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The Witch’s Skin

Guestpost by Costanza De Cillia

If the body of the enemy, whether captured or killed, has always been the object of universal interest on the part of the human consortium, there was an era in which it was literally valid as a body of evidence: the period of witch hunts, in Europe, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Then, as we will see, the suspect’s belonging to the abominable convent of the Devil was ascertained with a thorough personal search, during which the body of the alleged witch, chained and shaved, was searched in detail for tangible evidence of her nefarious sin.

This investigative methodology derives from the dictates of demonology, which arose in the wake of the papal bull of Innocent VIII Summis Desiderantes affectibus (1484): an anatomy of witchcraft elaborated by cultured literature, which – in numerous manuals, among which the Malleus Maleficarum (1486) is probably the most famous – taught how to conduct investigations to verify the guilt of the prisoner.

As early as the 12th century, with the spread of medical treatises, the diagnosis of the divine or evil nature of invading spirits became a distinction between holy bodies and deviant bodies, which demons, spiritual creatures endowed with semi-corporeality, could enter through the various openings. The human mouth, in particular, granted access to two distinct physiological systems: the spiritual one, having as its center the heart, which was usually possessed by the Holy Spirit, and the digestive system, the bowels, in which all contaminating impurities reside, thus the preferred residence of evil spirits.

Since demons loved to settle in the “cavities” of the human body, it was natural for them to prefer the female body – the ideal habitat whose anatomy, considered weak and full of openings, seemed to facilitate the entry of impure entities.

This only aggravated the already fragile theological and existential condition of the woman, seen as a deceiving and treacherous being who originated from Adam’s bent rib, and was therefore imperfect (designated as fe-mina, “she who has less faith”, a deficiency that she was thought to compensate with her insatiable lust).

This negative vision of women might be the reason for the imbalance between the number of witches and sorcerers, which is intercultural and present in all historical periods: psychology and ethnopsychiatry explain this asymmetry by indicating how the witch was perceived as the inverted image of the fertile woman; a phallic and devouring mother/stepmother, who arouses envy and libido to the point of making her a scapegoat. In a society that worshiped fertility, the female body, especially the elderly body, arose strong fears, due to an ambiguity that made it similar to that of an animal, a polluting and disturbing presence. Thus the witch was associated with threatening, harmful magical powers, which made her the opposite of a good housewife and mother, and affected the spheres related to childbirth, death and love; on the other hand, male sorcerers were usually accused of spells aimed at controlling the climate and the crops, therefore closer to daily working life.

But, as we said, it was in the 15th century that the conceptual transition from sorcery to witchcraft took place, that is, from the definition of witchcraft as an exercise of maleficia (malignant magic against others, in particular against the foundations of peasant community life: the harvest, health of young people, human and animal sexuality for reproductive purposes) to its qualification as a heresy based on the veneration of Satan.

The witch was no longer seen as a “bad neighbor” devoted to antisocial behavior, who resorted to supernatural means in order to satisfy her evil desires; she became guilty of crimina excepta, exceptional crimes by virtue of their gravity, aimed at the destruction of Christian society and committed because of her own voluntary enslavement, both spiritual and physical, to the Infernal Spouse.

These crimes were deemed so atrocious as to make devil worshipers worthy of the death penalty, as traitors to God and to the human assembly: incest, infanticide, anthropophagy, desecration of the holy bread and- of sacred vestments, mainly committed on the occasion of the Sabbath. In this periodic collective gathering – which the initiates reached by means of the nocturnal “journey through the air” attracting great attention during interrogations – the witches perpetuated their perdition with banquets, acts of blasphemy, dances and ritual orgies (dominated by the carnal relationship with the devil and inaugurated by the osculum oscenum, the kiss “under the tail” of the Goat, president of the assembly).

Of course these deeds were unforgivable, as they were based on the perversion of the Creed and the inversion of the sacraments of the Christian religion.

Given these premises, witchcraft became to be seen as an impious cult, a false religion – of which spells and charms are but a by-product, meant to harm the good members of the community – the profession of which was considered a crime, an act of treason and political sedition.

Against this diabolical plot, comparable to an infection with which some sick sheep try to spread heresy within the flock of the faithful, a police operation was launched, whose severity reminds us of more modern concepts like zero-tolerance policies.

Despite the lack of proof of an actual, ritual form of devil worship (supporting the hypothesis that the Sabbath has always been just a myth), in this hunt two categories of tangible evidence were identified and considered conclusive, as they were directly observable: a public confession, which usually followed the denunciation by other witches, and the empirical verification of supernatural attributes.

The latter were carefully searched on the body of the accused, in a judicial torture session that anticipated the suffering of public execution: a degenerate medical examination, in which professional “witch-prickers” stuck special needles into the flesh of the alleged witch, looking for a bloodless and numb area of skin. This was the sign of the “devil’s paw”,shaped like a footprint, a spot, a red or blue dot: the witch’s mark, also known as signum diabolii or punctum/stygma diabolicum, present since birth on the skin of those who were “born witches” and doomed to be evil already in the womb of their mother. More frequently, it was a sign imprinted in the flesh by the Devil himself, at the end of the affiliation ceremony.

Parody of the stigmata of the saints, seal of servitude that sanctions the possession of the witch by Lucifer – simia Dei, the “monkey” who mocks and imitates God – the mark is imprinted with a bite or a scratch, on the forehead or in a hidden point of the body: on the shoulder or on the left side, inside the eyelid, on the abdomen or in locis secretissimis non nominandis (in the intimate parts or in the rectum).

Besides being reminiscent of the sign affixed by the Antichrist in Rev 13.16 (“the name of the beast or the number of his name”), this was considered, in line with the satanic ceremonial, the “reverse” of the circumcision in the Old Testament and of the sign of the cross in the New Testament; it attested to the witch’s perfidy, being its physical, visible and above all tangible manifestation. The mark was therefore an incriminating sign, which proved the woman took part in the Sabbath and belonged to the societas diabolii.

Subsequently, the commandments in Exod 22.18 (“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live“) and Lev 20.27 (“A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death” ) became imperative for earthly justice.

The search for the mark, however, appears to be an invention of cultured demonology, not very widespread in folklore and never applied with the same frequency as other demonstrations of witchcraft – with the exceptions of Civil War England, Scotland and, on the continent, Sweden, France and Switzerland.

The pricking of every part of the suspect’s body, therefore, seems to have found less diffusion than, for example, the swimming test (descendant of the “trial by water” present in European popular mythology since the Middle Ages), in which the bound witch was thrown into a pond or a well: her drowning was proof of innocence, while survival demonstrated the refusal by the pure element associated with baptism to touch her body, thus ascertaining her guilt.

Other known stratagems for detecting witches were drawing the suspects’ blood, boiling their urine and hair in a bottle, inserting a hot poker in their feces, burning straw from their home, pricking their portrait, and weighing them in comparison with a Bible; finally, there were more risky methods, vaguely superstitious, such as scratching the witch’s body (to neutralize the effects of her evil practices), or relying on the divinatory abilities of cunning men, healers practicing forms of “white”, beneficial magic.

Witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins (a well-known witch hunter, active in South East England between 1645 and 1647, with the assistance of the witch-pricker John Stearne) also suggested, in the treatise On the Discovery of Witches, to isolate the witch, subject her to a prolonged vigil for days and force her to walk incessantly, waiting for her imps or familiars to come to her rescue in front of the witnesses.

These vampire servant sprites, with the appearance of small pets, are purchased by the witch, inherited from her colleagues or donated to her by the Devil; in exchange for their help, she feeds them through a teat (supernumerary breast which honest women do not have) from which they suck yellowish milk, water and finally blood: if the sucking is suspended for more than twenty-four hours, this diabolical breast swells up to the point of bursting – a probatory indication, sufficient to impose the death sentence of the defendant. However, since the surplus breast was not often found, it was believed that many witches cut it off before being searched.

There were those who distinguished between the witch’s mark and the supernumerary nipple, and those who instead gathered both under the same category of probative evidence; but there was nonetheless absolute consensus on the value of these dermatological anomalies, as they brought a certainty that other forms of torture could not provide. In fact Satan, showing that his power was superior to any natural law and every counter-magic, conferred on his proteges the “gift of silence”, or the ability to resist pain, thus preventing any confession.

Although the presence of a mark was considered a definitive proof, this did not dispel the suspicion that most of the witch-pricking business was actually a scam, conducted by itinerant impostors (even women disguised as men, such as James Paterson and John Dickson) who were attracted by good pay and the possibility to freely torture their “patients” – so much so that some of them were legally prosecuted, for the cruelty shown and the rapes they committed.

As we have seen, witches were condemned because of a symptom that in the following centuries will be seen as a simple scar, a tattoo drawn in contempt at the command of Lev 19.28 (“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you”) or, in the case of supernumerary nipples, as congenital hyperthelia/hypermastia.

