Um dos maiores historiadores contemporâneos, Carlo Ginzburg reconstitui um fato até então ignorado e que joga nova luz sobre a questão da feitiçaria. Os "andarilhos do bem" (benandanti) - como são chamados no Friuli, entre o final do século XVI e a primeira metade do XVII, os praticantes de um culto da fertilidade - apresentam-se, num primeiro momento, como defensores das colheitas contra bruxas e feiticeiros, a quem, em sonho ou durante um delírio semionírico, combatem com ramos de erva-doce nas mãos. Caso vençam, as colheitas de trigo ou de uva serão soberbas no ano seguinte; perdendo, o resultado será a fome. Descobridor de uma religiosidade não cristã, ligada à fecundidade agrícola e às crenças perigosas no além, Carlo Ginzburg demonstra neste livro magistral que a erudição mais escrupulosa muitas vezes tem afinidades estreitas com o fantástico.

Hoewel dit mogelijk zo lijkt, is de theorie van het bestaan van een heksencultus, voorafgaand aan en tijdens de heksenvervolgingen, niet helemaal doodverklaard of door onderzoekers algemeen afgedaan als romantische onzin. Zo schreef de 20e-eeuwse Italiaanse historicus Carlo Ginzburg bijvoorbeeld over de Benandanti en hun vruchtbaarheidscultus op het Noord—Italiaanse platteland in de 16e en 17e eeuw. Tussen 1575 en 1675 werden ze vervolgd als ketters of heksen door de Inquisitie. Die Benandanti claimden ook hun lichaam te kunnen verlaten en te kunnen vliegen. De vervolging leidde volgens Ginzburg tot de uitroeiing van de cultus van de Benandanti.[3] Hij behoort tot een klein aantal geleerden dat pleit voor een aangepaste versie van de heksencultus-hypothese, waarbij wel vastgehouden wordt aan het idee dat voorchristelijke religieuze praktijken tot in de vroegmoderne tijd overleefden en bijdroegen aan de vorming van de stereotypering van 'de heks' in Europa. Geleerden zijn het er nu wel over eens dat de benandanti gelden als een van de beste voorbeelden van overlevende restanten van oude heidense vruchtbaarheidsriten in de vroegmoderne Europese samenleving.[4] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heksencultus-hypothese

I managed 80 pages. And it IS interesting...I should imagine the author must have got quite immersed in transcribing the 16th century inquisitorial evidence on the witches of the remote Italian region of Friuli. But there's quite a sameness abouit the allegations, and I abandoned yet another out-of-body experience for something more lowbrow.
Essentially, Ginzburg is considering the strange cult of the Benandanti - a select group of persons (all born in a caul) who, as adults, would be called on to do battle for the forces of good against local witches. Their spirit left the body (a dangerous procedure, as if the body were moved or buried in its absence, they would become unquiet spirits) and went off to engage with warlocks...the baddies armed with sorghum stalks, the Benandanti with fennel. The result meant success (or failure) of the crops.
Of course the reader's immediate query is 'what was going on here?' There's a definite theme throughout the 'vagabonds' 'conversations with the church- and many took place with no torture involved. Ginzburg posits some vague thoughts on hallucinogenic ointments, cataleptic trances and self-induced ecstasies, but there is no answer to why? how? why don't they do it now?
More helpful is his investigation into the origins of the cult...links to various Germanic and Slavonic beliefs, benevolent Livonian werewolves and much more, including a mother-goddess cult based around Diana and a Wild Hunt, imported from the Middle East.
Ginzburg argues that the Benandanti saw themselves as the direct opposite to witches, but that repeated dealings with a disapproving Catholic church conflated the two.
Certainly reading this sends the reader off to google these places where such fabulous stuff happened. And the records bring to life the personalities of the time who would otherwise have disappeared from history...little bits about their lives, finances, families emerge from the documents.
But that's as far as I got...went off for a bit of light relief from Philippa Gregory! ( )

quando vedo su un banco di libreria uno di quei tomi di centinaia di pagine, con titoli a sensazione e copertine a tinte forti che pretendono di spiegare che cosa sia stata la stregoneria, mi viene il nervoso e penso a Carlo Ginzburg.
In questo libro, circa 250 pagine di piccolo formato, il più originale storico modernista italiano in attività, ricostruisce una vicenda di ritualità magica, senza fronzoli, ma con grande rigore filologico.
E' stato il primo a ri-scoprire questi tipetti dei benandanti e poi molti ne hanno approffittato ma, a mio giudizio, l'originale resta sempre il migliore.
Uno di quei lavori dai quali si può evincere che la storiografia seria forse è un "mattone", ma non è mai una palla. ( )

This book presents an extraordinarily complex set of historical data that even beginning to write about it seems like a daunting task. Making matters short and sweet for the sake of reviewing a book of such scholarship might not be advisable, but that’s what I’ll try to do here.

This book carefully combines an analysis of folklore, popular tradition, and culture. In the Friuli region of Italy, a group known as the “benandanti” (literally “well-farers” or “good walkers” but literally translated here as the “night battlers”) leave their villages on prescribed nights of the year to engage in fights with witches. These men and women who identify themselves as benandanti are born with the caul – that is, a piece of amniotic sac around their necks – and are thereby marked as benandanti from birth. According to them, the purpose of these nighttime adventures were to fight witches who were trying to infect and kill crops; they saw themselves as protectors of the crop. Therefore, they are usually identified as an “agrarian cult.” The origins of this cult are ambiguous, but seem to date back to older German divinity cults, and especially the auspices of the goddess Diana. No matter their origins, this is most important: the benandanti always imagined themselves as warriors for the Christian God, and completely Christian themselves.

The most fascinating part of the book, which by far takes up most of its content, is what happens when this cult meets the Catholic Church in the form of the Inquisition. Over a very long period of time, this interaction slowly turns a very Christian cult into a devilish coven of witches convening at a sabbat fighting against God, and therefore against the Church. Members were called before Church trials and demanded to explain their experiences. Some claimed that the night battles were oneiric visions, while others insinuated that they were quite “real.” Other irregularities were quickly latched onto by the Church, and it was soon turned into, at least in the eyes of the Church, nothing short of witchcraft.

Because Ginzburg spends most of his time showing this careful transformation, the numerous – perhaps a few dozen – case studies presented are all carefully examined, sometimes dropped, picked up later in the text, and then re-examined; this can make the thread of the argument and its most prominent actors difficult to keep straight. Despite Ginzburg’s tight, short presentation, parts of the book can seem repetitive. Of course, this aspect of the book is essential for scholars of the Italian folklore of the time, but it can be more than a little tedious for someone just interested in one of the more seminal texts in the development of what we now call “microhistory.” While this might be difficult for someone with a less-than-scholarly interest in this material, it is nonetheless a careful and very important study that deserves the attention it has garnered. ( )