"The general mentality was imbued with magic, occult beliefs, unreal suggestions, 'voices' and 'rumours' (the untori (plague spreaders), for example), 'errors' and 'prejudices'. [...] Apparitions and strange noises foretold the deaths of great personages.
[An illustruous example of this is] the late sixteenth-century treatise by Loys Lavater of Zurich, De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, varrisque praesagitationibus, quae plerumque obitum hominum, magnas clades, mutationesque imperiorum praecedunt, 1570.
[Ludwig Lavater (4 March 1527; Kyburg (castle) – 5 July 1586 in Zurich) was a Swiss Reformed theologian working in [...] Zurich. [He] was a prolific author, composing homilies, commentaries, a survey of the liturgical practices of the Zurich church, a history of the Lord's Supper controversy, as well as biographies of Bullinger and Konrad Pellikan. His work on ghosts (De spectris ...) was one of the most frequently printed demonological works of the early modern period, going into at least nineteen early modern editions in German, Latin, French, English and Italian. (Wikipedia, dd 07/06/2016)]
"The Discours des spectres [...] by Le Loyer dates from 1586; [the second edition of 1605 is the most complete:
The work is divided into eight books dealing with the marvelous visions and prodigies of several centuries and the most celebrated authors, sacred as well as profane, who have dealt with occult subjects. It discusses the cause of apparitions; the nature of good and evil spirits; demons; ecstasy ; the essence, nature, and origin of souls; magicians and sorcerers and the manner of their communication; evil spirits; and imposters.
The first book deals with specters, apparitions, and spirits; the second with the physics of Le Loyer's time, the illusions to which the senses are prone, wonders, and the elixirs and metamorphosis of sorceries and of philters; the third book establishes the degrees, grades, and honors of spirits, gives a résumé of the history of Philinnion and of Polycrites, and recounts diverse adventures with specters and demons; the fourth book gives many examples of spectral appearances, of the speech of persons possessed of demons, of the countries and dwelling-places of these specters and demons, and of marvelous portents; the fifth treats the science of the soul, of its origin, nature, its state after death, and of haunting ghosts; the sixth division is entirely taken up with the apparition of souls, and shows how the happy do not return to earth, but only those whose souls are burning in purgatory; in the seventh book the case of the Witch of Endor and the evocation of the soul of Samuel are dealt with, as is evocation in general and the methods practiced by wizards and sorcerers in this science; and the last book gives some account of exorcism, fumigations, prayers, and other methods of casting out devils, and the usual means employed by exorcists to destroy these.
The work, though disputatious, throws considerable light upon the occult science of the times. Although often credulous, Le Loyer was most skeptical about alchemy, of which he wrote: "As to transmutation, I wonder how it can be reasonably defended. Metals can be adulterated but not change ... Blowing [the bellows], they may exhaust their purses, they multiply all into nothing. Yes, I do not believe, and may the philosophers excuse me if they wish, that the alchemists can change any metal into gold." (Wierus, dd. 07/06/2016)]
[Pierre Le Loyer, sieur de la Brosse, est un Démonologue né le 24 novembre 1550 à Huillé, village de l'Anjou, près de Durtal. Il décède à Angers le 27 janvier 1634 (Wikipedia, dd. 08/06/2016)]
"'Terrible noises', 'violent and repeated' and 'unusual' rumblings were said (and written) to have come from the sepulchre at Ferrara of the Blessed Beatrice d'Este II, born perhaps in the third decade of the thirteenth century, and who, with the passing of years, became devoted to the 'preservation of her most serene nobility'; diligent in predicting the events of the family and in warning of the calamities which struck her city. Private oracle for the family and public barometre, anticipator of calamitous history, the rumblings of 1709 and 1711 for the arrival of foreign armies was considered notable ... as for that of the famous inundation of all her lands, or for the death of the animals; or, finally for several famous fires which occurred in recent years.
[Anonymous, Vita della Beata Beatrice seconda d'Este fondatrice dell'insigne monastero di S. Antonio in Frrara della regola di S. Benedetto (Ferrara: G. Rinaldi, 1777), p. 125. The book is a reprint, with several modifications and additions, of the Vita written by Girolamo Baruffaldi, noted archpriest of Cento, published at Venice in 1723.]
Occasionally the tombstone of the Beata was not content to produce the 'usual clamour' but 'as took place in 1504 and 1505, for some time its colour changed and it became red and everywhere exuded liquid in great abundance. ' [ibidem, p. 124]
In the Vita of this glorious saint of the house of Este (mentioned by Ludovico Ariosto), [...] the vocal messages of the Benedictine virgin are carefully selected and interpreted.
[Saint Beatrix d'Este (died 1262) [...] was betrothed to Galeazzo Manfredi of Vicenza, but he died of his wounds after a battle, just before the wedding day. His bride refused to return home, but attended by some of her maidens, devoted herself to the service of God, following the Benedictine rule, at the convent of Sant'Antonio in Polesine, at San Lazzaro just outside Ferrara. (Wikipedia, dd. 09/06/2016)]
"All it took was a ghost - a supposed masked apparition - to throw a city into confusion and fear. It could happen that the fear of a spirit, put in motion by another deeper anxiety, provoked a collective trauma - so immense was the power of the imaginary - not in some remote Apennine village, but in a ducal city of the plain: Modena. Not in the 'barbaric' centuries of the 'dark' Middle Ages, but in a [...] century, [...] on the path of the pre-Enlightenment."