Regarding the “supernatural” resistance to pain shown by witches, these peculiar phenomena of local analgesia are explained by the raising of the pain threshold due to fear or exhaustion; skin numbness could also be the consequence of diseases and malnutrition suffered by the humblest fringes of the early modern European population. Doctors and alienists have also speculated about the possible role of hysteria and epilepsy (“suffocation of the uterus”: an umbrella term used for various gynecological problems), as well as nervous or ecstatic syndromes, in diabolical possessions.

Regardless of subsequent medical explanations, at the time of the witchcraft trials the discovering of a mark left no hope for the defendant: found guilty of the worst of crimes, these women would be burned at the stake on the Continent, so the cathartic and disinfectant fire could purify their body and soul and scatter their earthly remains like ashes in the wind; they would instead end up hanged in England and North America (where, it must be remembered, witchcraft was never perceived as a heresy, but remained an illegal act against society): suspended between heaven and earth, unworthy of both, they would suffer a shameful death on the “one-armed cross”, the gallows. Their execution, accompanied by an infamous burial, usually at the foot of the gallows itself, was halfway between a moralistic theatrical show and a sporting competition where human bodies were subjected to fatal labors.

A mise-en-scène that, with its pedagogical-terrorist connotations, was meant to arouse a healthy fear in the spectators, agitated by a visceral sense of moral and emotional ambivalence. A spectacle in which the victims were hated, and at the same time pitied in their misfortune.

Costanza De Cillia is a Doctor of Philosophy and Sciences of Religions. Her main fields of research are the aesthetics of violence and the anthropology of execution.

The Werewolf of Ansbach

It is estimated that over the course of only 300 years, from the 14th to the 17th century, up to 100,000 people were executed in Europe on the charge of being werewolves .
France and Germany especially found themselves under attack by these supernatural creatures, and in both countries the lycanthropy “epidemics” caused a real collective fear.
The werewolf could sometimes be the victim of a curse, but more often he was seen as a worshiper of Satan. Since turning into a wolf was considered the result of magical arts, lycanthropy trials fell into the wider phenomenon of witch-hunt.
Among historical accounts of werewolves, there is one in particular that is absolutely noteworthy.

In 1685 the Principality of Ansbach included the surroundings of the Bavarian town of the same name; here a wolf began attacking livestock. The threat suddenly became more serious when the animal killed several children within a few months.
The idea immediately spread that this was no normal wolf, but rather a werewolf — on whose identity there was little doubt: the detested Michael Leicht, Burgomaster of Ansbach (a figure halfway between a mayor and a ruler), had recently died after subjecting the town to its cruel and fraudulent yoke for many years.

It was rumored that this much-hated public officer had actually managed to escape death by transferring his spirit into the body of a wolf. Some swore they saw him attend his own funeral; a contemporary flyer shows Michael Leicht who, in the form of a wolf wrapped in a white-linen shroud, returns to his old apartment, scaring the new tenants.

Thus hunting the fierce wolf became an imperative not only in order to protect children from further carnage, but to free the city from the spirit of the Burgomaster still haunting those places, and to avenge years of harassment.

The hunters prepared a Wolfsgrube. This “wolf pit” consisted of a hole with stone walls, about three or four meters deep, covered with branches and straw, and it was used to trap wild animals. Pieces of raw meat were placed at the bottom of the well, and often a live bait was used: a sheep, a pig or a goose. The wolf, smelling the prey, would wander around the scrubs until it fell into the trapping pit.

In this case, the bait was a rooster. The wolf fell into the hole and was killed by hunters.
But what happened next is the really interesting part.

The carcass of the animal was paraded through the streets, to show the danger was over. The men had prevailed over the beast.
But since this was no ordinary wolf, a more grotesque spectacle was staged. After skinning the animal, the men severed its muzzle and placed on its head a cardboard mask with Leicht’s features; they dressed it with a wig and a cloak, and hanged the wolf by a gibbet erected on a nearby hill, so that it was clearly visible.

A poem from the time reads:

I, wolf, was a grim beast and devourer of many children
Which I far preferred to fat sheep and steers;
A rooster killed me, a well was my death.
I now hang from the gallows, for the ridicule of all people.
As a spirit and a wolf, I bothered men
How appropriate, now that people say:
“Ah! You damned spirit who entered the wolf,
You now swing from the gallows disguised as a man
This is your fair compensation, the gift you have earned;
This you deserve, a gibbet is your grave.
Take this reward, because you have devoured the sons of men
Like a fierce and ferocious beast, a real child eater. “

The punishment reserved for this demonic beast is subtler than it might seem, because it actually serves a double symbolic purpose.

On the one hand, depriving the wolf of his fur and replacing it with human clothes meant showing Satan himself that his tricks did not work. The townspeople of Ansbach were able to recognize the man concealing under the fur; this was therefore a warning, addressed to the Devil himself — this how your evil servants end up, around here! — and it had a clear apotropaic intent.

On the other hand, there was an undeniable political aspect. This was a “by proxy” execution of the former ruler; the commoners, who had failed to overthrow their oppressor while he was alive, did so post-mortem.
One may wonder: was this a warning to the new burgomaster, so that he would keep in line? Or was the new ruler himself behind this staging? Such a striking public show could be a good way for him to earn his subjects’ trust, a way of distancing himself from the tyranny of his predecessor.
In any case, the political message was clear, even for those who did not believe in werewolves: this act was meant to mark the end of a dark era.

As this episode demonstrates, we would be wrong to see lycanthropy trials as simple and blind mass hysteria, fueled by superstition. Even though they were a product of  fear in times of great epidemics, as well as economic, political and social instability, werewolf trials sometimes involved stratified levels of meaning which were far from being unintentional.
While courts condemned hundreds of people to be burned at the stake, intellectuals debated how it was possible for a man to turn into a wolf. And they were surprisingly quite aware that the problem lied in telling the legend from the truth.

For instance one of the most brilliant treatises on the subject, the Discourse on Lycanthropy (1599) by Jean Beauvoys de Chauvincourt, traces the origins of the werewolf in Greek mythology, spending several pages to discern between which ancient stories had to be considered simple allegories, and which ones could hide a kernel of truth.

But what exactly was this truth? What was going on during a lycanthropy episode? Can we in all rationality, wonders Beauvoys, believe that a man has the magical power of changing his physical form?
And then there was a more delicate question, of theological nature. How could Satan transform what God had created, replacing the Almighty in a sort of “second creation”? Crediting the Devil with such high power was inadmissible, since only God could turn water into wine, Lot’s wife into salt, or Moses’ rod into a snake.

In his treatise Beauvoys devises an extremely ingenious solution, a true marvel of balance to get himself out of the impasse.
Since endorsing the possibility of an actual man-to-wolf transformation would lead him dangerously close to blasphemous or at least heretical positions, he opts for a double demonic illusion.

The first illusion affects the werewolves themselves: Satan, “thanks to his pure and simple subtlety, by penetrating into their bodies and occupying their internal organs, becomes their true owner, and persuades them of what he wants. Troubling their imagination, he makes them believe they are brutal beasts, and infuses them with the same desires and attractions those animals have, up to the point that they begin having frequent carnal unions with those of their kind“. Thus the werewolf is nothing but a man, who has lost his way and got tricked by the devil; his body is not really covered in fur, his nails do not turn into claws nor his teeth into fangs. Everything just happens in his mind (an extraordinary idea, if you think that something close to psychiatry will only appear two centuries later).

Then, by administering ointments, eye drops, creams and powders to these slaves, the Devil is able to create hallucinations even in those who have the misfortune of meeting the werewolf: “such is the smell and the air so infected by this filth that they not only affect his patient, but they are so powerful as to act on the external senses of the audience, taking possession of their eyes; disturbed by this poison, they are persuaded that these transformations are real“.

Therefore on a more superficial level, the werewolf represents the danger of abandoning oneself to bestial instincts, of losing one’s own humanity; it is a moral figure meant to illustrate what happens when man turns away from the divine light, and it signifies a recession to barbarism, the loss of the logos.

But the most frightening and uspetting fact is that a werewolf confuses and overturns the common categories of meaning. According to Beauvoys, as we have seen, its condition is both supernatural (Satan is behind it all) and natural (no actual metamorphosis is taking place). Similarly, Ansbach’s wolf is deprived of its real skin, which is seen as a fake, and it is made to wear a mock human face, recognized as its authentic nature.

The werwewolf’s destabilizing power lies in this dimension of epistemological mystery — the werewolf is like a magic trick, an illusion; it is both true and false.

The Spann Case: A Chronicle

Article by guestblogger “La cara Pasifae”

The law is some tricky shit, isn’t it?
(Thelma & Louise, 1991)

From her first marriage, Patricia Ann Spann had three children: a boy, then a girl and another boy. Things were not too good, evidently, because Patricia lose custody over them and the children were legally adopted by her mother-in-law.

