Title
Under the Devil's Spell: Witches, Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy (review)
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.
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
Copyright Date
2009
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Bailey, Michael D., "Under the Devil's Spell: Witches, Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy (review)" (2009). History Publications. 51.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/history_pubs/51
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Other History Commons
Comments
This is a book review from Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 4 (2009): 104, doi:10.1353/mrw.0.0133. Posted with permission.