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 92-94)
"'Nightime' drew an impalpable but very clean line between Apollonian, virtuous, luminous and active time, and demonic time, which dwelt under the sign of the divinities of the night, disorder and the protector of thieves, Mercury. As Sabba Castiglione apprehensively warned in his Ricordi overo ammaestramenti of 1554:
The night realm belonged to ruffians, low-lifes and those in a bad way; to the dubious presences which the darkness covered in its deep, faceless anonymity; to ghosts, spirits of the dead returned among the living, incubi, goblins, and witches, who silently glided to suck the blood of children or, atop brooms and pitchforks, went to the witches' sabbath.
[An illustruous example of this is] the late sixteenth-century treatise by Loys Lavater of Zurich, De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, varrisque praesagitationibus, quae plerumque obitum hominum, magnas clades, mutationesque imperiorum praecedunt, 1570.
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| Ludwig Lavater |
[Ludwig Lavater (4 March 1527; Kyburg (castle) – 5 July 1586 in Zurich) was a Swiss Reformed theologian working in [...] Zurich. [He] was a prolific author, composing homilies, commentaries, a survey of the liturgical practices of the Zurich church, a history of the Lord's Supper controversy, as well as biographies of Bullinger and Konrad Pellikan. His work on ghosts (De spectris ...) was one of the most frequently printed demonological works of the early modern period, going into at least nineteen early modern editions in German, Latin, French, English and Italian. (Wikipedia, dd 07/06/2016)]
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| Ludwig Lavater of Zurich, De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, varrisque praesagitationibus, quae plerumque obitum hominum, magnas clades, mutationesque imperiorum praecedunt, 1570 [free e-book] |
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| frontispiece of the 1683-edition |
"The Discours des spectres [...] by Le Loyer dates from 1586; [the second edition of 1605 is the most complete:
The work is divided into eight books dealing with the marvelous visions and prodigies of several centuries and the most celebrated authors, sacred as well as profane, who have dealt with occult subjects. It discusses the cause of apparitions; the nature of good and evil spirits; demons; ecstasy ; the essence, nature, and origin of souls; magicians and sorcerers and the manner of their communication; evil spirits; and imposters.
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| (Gallica, dd. 07/06/2016) |
The first book deals with specters, apparitions, and spirits; the second with the physics of Le Loyer's time, the illusions to which the senses are prone, wonders, and the elixirs and metamorphosis of sorceries and of philters; the third book establishes the degrees, grades, and honors of spirits, gives a résumé of the history of Philinnion and of Polycrites, and recounts diverse adventures with specters and demons; the fourth book gives many examples of spectral appearances, of the speech of persons possessed of demons, of the countries and dwelling-places of these specters and demons, and of marvelous portents; the fifth treats the science of the soul, of its origin, nature, its state after death, and of haunting ghosts; the sixth division is entirely taken up with the apparition of souls, and shows how the happy do not return to earth, but only those whose souls are burning in purgatory; in the seventh book the case of the Witch of Endor and the evocation of the soul of Samuel are dealt with, as is evocation in general and the methods practiced by wizards and sorcerers in this science; and the last book gives some account of exorcism, fumigations, prayers, and other methods of casting out devils, and the usual means employed by exorcists to destroy these.
The work, though disputatious, throws considerable light upon the occult science of the times. Although often credulous, Le Loyer was most skeptical about alchemy, of which he wrote: "As to transmutation, I wonder how it can be reasonably defended. Metals can be adulterated but not change ... Blowing [the bellows], they may exhaust their purses, they multiply all into nothing. Yes, I do not believe, and may the philosophers excuse me if they wish, that the alchemists can change any metal into gold." (Wierus, dd. 07/06/2016)]
[Pierre Le Loyer, sieur de la Brosse, est un Démonologue né le 24 novembre 1550 à Huillé, village de l'Anjou, près de Durtal. Il décède à Angers le 27 janvier 1634 (Wikipedia, dd. 08/06/2016)]
"'Terrible noises', 'violent and repeated' and 'unusual' rumblings were said (and written) to have come from the sepulchre at Ferrara of the Blessed Beatrice d'Este II, born perhaps in the third decade of the thirteenth century, and who, with the passing of years, became devoted to the 'preservation of her most serene nobility'; diligent in predicting the events of the family and in warning of the calamities which struck her city. Private oracle for the family and public barometre, anticipator of calamitous history, the rumblings of 1709 and 1711 for the arrival of foreign armies was considered notable ... as for that of the famous inundation of all her lands, or for the death of the animals; or, finally for several famous fires which occurred in recent years.
[Anonymous, Vita della Beata Beatrice seconda d'Este fondatrice dell'insigne monastero di S. Antonio in Frrara della regola di S. Benedetto (Ferrara: G. Rinaldi, 1777), p. 125. The book is a reprint, with several modifications and additions, of the Vita written by Girolamo Baruffaldi, noted archpriest of Cento, published at Venice in 1723.]