But in 2008 Patricia met Cody Spann Jr., her oldest son, who at the time was 18. And she married him.
In Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma. She signed the papers using both her maiden and her married name, “Patricia Ann Clayton Spann”.

Fifteen moths later, in 2010, at the boy’s request a judge nullified their marriage on the grounds of incest. The Oklahoma laws categorically forbids unions with direct descendants.

In 2014 Patricia met her daughter, at the time 23 years old, Misty Velvet Dawn Spann.


And on March 25, 2016, the two women got married.

They moved in together in Duncan, Stephens County (OK), nearly 30 miles from the Texas border and less than 20 from Lawton where, once again, the wedding had taken place.
To get around the obstacle of their shared family name, Patricia Spann had used her maiden name upon filing the marriage licence application.

Perhaps not all the neighbors were fine with this new, close but reserved couple settling in. So, in August, Patricia and Misty received the visit of a Human Services Child Welfare Division investigator who, while assessing the state of the Spann children, found out that mother and daughter were legally married.

The women admitted both to their biological bond and to being married. Patricia declared to the investigator that she didn’t think they were breaking any law since her name no longer appeared on her daughter’s birth certificate, and that anyway, after being reunited, “they hit it off”.

Thus the authorities came to know of the incestuous relationship. The case was assigned to Duncan Police Detective Dustin Smith, who began the investigations on August 26, 2016, after a warning from the Human Services Division. In September, just months after they had married, in compliance with the law, the Spanns were formally charged.
Felony arrest warrants were issued in Stephens County District Court for both of them. If found guilty, they would face up to 10 years in prison.
After the arrest Misty and Patricia Ann were put in custody in Stephens County Jail. The bail was set at $10,000 for each woman.

As reported by Lawton Constitution, Patricia Spann insisted that she hadn’t had contact with her children until a few years earlier, claim contradicted by court records regarding her former marriage with her biological son. No charges were pressed for that marriage.

At Misty’s request, the marriage with her mother was annulled Oct. 12, 2017, as court records show. In November the girl, who claimed she was fraudulently induced into marriage by her mother, pleaded guilty to her incest charge. She was sentenced to probation for 10 years, two of which to be spent under the supervision of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

But after the verdict, a legal technicality emerged, which does not allow deferred senteces – like probation – in incest cases. She was therefore allowed to withdraw her guilty plea and to enter a new plea.
After pleading guilty to the felony count, on March 13, 2018, 46.years-old Spann, born in Norman (OK), was transferred to prison for incest. A judged sentenced her to two years of prison, eight years probation and a $2,791 fine allocated as follows: a $1,500 fine, $300 to the State victims’ compensation fund, and $991 in legal fees. Upon her release, she will also be registered as a sex offender.
In this moment, the woman is held in prison in a Oklahoma State Jail, where she passed her first three months as a recluse.

Thus we have compiled a chronicle of a strange story from the deep South Central. The nature of these facts can amaze and astonish, pushing us to try and guess the inner dinamics that moved its protagonist, Patricia Ann Spann. What were her motivations? Is it possible to really understand?

This is why this is no biography. We can only get a glimpse of the vast array of different interpretation such a story can sustain, of the extent of speculations it suggests, of the powerful, mythical narratives it brings to mind. Where should we start?

(La cara Pasifae)

Simone Unverdorben, The False Martyr

Article by guestblogger La cara Pasifae

A little boy went out to play.
When he opened his door he saw the world.
As he passed through the doorway he caused a riflection.
Evil was born!
Evil was born and followed the boy.
(D. Lynch, Inland Empire, 2006)

It was a nice late-summer afternoon, in 2013. I remember well.
A friend had invited me to the opening of his latest exhibition. He had picked an unusual place for the event: an ancient and isolated parish church that stood high up on a hill, the church of Nanto. The building had been recently renovated, and it was open to the public only on specific occasions.
Once there, one immediately feels the urge to look around. The view is beautiful, but it pays the price of the impact the construction industry (I was almost about to say “architecture”) has had on the surroundings, with many industrial buildings covering the lanscapes of Veneto region like a tattoo. Better go inside and look at the paintings.

I was early for the opening, so I had the artist, his works and the entire exhibition area all for myself. I could walk and look around without any hurry, and yet I felt something disturbing my peace, something I couldn’t quite pin down at first:  it kind of wormed its way into my visual field, calling for attention. On a wall, as I was passing from one painted canvas to the next, I eventually spotted a sudden, indefinite blur of colors. A fresco. An image had been resting there well before the exhibition paintings were placed in front of it!

Despite the restoration, as it happens with many medieval and Renaissance frescoes, some elements were still confused and showed vanishing, vaporous outlines. But once in focus, an unsettling vision emerged: the fresco depicted a quite singular torture scene, the likes of which I had never encountered in any other artwork (but I wouldn’t want to pass as an expert on the subject).
Two female figures, standing on either side, were holding the arms of a blonde child (a young Christ, a child-saint, or a puer sacer, a sacred and mystical infant, I really couldn’t say). The kid was being tortured by two young men: each holding a stiletto, they were slicing the boy’s skin all over, and even his face seemed to have been especially brutalized.


Blood ran down the child’s bound feet into a receiving bowl, which had been specifically placed under the victim’s tormented limbs.

The child’s swollen face (the only one still clearly visible) had an ecstatic expression that barely managed to balance the horror of the hemorrhage and of the entire scene: in the background, a sixth male figure sporting a remarkable beard, was twisting a cloth band around the prisoner throat. The baby was being choked to death!

What is the story of this fresco? What tale does it really tell?
The five actors do not look like peasants; the instruments are not randomly chosen: these are thin, sharp, professional blades. The incisions on the victim’s body are too regular. Who perpetrated this hideous murder, who was the object of the resentment the author intended to elicit in the onlookers? Maybe the fresco was a representation — albeit dramatic and exaggerated — of a true crime. Should the choking, flaying and bleeding be seen as a metaphor for some parasitic exploitation, or do they hint at some rich and eccentric nobleman’s quirkiness? Is this a political allegory or a Sadeian chronicle?
The halo surrounding the child’s head makes him an innocent or a saved soul. Was this a homage, a flattering detail to exhalt the commissioner of this work of art? What character was meant to be celebrated here, the subjects on the sides who are carrying out a dreadful, but unavoidable task, or the boy at the center who looks so obscenely resigned to suffer their painful deeds? Are we looking at five emissaries of some brutal but rational justice as they perform their duties, or the misadventure of a helpless soul that fell in the hands of a ferocious gang of thugs?

At the bottom of the fresco, a date: «ADI ⋅ 3 ⋅ APRILE 1479».
This historical detail brought me back to the present. The church was already crowded with people.
I felt somehow crushed by the overload of arcane symbols, and the frustation of not having the adequate knowledge to interpret what I had seen. I furtively took a snapshot. I gave my host a warm farewell, and then got out, hoping the key to unlock the meaning of the fresco was not irretrievably lost in time.

As I discovered at the beginning of my research on this controversial product of popular iconography, the fresco depicts the martyrdom of Saint Simonino of Trent. Simone Unverdorben, a two-year-old toddler from Trent, disappeared on March 23, 1475. His body was found on Easter Day. It was said to have been mauled and strangled. In Northern Italy, in those years, antisemitic abuses and persecutions stemmed from the widely influential sermons of the clergy. The guilt for the heinous crime immediately fell upon the Trent Jewish community. All of its members had to endure one of the biggest trials of the time, being subjected to tortures that led to confessions and reciprocal accusations.

During the preliminary investigations of the Trent trial, a converted Jew was asked if the practice of ritual homicide of Christian toddlers existed within the Hebrew cult. […] The converted Jew, at the end of the questioning, confirmed with abundant details the practice of ritual sacrifice in the Jewish Easter liturgy.
Another testimony emerged from the interrogation of another of the alleged killers of the little Simone, the Jewish physician Tobia. He declared on the rack there was a commerce in Christian blood among Jews. A Jewish merchant called Abraam was said to have left Trent shortly before Simone’s death with the intention of selling Christian blood, headed to Feltre or Bassano, and to have asked around which of the two cities was closer to Trent. Tobia’s confession took place under the terrifying threat of being tortured and in the desperate attempt to avoid it: he therefore had to be cooperative to the point of fabrication; but it was understood that his testimony, whenever made up, should be consistent and plausible.
[…] Among the others, another converted man named Israele (Wolfgang, after converting) was  also interrogated under torture. He declared he had heard about other cases of ritual murders […]. These instances of ritual homicides were inventions whose protagonists had names that came from the interrogee’s memory, borrowed to crowd these fictional stories in a credible way.

