ABSTRACT
This chapter examines witch beliefs and witch hunting from the late fourteenth to the early eighteenth centuries in the territories that are at part of Italy, but which belonged to many different states before these were unified when the Kingdom of Italy was formed. It assesses the dimensions of the witch hunt both in terms of its geography and of the number of people tried and executed. The chapter utilizes the term witch hunt to refer specifically to the persecutions of men and women accused of being members of the sect of the witches and of having made a pact with the devil. It looks at the prosecution of all types of magic and of “superstitions”, meaning the wide area of practices based on a mixture of folkloric beliefs, magical techniques, and church rituals. Leaving behind the mountains and the countryside, Italian cities saw the activities of a different type of witch.