Occasionally the tombstone of the Beata was not content to produce the 'usual clamour' but 'as took place in 1504 and 1505, for some time its colour changed and it became red and everywhere exuded liquid in great abundance. ' [ibidem, p. 124]
In the Vita of this glorious saint of the house of Este (mentioned by Ludovico Ariosto), [...] the vocal messages of the Benedictine virgin are carefully selected and interpreted.
'She was wont to make this clamour heard in different ways, according to the gravity of the cases that were predicted by her. At times she is heard by all the nuns, other times by many, and sometimes by a few of the nuns whose rooms are close to the altar. Whoever happens to view the said altar when it is rumbling will see its stone move and tremble as if for an earthquake; and those who see or hear it feel no fear at all, but rather a sudden jubilation, accompanied by some wonder, and by this they understand it to have been the clamour produced by the Beata, and not something accidental or fortuitous which produces that tremor. If it were something else, like what is usually created suddenly, it would certainly frighten them all. Although it is not really known what event it is that she predicts with such crashing, none the less by the diversity of ways of beating (by means of the ancient practice and tradition of the nuns), it can usually be conjectured without mistake. If the misfortune is deadly for the Este family, or if some great death is about to take place in the city or convent, and especially if the blow is to strike some superior, the clamour is like an overturning of stones, in the way that a cart, hurrying along filled with them, overturns everything at the end of the run. If she then wants to announce some common gladness, whether to her family or to the convent, a sort of violent, rattling explosion of artillery is heard in the air throughout the entire convent. And finally, if the pre-announced accident is not of a death, just a roar and shaking is heard which causes the earth to tremble like a running cart, but in the end no other rumbling occurs similar to the overturning of stones. This appears on the most remarkable occasions. At times for long periods, and repeated often at times three or four days before, and only once; and finally, on some other occasions she makes herself heard on the day just preceding the event, now by day, now at night, but most often during the hours of matins, nones and compline.' [ibid., pp. 119-121]"
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| Veneto, Bartolomeo - Beata Beatrice II d'Este - 1510s |
[Saint Beatrix d'Este (died 1262) [...] was betrothed to Galeazzo Manfredi of Vicenza, but he died of his wounds after a battle, just before the wedding day. His bride refused to return home, but attended by some of her maidens, devoted herself to the service of God, following the Benedictine rule, at the convent of Sant'Antonio in Polesine, at San Lazzaro just outside Ferrara. (Wikipedia, dd. 09/06/2016)]
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| Beata Beatrice d'Este (Panoramio, dd. 09/06/2016) |
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| tomb ('Tomba originaria della Beata ora fonte dello stillicidio') (Holywar, dd. 09/06/2016) |
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| altar stone ('Stillicidio di acqua che scaturisce dalla pietra-altare') (Holywar, dd. 09/06/2016) |
"All it took was a ghost - a supposed masked apparition - to throw a city into confusion and fear. It could happen that the fear of a spirit, put in motion by another deeper anxiety, provoked a collective trauma - so immense was the power of the imaginary - not in some remote Apennine village, but in a ducal city of the plain: Modena. Not in the 'barbaric' centuries of the 'dark' Middle Ages, but in a [...] century, [...] on the path of the pre-Enlightenment."
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 92-94)
"'Nightime' drew an impalpable but very clean line between Apollonian, virtuous, luminous and active time, and demonic time, which dwelt under the sign of the divinities of the night, disorder and the protector of thieves, Mercury. As Sabba Castiglione apprehensively warned in his Ricordi overo ammaestramenti of 1554:
'You will be on your guard when walking at night, if not out of extreme necessity, firstly against scandals, inconveniences and dangers which lurk there continuously; then against the various and diverse infirmities which are often generated in human bodies by the night air... It is certain that going out at night without need is nothing other than disturbing nature's order. '
[Fra' Sabba da Castiglione was a man of Church, of letters and humanist, member of the order of the Knights Hospitaller (the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem (later called Knights of Malta)), his moral and intellectual testament are his “Ricordi” (Memories), a collection of didactic precepts addressed to his nephew and published in their final version in 1554 in Venice by Paolo Gerardo; this work had a great success, with twenty-five editions up to 1613, date after which it was never published again. (Borgo Durbecco, Wikipedia dd. 15/06/2016)]
The night realm belonged to ruffians, low-lifes and those in a bad way; to the dubious presences which the darkness covered in its deep, faceless anonymity; to ghosts, spirits of the dead returned among the living, incubi, goblins, and witches, who silently glided to suck the blood of children or, atop brooms and pitchforks, went to the witches' sabbath.
