Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy

Marina Montesano is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Messina, Italy. She is also fellow of Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance. Her research interests focus on cultural history in relation to a range of topics, such as witch-beliefs, imagery of travellers, preaching and crossdressing.

• 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.

“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)