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This book looks at aspects of the continuation of witchcraft and magic in Europe from the last of the secular and ecclesiastical trials during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, through to the nineteenth century. It provides a brief outline of witch trials in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Finland. By the second half of the seventeenth century, as the witch trials reached their climax in Sweden, belief in the interventionist powers of the Devil had become a major preoccupation of the educated classes. Having acknowledged the slight possibility of real possession by the Devil, Benito Feijoo threw himself wholeheartedly into his real objective: to expose the falseness of the majority of the possessed. The book is concerned with accusations of magic, which were formalised as denunciations heard by the Inquisition of the Archdiocese of Capua, a city twelve miles north of Naples, during the first half of the eighteenth century. One aspect of the study of witchcraft and magic, which has not yet been absorbed into the main stream of literature on the subject, is the archaeological record of the subject. As a part of the increasing interest in 'popular' culture, historians have become more conscious of the presence of witchcraft after the witch trials. The aftermath of the major witch trials in Dalarna, Sweden, demonstrates how the authorities began the awkward process of divorcing themselves from popular concerns and beliefs regarding witchcraft.
2 Beyond the witch trials Magic, witchcraft and Church in Capua Pro exoneratione sua propria coscientia: magic, witchcraft and Church in early eighteenth-century Capua Augusto Ferraiuolo The following discussion is concerned with accusations of magic, which were formalised as denunciations heard by the Inquisition of the Archdiocese of Capua, a city twelve miles north of Naples, during the first half of the eighteenth century. What the following discussion will not be doing is providing a detailed socio-cultural exploration of the magical practices and the
conspicuous Z01_CdeD Book01_B.indb 79 79 31/07/2018 14:34 Local antiquities, local identities Roman ruins, such as temples, amphitheatres, aqueducts and tombs which still marked the landscape. In some cases, such as the cities of Fondi and Alife, the entire perimeter of the ancient Roman walls remained intact.3 At Santa Maria Maggiore Capua Vetere and Pozzuoli almost the whole Roman urban nucleus had been preserved thanks to their suburban or semi-rural position. Just as in Rome, at the turn of the fifteenth century both Pozzuoli and Capua boasted a significant number
on the Sabato, Holy Saviour of Alife and seven celle . The list of Marinus II (944) 34 includes a score of monasteries regarded as celle of St Vincent. Evolution It was in the tenth century that the first independent female abbeys appeared. The most famous example, despite the relative obscurity of its beginnings, was St Mary of Capua, 35 built in 969 outside the city close to the porta S. Angeli and subject to the archbishop of Capua. Let us remember that the metropolis of Capua was created in 966. 36 It was at this time that a true episcopal network
This book explores whether early modern people cared about their health, and what did it mean to lead a healthy life in Italy and England. According to the Galenic-Hippocratic tradition, 'preservative' medicine was one of the three central pillars of the physician's art. Through a range of textual evidence, images and material artefacts, the book documents the profound impact which ideas about healthy living had on daily practices as well as on intellectual life and the material world in Italy and England. Staying healthy and health conservation was understood as depending on the careful management of the six 'Non-Naturals': the air one breathed, food and drink, excretions, sleep, exercise and repose, and the 'passions of the soul'. The book provides fresh evidence about the centrality of the Non-Naturals in relation to groups whose health has not yet been investigated in works about prevention: babies, women and convalescents. Pregnancy constituted a frequent physical state for many women of the early modern European aristocracy. The emphasis on motion and rest, cleansing the body, and improving the mental and spiritual states made a difference for the aristocratic woman's success in the trade of frequent pregnancy and childbirth. Preventive advice was not undifferentiated, nor simply articulated by individual complexion. Examining the roles of the Non-Naturals, the book provides a more holistic view of convalescent care. It also deals with the paradoxical nature of perceptions about the Neapolitan environment and the way in which its airs were seen to affect human bodies and health.
pontiff. 5 The next year he entered Apulia with a great army. Pope Honorius knew that the said duke wished on his own authority to usurp for himself the duchy of Apulia, the investiture and lordship of which belonged to him through the legitimate right of his predecessors. He went to Apulia and, along with Prince Robert of Capua and Count Rainulf of Airola, 6 the duke’s brother-in-law, and with the
the bishops and cardinals who supported him only for a little time. He then travelled to the city of Pisa, leaving Bishop Conrad of Sabina as his vicar in the City. 6 Meanwhile Peter granted a crown to Duke Roger of Apulia, confirming to him by a privilege the principality of Capua and the duchy of Naples, along with Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, and by appointing him king attracted him to his party. He ordered the bishops
Richard of Aversa, had been recognised by the pope as Prince of Capua, which city and much of its dependent principality Richard had captured in the previous summer. The two Norman leaders were, it should be noted, closely linked, since Richard was married to Robert Guiscard’s sister, and the later Norman princes of Capua were descended from this union. Furthermore, when Pope Nicholas invested Robert as duke at Melfi
. ‘Since’, he said, ‘you seized the regalia of St Peter, held the keys of the [city] gates, invaded the palace, expelled Landulf, and treated a summons to the Curia with contempt, we sentence you to deposition [from office], since you acted against St Peter and our lord the pope’. The Archbishop of Capua and Cardinal Gregory pronounced likewise. 45 The other judges wished to confirm this sentence, while
’ became at times very harsh, and chemistry was one of the banners of the moderns; but even then, chemical and mechanistic explanations were used alongside ancient theories of the airs and their influence on bodies. In the same months in which the Lago di Agnano crisis was taking place, in 1663, the well-known physician Leonardo Di Capua (1617–95) read lessons on mofete, stinking exhalations, at the Accademia degli Investiganti, the stronghold of free-thinkers and modern natural philosophers in the city.47 The 1683 published version of the lessons is a puzzling text