'Certain girls, slaves of Satan, seduced by the demon of illusions, believe in and are promised during the night hours to Diana, goddess of the pagans, or Venus, to ride among great numbers of women, and to perform various wicked deeds... to pull away children from their mothers' breast, to roast and devour them; to enter into houses by the chimneys or windows and disturb the inhabitants in various ways.' (Martino d'Arles, Tractatus de superstitionibus, contra maleficia seu sortilegia quae hodie vigent in orbe terrarum (Rome: Vincentium Luchinum, 1559), fol. 9r.)" (Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 95-96)
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| boek online beschikbaar |
[Martinus de Arles y Andosilla (1451?–1521) was doctor of theology and canon in Pamplona and archdeacon of Aibar, author of a 'Tractatus de superstitionibus, contra maleficia seu sortilegia quae hodie vigent in orbe terrarum' (1515), a work on demonology in the context of the Early Modern witch-hunts. Martin believed witches (sorginak) to be particularly numerous among the population of Navarra, and the Basques of the Pyrenees in general. He recommends stern measures of an inquisition against this. His depiction of witchcraft is, however, based on sources predating the Malleus maleficarum, arguing against its simplistic depiction of witchcraft (falsa opinione [...] credentes cum Diana vel Herodia nocturnis horis equitare, vel se in alias creaturas transformare). The work was printed in Paris in 1517, and in Rome in 1559 (142 sextodecimo pages).
The work was not widely received and is now very difficult to find. Nicolas Rémy in his 1595 Demonolatry writes: "I am aware that Peter of Palude and Martin of Arles have said that when demons go about this work, they, as it were, milk the semen from the bodies of dead men; but this is as ridiculous as the proverbial dead donkey's fart." (trans. Ashwin 1929) (Wikipedia, dd. 15/06/2016)]
"The peasants, who saw in the dark like cats, loped along silently, feeling the articulations, divisions and fragments of the nocturnal hours almost physically, measuring them by the stars with an awareness so precise as to appear astonishing today.
After sunset they wandered along footpaths shadowed by the night, living almost a second life, finally free of every control: hunting with a reflecting lantern [...], of the kind used in night fishing. The anonymous author of the De natura rusticorum [15th C] speaks of them in terms of nocturnal animals, children of the devil, 'cursed dragons', mobile like birds in their movements.
'Vagabundi sunt ut oves' ['They are vagabonds like the birds'], stirring in the shadows and softly breathing, with their cloaks hovering like owls: 'Nocte vadunt ut bubones' ['At night they make their way like owls'].
They went to secret enclosures in order to abandon themselves to forbidden games and dances. 'They are to be found at licentious threshings and prohibited games,' anathematized the members of the curia, obsessed by that ghost of the agrarian orgy, the demonic sabbath (the 'licentious threshings'), and its lunar variant, entrusted to the authority of the Lady of the Night."
"The night, experienced as a time of anguish, was held in sharp contrast to the solar day: a kind of day à l'envers. It was a criminal time that filled every statute, and which jurisprudence (medieval as well as seventeenth century) took into consideration in order to stiffen the punishments for certain crimes perpetrated after sunset. 'It is not by chance that medieval legislation punished crimes committed at night with an extraordinary force.' [J. Le Goff, quoted in J.-L. Goglin, Les misérables dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1976), p. 204)] For nocturnal stercoratio ('defecating') on walls and doors the 1567 statutes of Ferrara provided severe punishments."
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', p. 98)
[In 1605 Strozzi Cicogna published Palagio degli Incanti, a Thomistic treatise. In this work, the author affirms that to "defeat" demons we should look for their past, be it angelic or demonic. It is an attempt to reconstruct the demons' biography in order to find out its connections with human beings. (Project Muse, dd. 17/06/2016)(zie ook Armando Maggi. In the Company of Demons: Unnatural Beings, Love, and Identity in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)]
"Terrifying apparitions, ghosts, goblins, spells and collective hallucinations spread by uncontrollable rumours, disturbed the nights (difficult and uneasy like the days) of 'modern' age men: un-sought-after supplements of shivers and frights that were added to the terror of plague, hunger and war ('a bello, peste e fame libera nos Domine'; 'from war, plague and hunger deliver us O Lord'). The spirits of evil were the masters of the elements: arbiters of the meteorological and climatic mysteries. The subterranean goblins conspired to increase human anguish with earthquakes. Demons, spectres and angels roamed about the streets of the city in the heart of darkness:
'All the people,' recounted Strozzi Cicogna, 'saw every night with their own eyes one of these spectres who wandered about the city at midnight with an angel.' [Cicogna, Strozzi. Del palagio de gl’incanti, & delle gran meraviglie de gli spiriti, & di tutta la natura loro. Diviso in libri XXXXV. & in III. prospettive. Spirituale, celeste, et elementare. Vicenza, Roberto Miglietti, 1605, p. 275]
The angels who brandished swords were threathening signals of imminent calamities. Several of Pompeo Viz[z]ani's [1540-1607] pages offer a not exhaustive yet strongly indicative sampling of the natural scourges and imaginary fears that tormented the existence of other times. A page of the Bolognese chronicle relating to 1504 told how:
'already a great living famine had begun... where cries and laments were heard everywhere. Furthermore, the citizens were sorrowful because they oftentimes saw several fearful signs, which indicated impending ruin: since there blew strong and violent winds which destroyed many houses and uprooted quite a few trees; and from the sky descended water and storm in such quantity and accompanied by so much lightning, thunder and flashing that everyone was left dumbfounded. Still another amazing thing appeared in the so-called 'Sala' fields twelve miles from Bologna: at midday in those fields several shadows were seen from afar which, caused by meteorological impressions, seemed to be eighteen or twenty men dressed in white, red and black, and they seemed to be fighting among themselves. And when anyone approached to try and see them at close range, they saw nothing at all; and to those who remained far away it seemed as if those who had approached were conversing with the ghosts, which appeared for a good many days, during which time many curious citizens went to see them. It was during this time that certain Observant Friars, who lived in the monastery of Saint Paul of the Observance, located in the Apennines two miles from the city, related that they had seen an Angel, who, situated above Bologna, threatened the people with his unsheathed sword in hand. While the citizens were full of bewilderment because of these things, Giovanni Bentivogli was waiting to celebrate.
