ABSTRACT
This examination of early modern stage magic overviews its occurrence in the earliest type of mixed-gender professional theater, the Italian commedia dell’arte, discusses necromancers and stage magicians, and concludes by inquiring into the significance of magical impotence superstitions for the London stage. Drawing on travel journals and medical treatises as well as more familiar sources, it confirms that ‘travelers’ tales’ can represent an invaluable documentary resource for the theater historian even when, as with the Swiss physician Thomas Platter’s account of the ritual practice of magical impotence in southwestern France, their connection to the stage is indirect and previously unrecognized.
