Magic and sorcery in mediaeval Italy (also see Rome) seem strangely enough to have centred round many great personalities of the church, and even several popes have been included by the historians of occult science in the ranks of Italian sorcerers and alchemists. There appears to have been some sort of tradition, the origin of which is by no means clear, that the popes had been given over to the practice of magic ever since the tenth century, and it was alleged that Silvester II. confessed to this charge on his death-bed. Levi states tnat Honorius III., who preached the Crusades, was an abominable necromancer, and author of a grimoire or book by which spirits were evoked, the use of which is reserved exclusively to the priesthood. Platina, quoting from Martinus Polonus, states that Silvester, who was a proficient mathematician and versed in the Kabala on one occasion evoked Satan himself and obtained his assistance to gain the pontifical crown. Furthermore he stipulated as the price of selling his soul to the Devil that he should not die except at Jerusalem, to which place he inwardly determined he would never betake himself. He duly became Pope, but on one occasion whilst celebrating mass in a certain church at Rome, he felt extremely ill, and suddenly remembered that he was officiating in a chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross of Jerusalem. He had a bed set up in the chapel, to which he summoned the cardinals, and confessed that he had held communication with the powers of evil. He further arranged that when dead his body should be placed upon a car of green wood, and should be drawn by two horses, one black and the other white; that they should be started on their course, but neither led nor driven, and that where they halted there his remains should be entombed. The conveyance stopped in front of the Lateran, and at this juncture most terrible noises proceeded from it, which led the bystanders to suppose that the soul of Silvester had been seized upon by Satan in virtue of their agreement. There is no doubt whatsoever that most of these legends concerning papal necromancers are absolute inventions and can be traced through Platina and Polonus to Galfridus and Gervaise, the necromancer, whom Naude has rightly termed " the greatest forger of fables, and the most notorious liar that ever took pen in hand ! " On a par with such stories is that of Pope Joan, who tor several years sat on the papal throne although a woman, and who was supposed to be one of the blackest sorceresses of all time. To her many magic books are attributed. Levi has an interesting passage in his Hisory of Magic, in which he states that certain engravings in a Life of this female pope, purporting to represent her, are nothing else than ancient tarots representing Isis crowned with a tiara. " It is well-known," he says, " that the hieroglyphic figure on the second tarot card is still called ' The Female Pope,' being a woman
•wearing a tiara, on which are the points of the crescent moon, or the horns of Isis." It is much more possible that the author of the grimoire in question was Konorius II., the anti-pope, or perhaps another Honorius who is described AS the son of Euclid and master of the Thebans. But all Italianneoromancersand magicians were by no means churchmen—indeed mediaeval Italy was hardly a place for the magically inclined, so stringent were the Jaws of the church against the Black Art. Astrology, however, flourished to
•some extent, and its practitioners do not appear to have been unduly persecuted. A Florentine astrologer, named Basil, who flourished at the beginning of the fifteenth century, obtained some repute for successful predictions ; and is said to have foretold to Cosmo de Medici that he would .attain exalted dignity, as the same planets had been in ascendency at the hour of his birth, as in that of the Emperor Charles V. Many remarkable predictions were made by Antiochus Tibertus of Romagna, who was for some time councillor to Pandolpho de Maletesta, Prince of Rimini. He foretold to his friend, Guido de Bogni, the celebrated soldier, that he was unjustly suspected by his best friend, and would forfeit his life through suspicion. Of himself he predicted that he would die on the scaffold, and of the Prince of Rimini, his patron, that he would die a beggar in the hospital for the poor at Bologna. It is stated that the prophecies came true in every detail.
Although the notices of sorcery in mediaeval times are few and far between in Italian history, there is reason to suspect that although magic was not outwardly practised, it lurked hidden in by-paths and out-of-the-way places. We have an excellent portrait of the mediaeval Italian magician in those popular myths regarding Virgil the Enchanter. The fame of Virgil the Poet had waxed so great in ancient Italy, that in due course of time his name was synonymous with fame itself. From that it is a short step to the attribution of supernatural power, and Virgil the Roman poet became in the popular mind the mediaeval Enchanter. His myth is symptomatic of magic in mediaeval Italy as a whole, and it may therefore be given here at some length.