During this year in the month of December it seemed as if sweet spring wanted to appear, since the weather was so pleasing and the air so mild that the trees began to bloom and send forth their flowerlets, and everywhere was seen roses, lilies, violets and other flowers and many fruits that usually appear at the beginning of spring. But prudent men did not have a very good opinion of this; in fact, they doubted whether this unusual novelty did not threaten some great ruin. Nor were they exactly misled in their thinking, because on the last day of that year the earth began to tremble during the night, and that trembling lasted for around a quarter of an hour, causing much damage and ruin to the houses throughout the whole city, where the citizens were very much afraid. And so with everyone frightened of the coming of the year 1505 and the earthquake often becoming stronger, it lasted for forty days, so that every hour there were seen new ruins and ravages of churches, towers, palaces and finally, of almost all the citizens' houses, who, in attempting to escape death... lived outside the houses, in gardens and other uncovered places, under awnings and canopies, and many even in wine barrels...
At the same time the living famine continued to grow in such a way that many poor men died of hunger, not being able to find nourishment for themselves. And when some bakery occasionally made bread to sell, the magistrates had to supply an armed guard for its defence, otherwise it was put to the sack by the famished populace. Even the peasants, who suffered the same hunger, were forced to eat the roots of herbs, and other less nourishing things... With the oats beginning to ripen in the month of June, the famine began to let up little by little; and finally, because of the very good harvest, there was an abundance of everything.
But, since the plague had been discovered in many cities of Italy, and in the end in Bologna as well, the citizens could not live without much difficulty, because of this as well as another disease called the hammer sickness... Of this disease died not only a very large number of commoners but sixteen doctors as well, all of them important. [P. Viz[z]ani, Diece libri delle historie della sua patria (Bologna, 1596) (ch. 7, n. 6), pp. 452-5. For the 'symptoms of collective anguish', cf. B. Farolfi, Strutture agrarie e crisi cittadina nel primo Cinquecento bolognese (Bologna: Patron, 1977), pp. 41 ff. For 'signs' and prophetic omens, cf. O. Niccoli, 'Profezie in piazza. Note sul profetismo popolare nell'Ialia del primo Cinquecento', Quaderni Storici, 14 (1979),: Religioni delle classi popolari, ed. C. Ginzburg, pp. 300-39.)]
Murderous wolves in winter, and in summer swarms of mosquitoes, flies and fleas (spreaders of the plague) tormented the poveri homini of the Apennine villages like those in Friuli. At least until the eighteenth century the image of the wolf as slaughterer of children and assassin of men (other than of sheep) was a fairly common nightmare everywhere. Numerous Friulian preenti ('spells') survive in Inquisitorial trials begun against those who searched for a magical defence against those beasts and, in general, against the hostile forces of incomprehensible nature. The plague was continually lying in wait, along with cholera and intestinal fevers. Medicine and magical practices (hellebore root cut and applied to the extremity of the limbs) confusedly attempted to keep away the diseases of unknown aetiology. One of the pages written by Dr Spinelli in 1598 offers a striking picture of the merciless harshness of living.
After sunset they wandered along footpaths shadowed by the night, living almost a second life, finally free of every control: hunting with a reflecting lantern [...], of the kind used in night fishing. The anonymous author of the De natura rusticorum [15th C] speaks of them in terms of nocturnal animals, children of the devil, 'cursed dragons', mobile like birds in their movements.
'Vagabundi sunt ut oves' ['They are vagabonds like the birds'], stirring in the shadows and softly breathing, with their cloaks hovering like owls: 'Nocte vadunt ut bubones' ['At night they make their way like owls'].
They went to secret enclosures in order to abandon themselves to forbidden games and dances. 'They are to be found at licentious threshings and prohibited games,' anathematized the members of the curia, obsessed by that ghost of the agrarian orgy, the demonic sabbath (the 'licentious threshings'), and its lunar variant, entrusted to the authority of the Lady of the Night."
"The night, experienced as a time of anguish, was held in sharp contrast to the solar day: a kind of day à l'envers. It was a criminal time that filled every statute, and which jurisprudence (medieval as well as seventeenth century) took into consideration in order to stiffen the punishments for certain crimes perpetrated after sunset. 'It is not by chance that medieval legislation punished crimes committed at night with an extraordinary force.' [J. Le Goff, quoted in J.-L. Goglin, Les misérables dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1976), p. 204)] For nocturnal stercoratio ('defecating') on walls and doors the 1567 statutes of Ferrara provided severe punishments."
