan. “Natural or Supernatural? Witchcraft, Inquisition and Views of Nature at the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 2006.Google Scholar
Simancas, Diego. Enchiridion iudicum violatae religionis, ad extirpandas haereses, theoricem et praxim summa breuitate complectens. Antwerp, 1573.Google Scholar
Soman, Alfred. “The Parlement of Paris and the Great Witch Hunt (1565–1640).” In Soman, Sorcellerie et justice criminelle: Le Parlement de Paris, 16e–18e siècles, 31–44. Brookfield, 1992.Google Scholar
Stafford, Helen. “Notes on Scottish Witchcraft Cases 1590–91.” In Essays in Honor of Conyers Read, ed. Norton Downs and Conyers Read, 96–118, 278–84. Chicago, 1953.Google Scholar
Stephens, Walter. Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief. Chicago, 2002.Google Scholar
Tedeschi, John. The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies on the Inquisition in Early Modern Italy. Binghamton, 1991.Google Scholar
Tedeschi, John, and , William, Monter. “Towards a Statistical Profile of the Italian Inquisitions, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries.” In Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies on the Inquisition in Early Modern Italy, 89–126. Binghamton, 1991.Google Scholar
Turchini, Angelo. “Il modello ideale dell'Inquisitore: La Pratica del Cardinale Desiderio Scaglia.” In L'Inquisizione romana: Metodologia delle fonti e storia istituzionale: Atti del seminario internazionale, Montereale Valcellina (Pordenone), 23–24 settembre 1999, ed. , Andrea, Del Col and , Giovanna, Paolin, 187–98. Trieste, 2000.Google Scholar
Vanzan Marchini, Nelli-Elena. I mali e i rimedi della Serenissima. Vicenza, 1995.Google Scholar
Vanzan Marchini, Nelli-Elena. Le leggi di sanità della Repubblica di Venezia. Vicenza, 1995–.Google Scholar
Wear, Andrew. “Medicine, Witchcraft and Uncertainty in Early Modern England.” Bulletin for the Social History of Medicine 41 (1987): 16–19.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London, 1930.Google Scholar
Webster, Charles. “Paracelsus, Paracelsianism, and the Secularization of the Worldview.” Science in Context 15 (2002): 9–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zacchia, Paolo. Quaestionum medico-legalium. Lyons, 1661.Google Scholar
Ziegler, Joseph. “Practitioners and Saints: Medical Men in Canonization Processes in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries.” Social History of Medicine 12 (1999): 191–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar