Witch trials in Italy
The Witch trials in the
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.[1] After a high-profile case in Milan 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 1477, Pavia 1479, Valtellina 1460, 1483 and 1485, in Canavese 1472 and 1475–76, in Peveragno in 1485 and 1489 and in Carignano in 1493–94.[1] The Italian witch trials reached their peak during the Italian Wars.[1] After the 1530s, witchcraft executions in Italy decreased, and for several decades, lesser punishments than the death penalty became common in Italian witch trials.[1]
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.[2]
Witch trials of the Inquisition
Normally, the Inquisition only conducted witch trials on the request of the local authorities and public.[3] 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.[3] 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.[4]
The Inquisition did not consider witchcraft a priority compared to
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.[1]
The Italian states experienced a second wave of witchcraft executions during the
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.[1] The last withcraft executions by secular courts in Northern Italy took place in Piedmonte in 1723 and in Venice in 1724.[1]
See also
- Witchcraft in Italy
- Witch trials in Sicily
- Witch trials in the early modern period
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Brian P. Levack:The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America
- ^ a b c Ankarloo, Bengt, Witchcraft and magic in Europe. Vol. 4, The period of the witch trials, Athlone, London, 2002
- ^ a b Tavuzzi, Michael:Renaissance Inquisitors: Dominican Inquisitors and Inquisitorial Districts
- ^ a b c Ankarloo, Bengt & Henningsen, Gustav (red.), Skrifter. Bd 13, Häxornas Europa 1400-1700 : historiska och antropologiska studier, Nerenius & Santérus, Stockholm, 1987