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', p. 98)
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| Strozzi Cicogna |
[In 1605 Strozzi Cicogna published Palagio degli Incanti, a Thomistic treatise. In this work, the author affirms that to "defeat" demons we should look for their past, be it angelic or demonic. It is an attempt to reconstruct the demons' biography in order to find out its connections with human beings. (Project Muse, dd. 17/06/2016)(zie ook Armando Maggi. In the Company of Demons: Unnatural Beings, Love, and Identity in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)]
"Terrifying apparitions, ghosts, goblins, spells and collective hallucinations spread by uncontrollable rumours, disturbed the nights (difficult and uneasy like the days) of 'modern' age men: un-sought-after supplements of shivers and frights that were added to the terror of plague, hunger and war ('a bello, peste e fame libera nos Domine'; 'from war, plague and hunger deliver us O Lord'). The spirits of evil were the masters of the elements: arbiters of the meteorological and climatic mysteries. The subterranean goblins conspired to increase human anguish with earthquakes. Demons, spectres and angels roamed about the streets of the city in the heart of darkness:
'All the people,' recounted Strozzi Cicogna, 'saw every night with their own eyes one of these spectres who wandered about the city at midnight with an angel.' [Cicogna, Strozzi. Del palagio de gl’incanti, & delle gran meraviglie de gli spiriti, & di tutta la natura loro. Diviso in libri XXXXV. & in III. prospettive. Spirituale, celeste, et elementare. Vicenza, Roberto Miglietti, 1605, p. 275]
The angels who brandished swords were threathening signals of imminent calamities. Several of Pompeo Viz[z]ani's [1540-1607] pages offer a not exhaustive yet strongly indicative sampling of the natural scourges and imaginary fears that tormented the existence of other times. A page of the Bolognese chronicle relating to 1504 told how:
'already a great living famine had begun... where cries and laments were heard everywhere. Furthermore, the citizens were sorrowful because they oftentimes saw several fearful signs, which indicated impending ruin: since there blew strong and violent winds which destroyed many houses and uprooted quite a few trees; and from the sky descended water and storm in such quantity and accompanied by so much lightning, thunder and flashing that everyone was left dumbfounded. Still another amazing thing appeared in the so-called 'Sala' fields twelve miles from Bologna: at midday in those fields several shadows were seen from afar which, caused by meteorological impressions, seemed to be eighteen or twenty men dressed in white, red and black, and they seemed to be fighting among themselves. And when anyone approached to try and see them at close range, they saw nothing at all; and to those who remained far away it seemed as if those who had approached were conversing with the ghosts, which appeared for a good many days, during which time many curious citizens went to see them. It was during this time that certain Observant Friars, who lived in the monastery of Saint Paul of the Observance, located in the Apennines two miles from the city, related that they had seen an Angel, who, situated above Bologna, threatened the people with his unsheathed sword in hand. While the citizens were full of bewilderment because of these things, Giovanni Bentivogli was waiting to celebrate.
During this year in the month of December it seemed as if sweet spring wanted to appear, since the weather was so pleasing and the air so mild that the trees began to bloom and send forth their flowerlets, and everywhere was seen roses, lilies, violets and other flowers and many fruits that usually appear at the beginning of spring. But prudent men did not have a very good opinion of this; in fact, they doubted whether this unusual novelty did not threaten some great ruin. Nor were they exactly misled in their thinking, because on the last day of that year the earth began to tremble during the night, and that trembling lasted for around a quarter of an hour, causing much damage and ruin to the houses throughout the whole city, where the citizens were very much afraid. And so with everyone frightened of the coming of the year 1505 and the earthquake often becoming stronger, it lasted for forty days, so that every hour there were seen new ruins and ravages of churches, towers, palaces and finally, of almost all the citizens' houses, who, in attempting to escape death... lived outside the houses, in gardens and other uncovered places, under awnings and canopies, and many even in wine barrels...
At the same time the living famine continued to grow in such a way that many poor men died of hunger, not being able to find nourishment for themselves. And when some bakery occasionally made bread to sell, the magistrates had to supply an armed guard for its defence, otherwise it was put to the sack by the famished populace. Even the peasants, who suffered the same hunger, were forced to eat the roots of herbs, and other less nourishing things... With the oats beginning to ripen in the month of June, the famine began to let up little by little; and finally, because of the very good harvest, there was an abundance of everything.
But, since the plague had been discovered in many cities of Italy, and in the end in Bologna as well, the citizens could not live without much difficulty, because of this as well as another disease called the hammer sickness... Of this disease died not only a very large number of commoners but sixteen doctors as well, all of them important. [P. Viz[z]ani, Diece libri delle historie della sua patria (Bologna, 1596) (ch. 7, n. 6), pp. 452-5. For the 'symptoms of collective anguish', cf. B. Farolfi, Strutture agrarie e crisi cittadina nel primo Cinquecento bolognese (Bologna: Patron, 1977), pp. 41 ff. For 'signs' and prophetic omens, cf. O. Niccoli, 'Profezie in piazza. Note sul profetismo popolare nell'Ialia del primo Cinquecento', Quaderni Storici, 14 (1979),: Religioni delle classi popolari, ed. C. Ginzburg, pp. 300-39.)]
