The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe

by Zika; Charles

• ISBN13: 9780415563550
• ISBN10: 0415563550
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2009-10-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Fascinating and informative, this book explores how visual representations of witchcraft contributed to the widespread acceptance of beliefs in sixteenth-century Europe and helped establish the conditions for the widespread persecution of witches.

Author Biography

Charles Zika is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. He researches the cultural and religious history of late medieval and early modern Europe. Among his publications are Exorcising our Demons: magic, witchcraft and visual culture in early modem Europe (2003).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vi
Preface	p. xi
A note on names, spelling and citation	p. xiii
List of abbreviations	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
Fashioning a new visual language for witchcraft	p. 11
The transformation of sorcery and magic in the fifteenth century	p. 36
Witches' cauldrons and women's bodies	p. 70
Wild riders, popular folklore and moral disorder	p. 99
Transformation, death and sexuality in the classical world	p. 125
A biblical necromancer and two Christian saints	p. 156
Reporting the news and reading the signs	p. 179
On the margins of Christian Europe	p. 210
Notes	p. 237
Works cited	p. 268
Index	p. 290
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