Document Type

Book Review

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

Summer 2009

Journal or Book Title

Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft

Volume

4

Issue

1

First Page

104

Last Page

107

DOI

10.1353/mrw.0.0133

Abstract

This is a useful, although ultimately curious, book. The early modern heartland of witchcraft and witch-hunting lay, of course, north of the Alps, and studies of northern Europe tend to dominate the historiography. Experts typically know that southern Europe presents something of a different magical world. While many general beliefs about magic and witchcraft held sway in the south as well as in the north, southern Europe offers notable variations: less outright witchcraft, for example, and more love magic. Institutionally, the highly bureaucratic Roman, Spanish, and Venetian Inquisitions all worked to restrict the sort of major witch hunts that were possible (although far from universal) in the north. Yet northern Europe, and particularly the German heartland of witch-hunting, is still too often presented as the early modern norm; other regions then assume the role of more or less interesting variants. All this is to say that a monograph focusing exclusively on magic [End Page 104] and witchcraft in Italy, and available in English (into which far too little Italian language scholarship has been translated), is very welcome indeed.

Comments

This is a book review from Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 4 (2009): 104, doi:10.1353/mrw.0.0133. Posted with permission.

Rights

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of scholarly citation, none of this work may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. For information address the University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112.

Copyright Owner

University of Pennsylvania Press

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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