Murderous wolves in winter, and in summer swarms of mosquitoes, flies and fleas (spreaders of the plague) tormented the poveri homini of the Apennine villages like those in Friuli. At least until the eighteenth century the image of the wolf as slaughterer of children and assassin of men (other than of sheep) was a fairly common nightmare everywhere. Numerous Friulian preenti ('spells') survive in Inquisitorial trials begun against those who searched for a magical defence against those beasts and, in general, against the hostile forces of incomprehensible nature. The plague was continually lying in wait, along with cholera and intestinal fevers. Medicine and magical practices (hellebore root cut and applied to the extremity of the limbs) confusedly attempted to keep away the diseases of unknown aetiology. One of the pages written by Dr Spinelli in 1598 offers a striking picture of the merciless harshness of living.
'At Cividale del Friuli wolves had killed abandoned animals, children and men during the winter; in summer, with the heat and dryness at their worst, along with many apricots, there were gnats,
fleas and many flies, and recurring fevers with rashes grew strong and continuous, as well as diarrhoea and cholera which were soon treated with minor cutting of a vein [blood-letting] or purgation. With summer and the real heat increasing, burning fevers, rashes, worms, diarrhoea and vomiting raged, although veins were repaired surgically. Children marked by rashes and spots, despite having bad symptoms, were almost all saved. At the beginning of autumn the plague appeared, with its agonizing and putrid fever, accompanied by worms and abundant diarrhoea. Those whose pulses were strong at the beginning suffered from watery urine and most severe headaches: looking like owls, their pains were always assuaged in cavernous gloom. Hellebore root [zie onder] had to be cut and fixed to certain peoples' extremities before the flesh benefited. Suffering from urine on the third day, as from most disorders, on the fourth day one finally died, pulse indistinct and weak: neither bezoar [zie Bread of Dreams - Digest: '5. 'They Rotted in Their Own Dung''] nor Armenian stone [zie onder] was of any use. This plague was milder at the beginning; the meaner and viler of the oppressed were afflicted. [quoted in Moreali, Della febbri maligne e contagiose [ca. 1746] (ch. 3, n. 30), p. 117.)]'
"In the early days of medicine, two kinds of hellebore [nieskruid] were recognized: black hellebore, which included various species of Helleborus, and white hellebore, now known as Veratrum album, which belongs to a different plant family, the Melanthiaceae. Although the latter plant is highly toxic, containing veratrine and the teratogens cyclopamine and jervine, it is believed to be the "hellebore" used by Hippocrates as a purgative.
"Black hellebore" was used by the ancients in paralysis, gout and other diseases, more particularly in insanity. "Black hellebore" is also toxic, causing tinnitus, vertigo, stupor, thirst, a feeling of suffocation, swelling of the tongue and throat, emesis (vomiting), catharsis, bradycardia (slowing of the heart rate), and finally, collapse and death from cardiac arrest. Although Helleborus niger (black hellebore) contains protoanemonin, or ranunculin, which has an acrid taste and can cause burning of the eyes, mouth, and throat, oral ulceration, gastroenteritis, and hematemesis, research in the 1970s showed that the roots of H. niger do not contain the cardiotoxic compounds helleborin, hellebrin, and helleborein that are responsible for the lethal reputation of "black hellebore". It seems that earlier studies may have used a commercial preparation containing a mixture of material from other species such as Helleborus viridis, green hellebore." (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)
"De Helleborus soorten zijn vaste winter- of lentebloeiende planten met vlezige wortels, soms rizomen (Helleborus vesicarius). De oudere wortels zijn dikwijls donkerder, zelfs zwart. (...) De naam nieskruid danken de planten aan de medicinale toepassing. De gedroogde en tot poeder vermalen wortels zorgen bij opsnuiven ervan dat er flink geniesd moet worden. De wortel is zeer giftig door het aanwezige helleborine, dat een diglycoside is en bitter smaakt. Verdere aanwezige gifstoffen zijn saponine en protoanemonine.
Door de Grieken werd het wortelpoeder gebruikt bij krankzinnigheid en aanvallen van epilepsie. Laxeermiddelen bevatten nog wel eens bestanddelen van de wortel van het nieskruid. Alexander de Grote (356 v.Chr. tot 323 v.Chr.) is mogelijk overleden aan een overdosis Nieskruid. Zekerheid is er niet, maar men speculeert al eeuwen over zijn eventuele overmatig gebruik van nieskruid." (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)]
"Lapis armenus, also known as Armenian stone or lapis stellatus, in natural history, is a variety of precious stone, resembling lapis lazuli, except that it is softer, and instead of veins of pyrite, is intermixed with green. "The Armenian stone" is so nearly identical to lapis lazuli that it has often not been distinguished from it;[...] British History Online defines lapis armenus as "Armenian stone, or azurite, a naturally occurring basic COPPER carbonate, originally from Armenia, but later from Germany, from which BLUE BICE was prepared. It was often found in association with another copper carbonate, malachite from which GREEN BICE was prepared (...) [Jo Kirby of the National Gallery London notes the occurrence of the pigment bice in three grades in an account of Tudor painting at Greenwich Palace in 1527. In this case, the three grades indicate the use of the mineral azurite rather than a manufactured blue copper carbonate. Similarly, green bice in other 16th century-records may sometimes have been the mineral malachite. Ian Bristow, a historian of paint, concluded that the pigment blue bice found in records of British interior-decoration until the first half of the 17th century was azurite. The expensive natural mineral azurite was superseded by manufactured blue verditer (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)]
Herman Boerhaave believed it rather to rank among semi-metals, and supposed it was composed of both metal and earth. He added that it only differs from lazuli in degree of maturity, and that both of them seem to contain arsenic.