(M. Melchiorre, Gli ebrei a Feltre nel Quattrocento. Una storia rimossa,
in Ebrei nella Terraferma veneta del Quattrocento,
a cura di G.M. Varanini e R.C. Mueller, Firenze University Press 2005)

Many were burned at the stake. The survivors were exiled from the city, after their possessions had been confiscated.
According to the jury, the child’s collected blood had been used in the ritual celebration of the “Jewish Easter”.

The facts we accurately extracted from the offenders, as recorded in the original trials, are the following. The wicked Jews living in Trent, having maliciously planned to make their Easter solemn through the killing of a Christian child, whose blood they could mix in their unleavened bread, commisioned it to Tobia, who was deemed perfect for the infamous deed as he was familiar with the town on the account of being a professional doctor. He went out at 10 pm on Holy Thursday, March 23, as all believers were at the Mass, walked the streets and alleys of the city and having spotted the innocent Simone all alone on his father’s front door, he showed him a big silver piece, and with sweet words and smiles he took him from via del Fossato, where his parents lived, to the house of the rich Jew Samuele, who was eagerly waiting for him. There he was kept, with charms and apples, until the hour of the sacrifice arrived. At 1 am, little twenty-nine-months-old Simone was taken to the chamber adjoining the women’s synagogue; he was stripped naked and a band or belt was made from his clothes, and he was muzzled with a handkerchief, so that he wouldn’t immediately choke to death nor be heard; Moses the Elder, sitting on a stall and holding the baby in his lap, tore a piece of flesh off his cheek with a pair of iron pliers. Samuele did the same while Tobia, assisted by Moar, Bonaventura, Israele, Vitale and another Bonaventura (Samuele’s cook) collected in a basin the blood pouring from the wound. After that, Samuele and the aforementioned seven Jews vied with each other to pierce the flesh of the holy martyr, declaring in Hebrew that they were doing so to mock the crucified God of the Christians; and they added: thus shall be the fate of all our enemies. After this feral ordeal, the old Moses took a knife and pierced with it the tip of the penis, and with the pliers tore a chunk of meat from the little right leg and Samuel, who replaced him, tore a piece out of the other leg. The copious blood oozing from the puerile penis was harvested in a different vase, while the blood pouring from the legs was collected in the basin. All the while, the cloth plugging his mouth was sometimes tightened and sometimes loosened; not satisfied with the outrageous massacre, they insisted in the same torture a second time, with greater cruelty, piercing him everywhere with pins and needles; until the young boy’s blessed soul departed his body, among the rejoicing of this insane riffraff.

(Annali del principato ecclesiastico di Trento dal 1022 al 1540, pp. 352-353)

Very soon Simonino (“little Simone”) was acclaimed as a “blessed martyr”, and his cult spread thoughout Northern Italy. As devotion grew wider, so did the production of paintings, ex voto, sculptures, bas reliefs, altar decorations.

Polichrome woodcut, Daniel Mauch’s workshop, Museo Diocesano Tridentino.

Questionable elements, taken from folktales and popular belief, began to merge with an already established, sterotyped antisemitism.

 

From Alto Adige, April 1, 2017.

Despite the fact that the Pope had forbidden the cult, pilgrims kept flocking. The fame of the “saint” ‘s miracles grew, together with a wave of antisemitism. The fight against usury led to the accusation of loan-sharking, extended to all Jews. The following century, Pope Sistus V granted a formal beatification. The cult of Saint Simonino of Trent further solidified. The child’s embalmed body was exhibited in Trent until 1955, together with the alleged relics of the instruments of torture.

In reality, Simone Unverdorben (or Unferdorben) was found dead in a water canal belonging to a town merchant, near a Jewish man’s home, probably a moneylender. If he wasn’t victim of a killer, who misdirected the suspects on the easy scapegoat of the Jewish community, the child might have fallen in the canal and drowned. Rats could have been responsible for the mutilations. In the Nineteenth Century, accurate investigations proved the ritual homicide theory wrong. In 1965, five centuries after the murder, the Church abolished  the worship of Saint “Martyr” Simonino for good.

A violent fury against the very portraits of the “torturers” lasted for a long time. Even the San Simonino fresco in Nanto was defaced by this rage. This is the reason why, during that art exhibition, I needed some time to recognize a painting in that indistinct blur of light and colors.

My attempt at gathering the information I needed in order to make sense of the simulacrum in the Nanto parish church, led me to discover an often overlooked incident, known only to the artists who represented it, their commissioners, their audience; but the deep discomfort I felt when I first looked at the fresco still has not vanished.

La cara Pasifae


Suggested bibliography:
– R. Po – Chia Hsia, Trent 1475. Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial, Yale 1992
– A. Esposito, D. Quaglioni, Processi contro gli Ebrei di Trento (1475-1478), CEDAM 1990
– A. Toaff, Pasque di sangue: ebrei d’Europa e omicidi rituali, Il Mulino 2008

Links, curiosities & mixed wonders – 7

Back with Bizzarro Bazar’s mix of exotic and quirky trouvailles, quite handy when it comes to entertaining your friends and acting like the one who’s always telling funny stories. Please grin knowingly when they ask you where in the world you find all this stuff.

  • We already talked about killer rabbits in the margins of medieval books. Now a funny video unveils the mystery of another great classic of illustrated manuscripts: snail-fighting knights. SPOILER: it’s those vicious Lumbards again.
  • As an expert on alternative sexualities, Ayzad has developed a certain aplomb when discussing the most extreme and absurd erotic practices — in Hunter Thompson’s words, “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro“. Yet even a shrewd guy like him was baffled by the most deranged story in recent times: the Nazi furry scandal.
  • In 1973, Playboy asked Salvador Dali to collaborate with photographer Pompeo Posar for an exclusive nude photoshoot. The painter was given complete freedom and control over the project, so much so that he was on set directing the shooting. Dali then manipulated the shots produced during that session through collage. The result is a strange and highly enjoyable example of surrealism, eggs, masks, snakes and nude bunnies. The Master, in a letter to the magazine, calimed to be satisfied with the experience: “The meaning of my work is the motivation that is of the purest – money. What I did for Playboy is very good, and your payment is equal to the task.” (Grazie, Silvia!)

  • Speaking of photography, Robert Shults dedicated his series The Washing Away of Wrongs to the biggest center for the study of decomposition in the world, the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University. Shot in stark, high-contrast black and white as they were shot in the near-infrared spectrum, these pictures are really powerful and exhibit an almost dream-like quality. They document the hard but necessary work of students and researchers, who set out to understand the modifications in human remains under the most disparate conditions: the ever more precise data they gather will become invaluable in the forensic field. You can find some more photos in this article, and here’s Robert Shults website.

  • One last photographic entry. Swedish photographer Erik Simander produced a series of portraits of his grandfather, after he just became a widower. The loneliness of a man who just found himself without his life’s companion is described through little details (the empty sink, with a single toothbrush) that suddenly become definitive, devastating symbols of loss; small, poetic and lacerating touches, delicate and painful at the same time. After all, grief is a different feeling for evry person, and Simander shows a commendable discretion in observing the limit, the threshold beyond which emotions become too personal to be shared. A sublime piece of work, heart-breaking and humane, and which has the merit of tackling an issue (the loss of a partner among the elderly) still pretty much taboo. This theme had already been brought to the big screen in 2012 by the ruthless and emotionally demanding Amour, directed by Michael Haneke.
  • Speaking of widowers, here’s a great article on another aspect we hear very little about: the sudden sex-appeal of grieving men, and the emotional distress it can cause.
  • To return to lighter subjects, here’s a spectacular pincushion seen in an antique store (spotted and photographed by Emma).

  • Are you looking for a secluded little place for your vacations, Arabian nights style? You’re welcome.
  • Would you prefer to stay home with your box of popcorn for a B-movies binge-watching session? Here’s one of the best lists you can find on the web. You have my word.
  • The inimitable Lindsey Fitzharris published on her Chirurgeon’s Apprentice a cute little post about surgical removal of bladder stones before the invention of anesthesia. Perfect read to squirm deliciously in your seat.
  • Death Expo was recently held in Amsterdam, sporting all the latest novelties in the funerary industry. Among the best designs: an IKEA-style, build-it-yourself coffin, but above all the coffin to play games on. (via DeathSalon)
  • I ignore how or why things re-surface at a certain time on the Net. And yet, for the last few days (at least in my whacky internet bubble) the story of Portuguese serial killer Diogo Alves has been popping out again and again. Not all of Diogo Alves, actually — just his head, which is kept in a jar at the Faculty of Medicine in Lisbon. But what really made me chuckle was discovering one of the “related images” suggested by Google algorythms:

Diogo’s head…

…Radiohead.

