The Witch trials in the

Italian states Italy, up until the Italian unification in 1861, was a conglomeration of city-states, republics, and other independent entities. The following is a list of the various Italian states during that period. Following the fall of the Western Roman Em ...

of present-day

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

are a complicated issue.

Witch trial A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern perio ...

s could be managed by a number of different secular courts as well as by the

Roman Inquisition The Roman Inquisition, formally the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, was a system of partisan tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church, during the second half of the 16th century, respons ...

, and documentation has been only partially preserved in either case.Brian P. Levack:
The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America
' A further complication is the fact that Italy was politically split between a number of different states during the time period in which the witch trials occurred; and that historiography has traditionally separated the history of Northern Italy and Southern Italy. All of these issues complicate the research of witch trials in present-day Italy, and the estimations of the intensity and number of executions has varied between hundreds to thousands of victims.

History

Intensity

Northern Italy experienced its first wave of witch trials earlier than most of Europe, and it fact experienced its peak during the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

. After a high-profile case in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

in 1384, there were a number of witch trials in Italy during the 15th-century. A number of mass witch trials with many executions took place in

Cuneo Cuneo (; pms, Coni ; oc, Coni/Couni ; french: Coni ) is a city and ''comune'' in Piedmont, Northern Italy, the capital of the province of Cuneo, the fourth largest of Italy’s provinces by area. It is located at 550 metres (1,804 ft) in ...

1477,

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the cap ...

1479,

Valtellina Valtellina or the Valtelline (occasionally spelled as two words in English: Val Telline; rm, Vuclina (); lmo, Valtelina or ; german: Veltlin; it, Valtellina) is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Toda ...

1460, 1483 and 1485, in Canavese 1472 and 1475–76, in

Peveragno Peveragno (''Poranh'' in Occitan, ''Povragn'' in Piedmontese) is an Italian town of 5,584 inhabitants (1-1-2017) in the province of Cuneo, in Piedmont. It belongs to the Union of Communes of the Maritime Alps and to the Occitan language Occ ...

in 1485 and 1489 and in Carignano in 1493–94. The Italian witch trials reached their peak during the

Italian Wars The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The pr ...

. After the 1530s, witchcraft executions in Italy decreased, and for several decades, lesser punishments than the death penalty became common in Italian witch trials. The Italian states experienced a second wave of witchcraft executions during the Counter-Reformation, and reached their peak between circa 1580 and 1660, before they finally decreased.Ankarloo, Bengt, Witchcraft and magic in Europe. Vol. 4, The period of the witch trials, Athlone, London, 2002

Witch trials of the Inquisition

Normally, the Inquisition only conducted witch trials on the request of the local authorities and public.Tavuzzi, Michael:
Renaissance Inquisitors: Dominican Inquisitors and Inquisitorial Districts
' The Inquisition did conduct some of the biggest witch trials in Italy, namely the Val Camonica witch trials of 1518-1521 and the Sondrino witch trials of 1523, but these were exceptions to a general rule. Normally, the Inquisition respected normal legal practices and the legal rights of the accused more than secular courts when conducting witch trials, and the Inquisition are known to have revoked sentenced made by a secular court in witchcraft cases when the rights of the accused had been violated in the eyes of contemporary law.Ankarloo, Bengt & Henningsen, Gustav (red.), Skrifter. Bd 13, Häxornas Europa 1400-1700 : historiska och antropologiska studier, Nerenius & Santérus, Stockholm, 1987 The Inquisition did not consider witchcraft a priority compared to

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

, particularly after the introduction of the Counter-Reformation, maintained the policy that the

witches' sabbath A Witches' Sabbath is a purported gathering of those believed to practice witchcraft and other rituals. The phrase became popular in the 20th century. Origins In 1668, Johannes Praetorius published his literary work "Blockes-Berges Verrichtu ...

was an illusion caused by Satan rather than real, and did not accept a charge of witchcraft based solely on the testimony of an already charged person. As in the case of heresy, people who were condemned guilty of witchcraft by the Inquisition and repented, were not executed the first time they were condemned, only if they relapsed and repeated the crime, which also contrasted to the secular courts.

Secular witch trials

Traditionally, the research of witch trials in Italy have focused on the witch trials conducted by the Inquisition, which gives an incorrect impression of the scale of witch trials, since most witch trials in Italy were conducted by local secular courts and not by the Inquisition. The Italian states experienced a second wave of witchcraft executions during the Counter-Reformation, and reached their peak between circa 1580 and 1660, before they finally decreased. During the second Italian witch hunt of 1580–1660, the majority of witch trials were conducted by local secular courts, rather than the Inquisition. During the second wave, the largest mass witch trials were the one of Val di Fassa in 1573, 1627–31 and 1643–1644; the Val di Non in 1611–1615, Turino in 1619, Nogaredo in 1640-1647, and

of the 1670s. Secular courts continued to conduct witch trials until the 18th-century, though the intensity lessened from the second half of the 17th-century and executions as the result of witch trials became fever. The last withcraft executions by secular courts in Northern Italy took place in Piedmonte in 1723 and in Venice in 1724.

References

{{Europe topic, Witch trials in 1384 establishments in Italy 1724 disestablishments in Italy Early Modern law Early Modern politics Legal history of Italy Political history of Italy Social history of Italy Witch trials in Italy 16th century in Italy 17th century in Italy

History

Intensity

Witch trials of the Inquisition

Secular witch trials

See also

References