The Encyclopedia Perthensis of 1816 notes that Armenian stone "was anciently brought of Armenia" [...] It has been found in Tirol, Hungary, and Transylvania, and used [...] both in mosaic work, to make the blue color azure, and as a treatment of melancholia. (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)"
 |
| 19th century illustration of Helleborus niger |
"Black hellebore" was used by the ancients in paralysis, gout and other diseases, more particularly in insanity. "Black hellebore" is also toxic, causing tinnitus, vertigo, stupor, thirst, a feeling of suffocation, swelling of the tongue and throat, emesis (vomiting), catharsis, bradycardia (slowing of the heart rate), and finally, collapse and death from cardiac arrest. Although Helleborus niger (black hellebore) contains protoanemonin, or ranunculin, which has an acrid taste and can cause burning of the eyes, mouth, and throat, oral ulceration, gastroenteritis, and hematemesis, research in the 1970s showed that the roots of H. niger do not contain the cardiotoxic compounds helleborin, hellebrin, and helleborein that are responsible for the lethal reputation of "black hellebore". It seems that earlier studies may have used a commercial preparation containing a mixture of material from other species such as Helleborus viridis, green hellebore." (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)
"De Helleborus soorten zijn vaste winter- of lentebloeiende planten met vlezige wortels, soms rizomen (Helleborus vesicarius). De oudere wortels zijn dikwijls donkerder, zelfs zwart. (...) De naam nieskruid danken de planten aan de medicinale toepassing. De gedroogde en tot poeder vermalen wortels zorgen bij opsnuiven ervan dat er flink geniesd moet worden. De wortel is zeer giftig door het aanwezige helleborine, dat een diglycoside is en bitter smaakt. Verdere aanwezige gifstoffen zijn saponine en protoanemonine.
Door de Grieken werd het wortelpoeder gebruikt bij krankzinnigheid en aanvallen van epilepsie. Laxeermiddelen bevatten nog wel eens bestanddelen van de wortel van het nieskruid. Alexander de Grote (356 v.Chr. tot 323 v.Chr.) is mogelijk overleden aan een overdosis Nieskruid. Zekerheid is er niet, maar men speculeert al eeuwen over zijn eventuele overmatig gebruik van nieskruid." (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)]
"Lapis armenus, also known as Armenian stone or lapis stellatus, in natural history, is a variety of precious stone, resembling lapis lazuli, except that it is softer, and instead of veins of pyrite, is intermixed with green. "The Armenian stone" is so nearly identical to lapis lazuli that it has often not been distinguished from it;[...] British History Online defines lapis armenus as "Armenian stone, or azurite, a naturally occurring basic COPPER carbonate, originally from Armenia, but later from Germany, from which BLUE BICE was prepared. It was often found in association with another copper carbonate, malachite from which GREEN BICE was prepared (...) [Jo Kirby of the National Gallery London notes the occurrence of the pigment bice in three grades in an account of Tudor painting at Greenwich Palace in 1527. In this case, the three grades indicate the use of the mineral azurite rather than a manufactured blue copper carbonate. Similarly, green bice in other 16th century-records may sometimes have been the mineral malachite. Ian Bristow, a historian of paint, concluded that the pigment blue bice found in records of British interior-decoration until the first half of the 17th century was azurite. The expensive natural mineral azurite was superseded by manufactured blue verditer (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)]
Herman Boerhaave believed it rather to rank among semi-metals, and supposed it was composed of both metal and earth. He added that it only differs from lazuli in degree of maturity, and that both of them seem to contain arsenic.
The Encyclopedia Perthensis of 1816 notes that Armenian stone "was anciently brought of Armenia" [...] It has been found in Tirol, Hungary, and Transylvania, and used [...] both in mosaic work, to make the blue color azure, and as a treatment of melancholia. (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)"
'Bracketed between the brief and rare moments of anxious and astonished tranquility, as soon as one scourge let up or disappeared, another still more terrifying punctually made its appearance, in a perverse alternation of illusory mirages of calm followed by pitiless gusts of horrible calamities. The demonically wicked direction of human events added the extra of an almost permanent social marasmus to the tangled situation. To the 'brawls, disputes, [and] killings' in the cities corresponded exactly the 'continuous killings, burning down of houses, rapes, thefts and thousand other sorts of despoiling' in the countryside, tormented by the bloody struggles and feuds of peasant gangs and clans: by 'evil killers', 'ruffians', and by 'cutthroats, by thieves and by bandits'. [Viz[z]ani, I due ultimi libri delle historie della sua patria, (ch. 7, n. 2), pp. 81-2]
The douceur de vivre of the ancien regime was a myth enjoyed solely by a few privileged aristocrats, [...] or by the scerni del villaggio ('village idiots'), luckily graced with the sad privilege of insanity, the only one available to the wretched poor.'"
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 99-102)