  • Remember the Tsavo Man-Eaters? There’s a very good Italian article on the whole story — or you can read the English Wiki entry. (Thanks, Bruno!)
  • And finally we get to the most succulent news: my old native town, Vicenza, proved to still have some surprises in store for me.
    On the hills near the city, in the Arcugnano district, a pre-Roman amphitheatre has just been discovered. It layed buried for thousands of years… it could accomodate up to 4300 spectators and 300 actors, musicians, dancers… and the original stage is still there, underwater beneath the small lake… and there’s even a cave which acted as a megaphone for the actors’ voices, amplifying sounds from 8 Hz to 432 Hz… and there’s even a nearby temple devoted to Janus… and that temple was the real birthplace of Juliet, of Shakespearean fame… and there are even traces of ancient canine Gods… and of the passage of Julius Cesar and Cleopatra…. and… and…
    And, pardon my rudeness, wouldn’t all this happen to be a hoax?


No, it’s not a mere hoax, it is an extraordinary hoax. A stunt that would deserve a slow, admired clap, if it wasn’t a plain fraud.
The creative spirit behind the amphitheatre is the property owner, Franco Malosso von Rosenfranz (the name says it all). Instead of settling for the traditional Italian-style unauthorized development  — the classic two or three small houses secretely and illegally built — he had the idea of faking an archeological find just to scam tourists. Taking advantage of a license to build a passageway between two parts of his property, so that the constant flow of trucks and bulldozers wouldn’t raise suspicions, Malosso von Rosenfranz allegedly excavated his “ancient” theatre, with the intention of opening it to the public at the price of 40 € per visitor, and to put it up for hire for big events.
Together with the initial enthusiasm and popularity on social networks, unfortunately came legal trouble. The evidence against Malosso was so blatant from the start, that he immediately ended up on trial without any preliminary hearing. He is charged with unauthorized building, unauthorized manufacturing and forgery.
Therefore, this wonderful example of Italian ingenuity will be dismanteled and torn down; but the amphitheatre website is fortunately still online, a funny fanta-history jumble devised to back up the real site. A messy mixtre of references to local figures, famous characters from the Roman Era, supermarket mythology and (needless to say) the omnipresent Templars.


The ultimate irony is that there are people in Arcugnano still supporting him because, well, “at least now we have a theatre“. After all, as the Wiki page on unauthorized building explains, “the perception of this phenomenon as illegal […] is so thin that such a crime does not entail social reprimand for a large percentage of the population. In Italy, this malpractice has damaged and keeps damaging the economy, the landscape and the culture of law and respect for regulations“.
And here resides the brilliance of old fox Malosso von Rosenfranz’s plan: to cash in on these times of post-truth, creating an unauthorized building which does not really degrade the territory, but rather increase — albeit falsely — its heritage.
Well, you might have got it by now. I am amused, in a sense. My secret chimeric desire is that it all turns out to be an incredible, unprecedented art installations.  Andthat Malosso one day might confess that yes, it was all a huge experiment to show how little we care abot our environment and landscape, how we leave our authenticarcheological wonders fall apart, and yet we are ready to stand up for the fake ones. (Thanks, Silvietta!)

The witch girl of Albenga

And maybe it is for revenge, maybe out of fear
Or just plain madness, but all along
You are the one who suffers the most
If you want to fly, they drag you down
And if a witch hunt begins,
Then you are the witch.

(Edoardo Bennato, La fata, 1977)

Saint Calocero, Albenga. 15th Century.
A 13-year-old girl was being buried near the church. But the men who were lowering her down decided to arrange her face down, so that her features were sealed by dirt. They did so to prevent her from getting up, and raising back to life. So that her soul could not sneak off her mouth and haunt those places. They did so, ultimately, because that little girl scared them to death.
Not far from there, another woman’s body was lying in a deep pit. Her skeleton was completely burned, and over her grave, the men placed a huge quantity of heavy stones, so she could not climb out of her tomb. Because women like her, everybody knew, were bound to wake up from the dead.

The “witch girl of Albenga”, and a second female skeleton showing deep signs of burning, are two exceptional findings brought to light last year by a team from the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archeology, directed by Professor Philippe Pergola and coordinated by archeologist Stefano Roascio and Elena Dellù. Scholars were particularly puzzled by the proximity of these two anomalous burials to the ancient church which hosted the relics of martyr Saint Calocero: if these two women were considered “dangerous” or “damned”, why were they inhumed in a privileged burial ground, surely coveted by many?

One explanation could be that burying them there was a “sign of submission to the Church”. But there is still extensive analysis to be conducted on the remains, and already skeletons are revealing some clues which could shine a light on this completely forgotten story. Why would a child, not even 60 inches tall, instill such a deep fear in her fellow citizens?
Researchers found out small holes in her skull, which could show she suffered from severe anemia and scurvy. These pathologies could involve fainting, sudden bleeding and epileptic fits; all symptoms that, at the time, could have been easily interpreted as demonic possession.
A possible kinship between the two women has still to be confirmed, but both skeletons seem to show signs of metopism, a genetic condition affecting the suture of the frontal bones.
According to radiocarbon dating, the burials date back to a period between 1440 and 1530 AD – when the infamous witch hunts had already begun.

In 1326, the papal bull Super illius specula by Pope John XXII set the basis for witch hunts: as incredible as it may sound, until then intellctuals and theologists had dismissed the idea of a “commerce with the Devil” as a mere superstition, that had to be eradicated.

Therefore in those churches they are given custody of priests have to constantly predicate to God’s people that these things are completely false. […] Who has never experienced going out of one’s body during his sleep, or to have night visions and to see, while sleeping, things he had never seen while wide awake? Who could be so dull or foolish as to believe that all these things which happen in the spirit, could also happen in the body?

(Canon episcopi, X Century)

Instead, starting from the XIV Century, even the intelligentsia was convinced that witches were real, and thus began the fight not just against heresy, but also against witchcraft, a persecution the Church entrusted to mendicant orders (Dominicans and Franciscans) and which would last over four centuries. Following the publishing of Malleus Maleficarum (1487), an actual handbook about witchcraft repression, the trials increased, ironically in conjunction with the Renaissance, up until the Age of Enlightenment. The destiny of the “witch girl” of Albenga has to be framed in this complex historical period: it is not a real mystery, as some newspapers have claimed, but rather another tragic human story, its details vanishing in time. Hopefully at least a small part of it will be reconstructed, little by little, by the international team of researchers who are now working on the San Calocero excavations.

(Thanks, Silvano!)

Il Cacciatore di Streghe

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Di tutti i secoli passati, il Seicento è sicuramente fra i più bizzarri, rispetto alla sensibilità moderna.
Epidemie di vampirismo, masticatori di sudari, santi prodigiosi le cui spoglie operavano miracoli, ed infine loro, le streghe, quelle donne malvagie che stringevano alleanze con il Diavolo. Il soprannaturale era parte integrante della quotidianità, e dubitare delle sue influenze sulla vita di tutti i giorni era, secondo alcuni pensatori come ad esempio Joseph Glanvill, una vera e propria eresia: tanto abbietta quanto la negazione dell’esistenza degli angeli. Il demonio, in quegli anni, si aggirava davvero per le campagne alla ricerca di anime da catturare e dannare per l’eternità, era cioè una figura concreta, che la gente credeva di riconoscere dietro ad ogni evento peculiare.

Le streghe avevano un posto centrale nell’immaginario popolare, e chiunque poteva essere sospettato di stregoneria: una lite con una vicina di casa, seguita dalla comparsa di vaghi dolori o di una malattia del bestiame, era chiaro segnale che la donna aveva immensi poteri di provenienza diabolica. In un’epoca in cui i processi per stregoneria erano diffusi, è facile comprendere come accusare un proprio nemico d’aver stretto un patto con Satana fosse un metodo facile ed economico per toglierselo dai piedi.

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In questo contesto emerse la figura di Matthew Hopkins, il cacciatore di streghe più famoso della Storia.
Nato intorno al 1620 a Wenham Magna, minuscolo villaggio inglese nella contea di Suffolk, era il quarto dei sei figli di un pastore puritano piuttosto amato dai suoi compaesani. Della vita di Matthew prima del 1644 si conosce molto poco: sembra che avesse un’infarinatura di giurisprudenza, e che avesse acquistato una locanda a Mistley con i soldi ricevuti in eredità, ma questi aneddoti sono poco verificabili.

Quello che è certo è che all’inizio degli anni 40 del Seicento Hopkins si trasferì a Manningtree, Essex, e lì nel 1644 si autoproclamò Witchfinder General. Si trattava di un titolo che voleva sembrare ufficiale (general significa “rappresentante del Governo”), ma ovviamente il Parlamento non aveva mai istituito la carica di Cacciatore di Streghe; Hopkins era comunque ben deciso a guadagnarsi fama e fortuna, e quell’altisonante appellativo non era che l’inizio. La sua carriera vera e propria cominciò quello stesso anno, quando Hopkins dichiarò di aver sentito alcune donne parlare dei loro incontri con il demonio. Da quel momento in poi, assieme al fido compare John Stearne, cominciò a viaggiare per l’Inghilterra orientale, principalmente tra Suffolk, Essex e Norfolk, disinfestando borghi, villaggi e città dalle temute streghe.