When the popular myth of Virgil the Enchanter first grew into repute is uncertain, but probably the earliest faint conception arose about the beginning of the tenth century, and each succeeding generation embroidered upon it some fantastic impossibility. Soon, in the South
•of Italy—for the necromancer's fame was of southern origin—there floated dim, mysterious legends of the
•enchantments which he had wrought. Thus he fashioned a brazen fly, and planted it on the gate of fair Parthenope to free the city from the inroads of the insects of Beelzebub. On a Neapolitan hill he built a statue of brass, and placed in its mouth a trumpet; and lo ! when the north wind blew there came from that trumpet so terrible a roar that it drove back into the sea the noxious blasts of Vulcan's forges, which, even to this day, seethe and hiss near the city of Puossola. At one of the gates of Naples he raised two statues of stone, and gifted them respectively with the power of blighting or blessing the strangers who, on entering the city, passed by one or the other of them. He constructed three public baths for the removal of every disease which afflicts the human frame, but the physicians, in a
•wholesome dread of losing their patients and their fees,
caused them to be destroyed. Other wonders he wrought, which in time assumed a connected form, and were woven into a life of the enchanter, first printed in French about 1490-1520. A still fuller history appeared in English, the well-known " Life of Virgilius," about 1508, printed by Hans Doesborcke at Antwerp. It sets forth with tolerable clearness the popular type of the mediaeval magician, and will be our guide in the following biographical sketch.
'' Virgil was the son of a wealthy senator of Rome, wealthy and powerful enough to carry on war with the Roman Emperor. As his birth was heralded by extraordinary portents, it is no marvel that even in childhood he showed himself endowed with extraordinary mental powers, and his father having the sagacity to discern in him an embryo necromancer, sent him, while still very young, to study at the University of Toledo, where the " art of magick " was taught with extraordinary success.
" There he studied diligently, for he was of great understanding, and speedily acquired a profound insight into the great Shemaia of the Chaldean lore. But this insight was due, not so much to nocturnal vigils over abstruse books, as to the help he received from a very valuable familiar. And this was the curious fashion in which he was introduced to the said familiar:—
" ' Upon a tyme the scholers at Tolenten hadde lycence to goo to playe and sporte them in the fyldes after the usuance of the olde tyme; and there was also Virgilius therby also walkynge among the hyiles all about. It fortuned he spyed a great hole in the syde of a great hyll, wherein he went to depe that he culde not see no more lyght, and than he went a lytell ferther therein, and then he sawe soon lyght agayne, and than wente he fourth streyghte. And within a lyteli wyle after he harde a voice that called, ' Virgilius, Vhgilius,' and he loked aboute, and he colde nat see nobodye. Than Virgilius spake, and asked, ' Who calleth me ?' Than harde he the voyce agayne, but he sawe nobodye. Than sayd he, ' Virgilius, see ye not that lytell bourde lyinge byside you there, marked with that worde ?' Than answered Virgilius, ' I see that borde well enough.' The voyce said, ' Doo away that bourde, and lette me out theratte.'
" ' Than answered Virgilius to the voyce that was under the lytell bourde, and sayd, ' Who art thou that talkest me so ?' Than answered the devyll, ' I am a devyll conjured out of the body of a certeyne man, and bahysshed here tyll the daye of jugement, without that I be delyvered by the handes of men. Thus, Virgilius, I pray thee delyver me out of this payn, and I shall sho\v unto thee many bokes of nygromancy, and how thou shalt cum by it lytly, and shalte knowe the practyse therein, that no man in the science of nygromancy shall (sur)pass thee; and, moreover, I shall showe and informe thee so that thou shalt have all thy desyre, whereby methinke it is a great gyfte for so lytell a donyge, for ye may also thus all your poor frendys helpen, and make ryghte your ennemyes un-mighty.'
" Thorough that great promise was Virgilius tempted. He badde the fynd showe the bokes to hym, that he myght have and occupy them at his wyll. And so the fynd showed hym, and then Virgilius pulled open a bourde, and there was a lytell hole, and thereat wrange the devyll out lyke a yeel, and cam and stode before Virgilius lyke a bigge man.