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Hopkins e Stearne arrivavano in una nuova cittadina, annunciavano di essere stati incaricati dal Parlamento di scoprire le streghe della zona, raccoglievano denunce e “indizi”, quindi passavano ai fatti: accusavano e processavano anche venti o venticinque persone, trovavano immancabilmente le prove dell’avvenuto Patto con il diavolo, e mandavano tutti al patibolo.
Bisogna sottolineare che i processi per stregoneria erano diversi da tutti gli altri procedimenti giudiziari, perché la gravità del crimine era tale da permettere ai giudici di abbandonare le normali procedure legali ed ogni scrupolo etico (crimen exceptum): la confessione andava estorta con qualsiasi mezzo e ad ogni costo. Ma la tortura era pur sempre illegale in Inghilterra.

Così i metodi di Hopkins per scoprire se l’imputata fosse realmente una strega, pur essendo fra i più crudeli, rimanevano sempre sul limite di ciò che si poteva considerare tortura: la prassi più utilizzata prevedeva ad esempio la deprivazione del sonno. Si teneva l’imputata sveglia e immobile per giorni, seduta con le gambe incrociate e impedendole di dormire, finché la poveretta non finiva per ammettere qualsiasi cosa.

Si cercava poi sul suo corpo il Segno della Bestia – che non era difficile da trovare, visto che praticamente tutto (da un terzo capezzolo, a una zona di pelle un po’ secca, a un neo particolarmente grosso) poteva essere interpretato in tal senso. Se non vi era alcun Segno del Diavolo sul corpo, significava una sola cosa: che non era visibile ad occhio nudo. Ecco quindi entrare le assistenti di Hopkins, donne che viaggiavano con lui e che svolgevano la funzione di witch prickers, “pungolatrici di streghe”. Il Segno del Diavolo era infatti immune al dolore e non sanguinava, a quanto si diceva, e per trovarlo le witch prickers utilizzavano degli spilloni appositi tormentando il corpo della presunta strega in ogni sua parte.

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In queste lunghe ore di osservazione, spesso Hopkins e altri testimoni vedevano comparire uno o più “famigli“, cioè i demoni minori al servizio della strega, che si presentavano sotto forma di cane, gatto, capra o altri animali, e che bevevano il sangue che scorreva dal corpo della strega come fosse latte. L’apparizione di un famiglio era, com’è ovvio, uno degli indizi di colpevolezza più schiaccianti.

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C’erano pochissime probabilità che tutte queste indagini fallissero nel trovare prove inconfutabili della natura diabolica della strega. Ma se proprio non si era ancora certi, Hopkins poteva sempre ricorrere alla sua trovata più clamorosa, l’infame ordalia dell’acqua. Secondo una teoria dell’epoca, l’acqua (simbolo del battesimo, elemento purissimo) avrebbe rifiutato di accogliere una strega: bastava quindi legare l’imputata a una sedia e gettarla in un fiume o un lago. Se fosse rimasta a galla, si sarebbe trattato per forza di una strega; se fosse annegata, la sua anima innocente sarebbe volata all’altro mondo nella grazia di Dio.
Quest’ultimo metodo era davvero troppo estremo, e le autorità intimarono a Hopkins di utilizzarlo esclusivamente con il consenso della vittima; così già alla fine del 1645 la pratica venne abbandonata.

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Fin dall’inizio della loro “battuta di caccia”, in virtù degli spietati processi, i nomi di Hopkins e Stearne sparsero il terrore in tutta l’Inghilterra dell’est. Una terribile fama li precedeva, e appena circolava voce che i due, con le loro assistenti femminili, si stessero dirigendo verso un determinato villaggio, la gente del posto non dormiva certo sonni tranquilli. Anche con tutta la superstizione e le convinzioni sull’esistenza delle streghe, il popolo poteva vedere benissimo che i processi di Hopkins erano solo delle farse, il cui esito era deciso in anticipo.
Ma cosa alimentava la foga di quest’uomo nella sua missione? Ci credeva veramente, o aveva qualche interesse nascosto?

Lasciando alle spalle un’impressionante scia di cadaveri, la caccia in verità stava fruttando al Witchfinder General un lauto bottino. Nonostante lui più tardi dichiarasse che la sua paga, necessaria a sostenere la sua compagnia e tre cavalli, fosse di soli venti scellini a città, i registri contabili raccontano una realtà differente: l’onorario di Hopkins era di 23 sterline a città, più le spese di viaggio – una somma altissima per l’epoca. Le spese a carico dei vari municipi erano talmente elevate, che nella cittadina di Ipswich fu necessario istituire una tassa speciale per coprirle. Improvvisarsi cacciatore di streghe freelance era senza dubbio un colpo geniale, se non ci si faceva scrupoli a mandare a morte decine e decine di persone.

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L’eco delle gesta del Witchfinder General arrivò anche al Parlamento, e diversi membri espressero preoccupazione per il degenerare della cosa. Anche altre voci, come quella del predicatore puritano John Gaule, si levarono contro l’operato di Hopkins. Fu così che si arrivò a un peculiare ribaltamento della situazione: nella contea di Norfolk, nel 1646, i due cacciatori di streghe vennero fatti sedere sul banco degli imputati. I giudici volevano assicurarsi che non fossero stati usati mezzi di tortura per estorcere confessioni; intendevano indagare sulle parcelle richieste da Hopkins e Stearle alle comunità che avevano visitato; e infine insinuarono, in un sorprendente e ironico twist, che se Hopkins era davvero tanto esperto nella stregoneria e nella demonologia, forse nascondeva anch’egli un segreto…

Dopo questo primo interrogatorio, Hopkins comprese che sarebbe stato più saggio per lui chiudere l’attività. Quando la corte si riaggiornò nel 1647, egli era già tornato a vivere a Manningtree. La carriera del Witchfinder General durò quindi poco più di un anno, 14 mesi per la precisione. Nonostante il breve periodo, i numeri sono impressionanti: tra il 1644 e il 1646 egli fu responsabile della morte di circa trecento donne, impiccate, bruciate, annegate, o morte in prigione. Se si pensa che in totale, dall’inizio della caccia alle streghe nel primo ‘400 fino alla sua fine nel tardo ‘700, in Inghilterra furono condannate per stregoneria meno di cinquecento persone, significa che il 60% del totale delle uccisioni è da attribuirsi al Witchfinder General.

Ma la sua inquietante ombra non si limita ai processi da lui personalmente celebrati: nel 1647, già “in pensione”, Hopkins scrisse The Discovery of Witches, un vero e proprio manuale per individuare le streghe. Questo libro ebbe fortuna nel Nuovo Mondo, e fu utilizzato come testo di riferimento in vari processi, fra cui quelli, tristemente noti, di Salem nel Massachussetts.

Con il tempo la figura di Hopkins divenne quasi mitologica, una sorta di orco o di uomo nero dalla malvagità senza confini. Si racconta che venne processato per stregoneria, sottoposto al suo stesso metodo inumano di “ordalia dell’acqua”, e che morì annegato in un fiume. Ma questa è soltanto una leggenda, con un confortevole e troppo preciso contrappasso. Nella realtà Matthew Hopkins, il Witchfinder General, morì di tubercolosi il 12 agosto 1647, nel suo letto.

Nel 1968 la sua storia venne portata sul grande schermo, romanzata, da Michael Reeves nel cult Il grande inquisitore che fece scandalo per le sue insistite sequenze di tortura e nel quale il Witchfinder General è interpretato da un grande Vincent Price.

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Il libro di Hopkins, The Discovery of Witches, è disponibile gratuitamente online sul sito del Progetto Gutenberg.

La bambina nella scatola

Dietro ogni cosa bella
c’è stato qualche tipo di dolore.
(Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet)

La storia di Irina Ionesco e di sua figlia Eva suscita scandalo da quarant’anni, ed è certamente un caso unico nel panorama dell’arte contemporanea per le implicazioni etiche e morali che lo accompagnano.

Irina Ionesco, nata a Parigi da padre violinista e madre trapezista, viene abbandonata all’età di quattro anni. Spedita in Romania, paese da cui provenivano i genitori, Irina viene cresciuta dalla nonna e dagli zii nell’ambiente del circo. Nonostante sognasse di diventare ballerina, a causa del suo fisico asciutto ed elastico verrà indirizzata verso l’antica arte del contorsionismo. Dai 15 ai 22 anni gira l’Europa, l’Africa e il Medio Oriente con il circo; durante il suo spettacolo si esibisce con due serpenti boa, e più tardi dichiarerà: “ero diventata schiava di quei serpenti, e alla fine ne ho avuto abbastanza”.

Durante una convalescenza a causa di un incidente di danza a Damasco, Irina comincia a disegnare e a dipingere; abbandonato il circo, viaggia per qualche anno con un ricco giocatore d’azzardo iraniano che la copre di gioielli e abiti lussuosi, prima di studiare arte a Parigi. Poi, ecco da una parte l’incontro fortuito con la fotografia (l’artista belga Corneille le regala una reflex nel 1964), e con gli scritti sulfurei e trasgressivi di Georges Bataille dall’altra.

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Le sue fotografie, che inizialmente ritraggono amiche e amici agghindati con gli abiti che Irina aveva nel suo stesso guardaroba e fotografati al lume di candela, conoscono un immediato successo fin dalla prima esposizione. Già da questi primi scatti sono evidenti quegli elementi che attraverseranno tutta l’opera della fotografa: l’erotismo feticistico, i costumi di scena ricercati e barocchi, le pose teatrali, le collane di perle, e i dettagli gotici (teschi, corredi funebri, composizioni floreali).

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Ma le fotografie davvero controverse di Irina Ionesco non sono queste. Dal 1969 in poi, Irina decide di fotografare sua figlia Eva, di appena 4 anni, nei medesimi contesti in cui fotografa le modelle adulte. Cioè nuda, in pose da femme fatale, e agghindata soltanto con quegli accessori che avrebbero dovuto renderla un’icona dell’erotismo.

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Siamo negli anni ’70, un’epoca in cui i tabù sessuali sembrano cadere ad uno ad uno, e chiaramente il lavoro di Irina si iscrive in questo contesto storico specifico; ciononostante le foto creano un grosso scandalo – che ovviamente porta fama e successo alla fotografa. La critica discute animatamente se si tratti di arte o di pornografia, e anzi per qualcuno le fotografie proiettano un’ombra ancora più inquietante, quella dell’istigazione alla pedofilia.

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ion2Ma in tutto questo, cosa prova la piccola Eva Ionesco? È in grado, data la sua tenera età, di comprendere appieno ciò che le sta accadendo?

Mia madre mi ha fatto posare per foto al limite della pornografia fin dall’età di 4 anni. Tre volte a settimana, per dieci anni. Ed era un ricatto: se non posavo, non avevo diritto ad avere dei bei vestiti nuovi. E soprattutto non potevo vedere mia mamma. Mia madre non mi ha mai allevata; il nostro unico rapporto, erano le foto.

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Eva Ionesco diviene ben presto una piccola star: nell’ottobre del 1976, all’età di 11 anni, viene pubblicato un servizio su di lei sul numero italiano di Playboy. È la più giovane modella mai apparsa nuda sulle pagine della rivista. Seguono alcuni ingaggi come attrice (il primo nell’Inquilino del Terzo Piano di Polanski), fra i quali spicca il suo ruolo nel film “maledetto” di Pier Giuseppe Murgia, Maladolescenza, del 1977. Il film racconta la scoperta, da parte di tre adolescenti, della sessualità e degli istinti crudeli ad essa collegati, in un ambiente naturale e privo di sovrastrutture (in un chiaro riferimento al Signore delle Mosche); le due attrici protagoniste di 11 anni e il loro compagno di 17, nel film sono impegnati in scene di sesso simulato e mostrati mentre si dedicano a torture reciproche e contro gli animali. Il film non manca di una sua poesia, per quanto efferata e disturbante, ma nei decenni successivi viene ritirato, censurato, rieditato e infine condannato definitivamente per pedopornografia nel 2010 da una corte olandese.

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Da tutta questa serie di attività di modella a sfondo erotico, decise e volute dalla madre, Eva riuscirà a liberarsi proprio nel 1977, quando Irina perde l’affidamento della figlia. Eppure l’ombra di quelle fotografie perseguita Eva ancora oggi. E se madre e figlia non hanno mai avuto un vero rapporto, per anni si sono parlate soltanto per interposti avvocati.

Non vuole rendermi le stampe e i negativi. Continua a vendere un numero enorme di quelle fotografie. In Giappone si trova ancora un sacco di roba, libri, CD erotici. La gente crede che Irina Ionesco significhi soltanto foto vintage con una piccola principessa che viene spogliata. Ma io me ne frego dei reggicalze! Bisogna dire le cose come stanno: voglio far proibire le foto in cui mi si vedono il sesso e l’ano.

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I processi giudiziari, per mezzo dei quali Eva ha cercato di riappropriarsi dei propri diritti e di farsi riconsegnare dalla madre gli scatti più espliciti, hanno avuto un amaro epilogo nel 2012: il tribunale le ha riconosciuto soltanto parte delle richieste, e ha condannato Irina a versare 10.000 euro di danni e interessi per sfruttamento dell’immagine e della vita privata della figlia. Ma le foto sono ancora di proprietà della madre.

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Nel 2010 Eva ha cercato di liberarsi dei fantasmi della sua infanzia curando la regia di My Little Princess, un film in parte autobiografico in cui il personaggio della madre è affidato all’interpretazione di Isabelle Huppert e quello della bambina a una sorprendente Anamaria Vartolomei. Nel film, l’arte fotografica è vista come un’attività senza dubbio pericolosa:

Isabelle Huppert carica la macchina fotografica come un’arma. L’immagine rinchiude, rende il personaggio muto. Fotografarmi, significava mettermi in una scatola: dirmi “sii bella e stai zitta”.

E in un’altra intervista, Eva rincara la dose:

Spogliare qualcuno, fotografarlo, rispogliarlo, rifotografarlo, non è violenza? Accompagnata da parole gentili, naturalmente: sei magnifica, sublime, meravigliosa, ti adoro. […] Volevo raccontare una persona senza coscienza né barriere, dispotica e narcisa. Una persona che non vede. Fotografa, ma non vede.

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Il valore artistico dell’opera di Irina Ionesco non è mai stato messo in discussione, nemmeno dalla figlia, che le riconosce un’incontestabile qualità di stile; sono le implicazioni etiche che fanno ancora discutere a distanza di decenni. Le fotografie della Ionesco ci interrogano sui rapporti fra l’arte e la vita in modo estremo e viscerale. Esistono infatti innumerevoli esempi di opere sublimi, la cui realizzazione da parte dell’artista ha comportato o implicato la sofferenza altrui; ma fino a dove è lecito spingersi?

Forse oggi ciò che rimane è una dicotomia fra due poli contrapposti: da una parte le splendide immagini, provocanti e sensuali proprio per il fatto che ci mettono a disagio, come dovrebbe sempre fare l’erotismo vero – un mondo immaginario, quello di Irina Ionesco, che secondo Mandiargues “appartiene a un ambito che non possiamo conoscere, se non attraverso la nostra fede in fragili ricordi”.
Dall’altra, la ben più prosaica e triste vicenda umana di una madre fredda, chiusa nel suo narcisismo, che rende sua figlia una bambina-manichino, oggetto di sofisticate fantasie barocche in un’età in cui forse la piccola avrebbe preferito giocare con i compagni (cosa che Irina le ha sempre proibito).

L’innegabile fascino delle fotografie della Ionesco sarà quindi per sempre incrinato da questo conflitto insanabile – la consapevolezza che dietro quegli scatti si nascondesse un abuso; eppure questo stesso conflitto le rende particolarmente inquietanti e ambigue, addirittura al di là delle intenzioni originali dell’autrice, in quanto stimolano nello spettatore emozioni contrastanti che poche altre opere erotiche sono in grado di veicolare.

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Irina compirà 78 anni a settembre, e continua ad esporre e a lavorare. Eva Ionesco oggi ha 48 anni, e un figlio: non è davvero sorprendente che non gli abbia mai scattato una foto.

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Le interviste a cui fa riferimento l’articolo sono consultabili qui e qui.

Il Concilio cadaverico

Questa è la storia del processo post-mortem ad uno dei pontefici più perseguitati della storia, e dimostra come a Roma, tra la metà del IX secolo fino a metà del X secolo, essere papa non fosse certo una passeggiata.

Si trattava di un’epoca turbolenta, la capitale era in mano a diverse potenti famiglie aristocratiche in violenta lotta fra di loro e ognuna cercava con ogni mezzo di installare sullo scranno papale uno dei loro uomini di chiesa, protetti e sostenitori della famiglia in questione. Le rivalità per il potere, gli intrighi e l’efferatezza di queste casate, vista oggi, è certamente stupefacente: riuscivano a far deporre il pontefice in carica, o perfino ad ucciderlo per vendetta contro presunte offese e decisioni a loro sfavorevoli. Dall’872 al 965 si avvicendarono ben 24 papi, 7 dei quali assassinati. Giovanni VIII, ad esempio, venne avvelenato, ma poiché il veleno tardava a fare effetto gli venne fracassato il cranio con un martello. Stefano VIII cadde in un agguato e venne ucciso tramite orribili mutilazioni.
Visto che usualmente il nuovo papa era spalleggiato dalla famiglia nemica del papa precedente, egli spesso si accaniva sul suo predecessore, e ne annullava le decisioni. Secondo alcune fonti coeve, nel 904 Sergio III divenne il primo papa (e unico, per fortuna) ad ordinare l’uccisione di un altro papa, Leone V, incarcerato e strangolato.
In questa sanguinosa confusione le bizzarrie si sprecavano: Giovanni XI fu ordinato pontefice (si suppone) in quanto figlio illegittimo di un altro papa e imposto dalla madre-cortigiana, e Giovanni XII divenne papa quand’era ancora adolescente (incoronato a 18 anni, ricordato come uno dei papi più dissoluti e immorali).

Questo dovrebbe darvi un’idea del contesto in cui si svolse l’assurdo processo di cui stiamo per parlare, e che è a detta di molti studiosi, il “punto più basso dell’intera storia del papato”.


Papa Formoso era asceso al soglio pontificio nell’891. Il periodo, come abbiamo detto, non era dei migliori e Formoso era inviso a molti, tanto da essere stato addirittura scomunicato e poi riammesso alla Chiesa una quindicina d’anni prima. Appena diventato papa anche lui dovette far fronte alle pressioni politiche, incoronando il potente Lamberto di Spoleto come imperatore del Sacro Romano Impero. Con un coraggioso doppio gioco, però, Formoso chiamò i rinforzi dalla Carinzia, invitando il re Arnulfo a marciare su Roma e liberare l’Italia, cosa che costui fece occupando il nord Italia, fino ad essere finalmente incoronato imperatore nell’896 da Formoso. Anche per gli imperatori, a quell’epoca, le cose erano piuttosto turbolente.

Proprio mentre Arnulfo stava marciando su Spoleto per muovere guerra a Lamberto, venne colto da paralisi e non potè portare a termine la campagna. Questo spiega perché Lamberto e sua madre Ageltrude avessero, per così dire, il dente avvelenato verso papa Formoso.

Nell’aprile dell’896 Formoso morì. Dopo un papato “di passaggio”, quello di Bonifacio VI che regnò soltanto una decina di giorni, fu incoronato papa Stefano VI. Egli era appoggiato proprio da Lamberto da Spoleto (e dalla madre di lui), e come loro nutriva un odio viscerale per papa Formoso. Nemmeno la morte di quest’ultimo, avvenuta sette mesi prima, avrebbe fermato il suo odio, così terribile e devastante.

Sobillato da Ageltrude e Lamberto, Stefano VI nel gennaio dell’897 decise che Formoso, deceduto o non deceduto, andava comunque processato, e diede ordine di cominciare quello che negli annali sarà chiamato synodus horrenda, “Sinodo del cadavere” o “Concilio cadaverico”.
Fece riesumare la salma putrescente di Formoso, dispose che venisse vestita con tutti i paramenti pontifici e trasportata nella basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano.


Qui si svolse il macabro processo: il cadavere, già in avanzato stato di decomposizione, venne seduto e legato su un trono nella sala del concilio. Di fronte a lui, un uguale seggio ospitava Stefano VII attorniato dai cardinali e dai vescovi, costretti dal papa a fungere da giuria per questa grottesca farsa. A quanto si racconta, il processo fu interamente dominato da Stefano VI, che in preda a un furore isterico si lanciò in una delirante filippica contro la salma: mentre il clero spaventato assisteva con orrore, il papa urlava, gridava insulti e maledizioni contro il cadavere, lo canzonava.

Di fianco ai resti di Formoso stava in piedi un giovane e terrorizzato diacono: il suo ingrato compito era quello di difendere il cadavere, ovviamente impossibilitato a controbattere. Di fronte alla furia del pontefice, il povero ragazzo restava ammutolito e tremante, e nei rari momenti di silenzio cercava di balbettare qualche debole parola, negando le accuse.

Manco a dirlo, Formoso venne giudicato colpevole di tutti i capi contestatigli. Il verdetto finale stabilì che egli era stato indegno d’essere nominato papa, che vi era riuscito soltanto grazie alla sua smodata ambizione, e che tutti i suoi atti sarebbero stati immediatamente annullati.

E così cominciò la carneficina. Le tre dita della mano destra con cui Formoso aveva dato la benedizione vennero amputate; le vesti papali furono strappate dal cadavere, che venne poi trascinato per le strade di Roma e gettato nel Tevere. Dopo tre giorni, il corpo verrà ritrovato ad Ostia da un monaco, e nascosto dalle grinfie di Stefano VI finché quest’ultimo rimase in vita.

L’orribile e selvaggia follia del Sinodo del cadavere però non passò a lungo inosservata: tutta Roma, rabbiosa e indignata per il maltrattamento delle spoglie di Formoso, insorse contro Stefano VI, che dopo pochi mesi venne imprigionato e strangolato nell’agosto dell’897.

I due pontefici successivi riabilitarono Formoso; le sue spoglie, nuovamente vestite con i paramenti pontifici, vennero inumate in pompa magna nella Basilica di San Pietro (non immaginatevi quella attuale, ovviamente, all’epoca una basilica costantiniana sorgeva sul medesimo sito). Tutte le decisioni prese da Formoso durante il suo pontificato vennero ristabilite.

Ma ancora non era del tutto finita. Vi ricordate quel papa che mandò a morte un altro papa, e che fece salire al soglio pontificio il suo figlio illegittimo? Costui era papa Sergio III, incoronato nel 904 e di fazione anti-Formoso; egli dichiarò nuovamente valido il Sinodo del cadavere, annullando così ancora una volta le disposizioni ufficiali del vecchio papa. A questo punto fu la Chiesa stessa ad insorgere, anche perché molti vescovi ordinati da Formoso avevano ormai a loro volta ordinato altri sacerdoti e vescovi… per evitare la baraonda, Sergio III dovette tornare sui suoi passi. Si prese la sua piccola rivincita comunque, facendo incidere sulla tomba di Stefano VI un epitaffio che ne esaltava l’operato e denigrava l’odiato Formoso.

Il setaccio del tempo, però, non gli renderà onore. Sergio III verrà giudicato come un assassino e un uomo dissoluto, e sarà ricordato principalmente per aver permesso a Teodora, madre della concubina con cui egli si intratteneva, di instaurare in Vaticano una primitiva forma di pornocrazia.
Papa Formoso, dal canto suo, arriverà quasi alle soglie della beatificazione. Eppure, ad oggi, non c’è mai stato un papa Formoso II. A dir la verità, il Cardinale Barbo, quando fu incoronato pontefice nel 1464, ci aveva fatto un pensierino, perché gli piaceva l’idea di essere ricordato come un papa di bella presenza (formosus, “bello”). I suoi cardinali, però, riuscirono a dissuaderlo, ed egli scelse il più tranquillo nome di Paolo II.

(Grazie, Alessandro & Diego!)

La Chiesa dei Morti

La Chiesa dei Morti ad Urbania, nelle Marche, ospita 18 corpi mummificati, di cui 15 sono mummie naturali. I loro corpi, cioè, si sono conservati grazie ad alcune particolarità ambientali, e non a causa di procedimenti artificiali di preservazione.

Sembra che la ragione di questa perfetta mummificazione sia da imputare a una particolare muffa (Hipha bombicina pers): i corpi essiccati, grazie anche alle proprietà geologiche del suolo, si sarebbero ricoperti interamente di questa muffa che avrebbe impedito l’accesso dell’aria ai tessuti, e di conseguenza la putrefazione. I cadaveri, oltre alla struttura scheletrica, conservano la pelle, gli organi interni e in alcuni casi anche i capelli e gli organi genitali.

Dalla pagina del sito ufficiale del Comune dedicata alle mummie (che contiene anche informazioni e orari):

“Ciascuno dei 18 personaggi nasconde vicende e storie sorprendenti.
Al centro del gruppo il priore della Confraternita Vincenzo Piccini, la moglie Maddalena e il figlio (che furono mummificati in seguito, con procedimenti chimici e non naturali). Quindi altri corpi, sormontati da cartigli con frasi bibliche che invitano a meditare sulla caducità della vita.
Tra le mummie più antiche quelle del fornaio detto “Lunano” e della donna morta di parto.
Tra i 18 corpi c’è anche quello del giovane accoltellato in una veglia danzante, con lo squarcio della lama; di questo personaggio viene mostrato il cuore essiccato e trafitto dal pugnale; quindi è esposta la mummia dell’impiccato.
Fra tutte, la storia più drammatica, è certamente quella dell’uomo che, si racconta, fu sepolto vivo in stato di morte apparente e si risvegliò nella tomba.”

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(Grazie, Giuseppe!)