"' Thereof Virgilius was astonied, and merveyled greately thereof, that so great a man myght com out at so lytell a hole I
" ' Then sayd Virgilius, ' Shulde ye well passe into the hole that ye cam out of ?! ' Yes, I shall well,' sayd the devyll. ' I holde the beste pledge that I have, ye shall
not do it.' ' Well,' sayd the devyll, ' thereto I consente.' And then the devyll wrange hymself into the iytell hole agen, and as he was therein, Virgilius kyvered the hole agen with the bourde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and myght not there come out agen, but there abydeth shutte styll therein. Than called the devyll dredefully (drearily) to Virgilius, and sayd, ' What have ye done ?' Virgilius answered, ' Abyde there styll to your day apoynted.' And fro thensforth abydeth he there.' "
Virgil's father died soon after this event, and his estates being seized by his former colleagues, his widow sunk into extreme poverty. Virgil accordingly gathered together the wealth he had amassed by the exercise of his magical skill, and set out for Rome, to replace his mother in a position proper to her rank. At Toledo, however, he was a famous student; at Rome he was a despised scholar, and when he besought the Emperor to execute justice and restore to him his estate, that potentate— ignorant of the magician's power—simply replied, ' Me-thinketh that the land is well divided to them that have it, for they may help you in their need; what needeth you for to care for the disheriting of one school-master Bid him take heed, and look to his schools, for he hath no right to any land here about the city of Rome.'
Four years passed, and only such replies as this were vouchsafed to Virgil's frequent appeals for justice. Growing at length a-weary of the delay, he resolved to exercise his wondrous powers in his own behalf. When the harvest-time came, he accordingly shrouded the whole of his rightful inheritance with a vapour so dense that the new proprietors were unable to approach it, and under its cover his men gathered in the entire crop with perfect security. This done, the mist disappeared. Then a great indignation possessed the souls of his enemies, and they assembled their swordsmen, and marched against him to take off his head. Such was their power that the Emperor for fear fled out of Rome, ' for they were twelve senators that had all the world under them; and if Virgilius had had right, he had been one of the twelve, but they had disinherited him and his mother." When they drew near, Virgil once more baffled their designs by encircling his patrimony with a rampart of cloud and shadow.
The Emperor, with surprising inconsistency, now coalesced with the senators against Virgil—whose magical powers he probably feared far more than the rude force of the senatorial magnates—and made war against him. But who can prevail against the arts of necromancy ? Emperor and senators were beaten, and from that moment Virgil, with marvellous generosity, became the faithful friend and powerful supporter of his sovereign. ....."
It may not generally be known that Virgil, besides being the saviour of Rome, was the founder of Naples. This feat had its origin, like so many other great actions, in the power of love.
Virgil's imagination had been fired by the reports that reached him of the surpassing loveliness of the Sultan's daughter. Now the Sultan lived at Babylon (that is, at Cairo—the Babylon of the mediaeval romancers), and the distance might have daunted a less ardent lover and less potent magician. But Virgil's necromantic skill was equal to a bridge in the air—where other glowing spirits have often raised fair castles !—and passing over it, he found his way into the Sultan's palace,—into the Princess's chamber,—and speedily overcoming her natural modesty, bore her back with him to his Italian bower of pleasaunce. There having enjoyed their fill of love and pleasure, he restored to her bed in her father's palace. Meanwhile, her absence had been noted, but she was soon discovered on her return, and the Sultan repairing to her chamber, interrogated her respecting her disappearance. He found that
she knew not who it was that had carried her off, nor whither she had been carried.
When Virgil restored the lady on the following night, she took back with her, by her father's instructions, some of the fruit plucked from the enchanter's garden; and from its quality the Sultan guessed that she had been carried to a southern land " on the side of France." These nocturnal journeys being several times repeated, and the Sultan's curiosity growing ungovernable, he persuaded his daughter to give her lover a sleeping-draught. The deceived magician was then captured in the Babylonian-palace, and flung into prison, and it was decreed that both he and his mistress should be punished for their love by death at the stake.
Necromancers, however, are not so easily outwitted. As soon as Virgil was apprized of the fate intended for him, he made, by force of his spells, the Sultan and all his lords believe that the great river of Babylon—the might Nilus— was overflowing in the midst of them, and that they swam and lay and sprang like geese; and so they took up Virgilius and the Princess, tore them from their prison, and placed them upon the aerial bridge. And when they were thus out of danger, he delivered the Sultan from the river, and all the lords ; and lo, when they recovered their humanity,, they beheld the enchanter bearing the beautiful Princess across the Mediterranean; and they marvelled much, and felt that they could not hope to prevail against his supernatural power.
And in this manner did Virgilius convey the Sultan's daughter over the sea to Rome. And he was highly enamoured of her beauty. " Then he thought in his mind how he might marry her "—apparently forgetting that he was already married—" and thought in his mind to found in the midst of the sea a fair town with great lands belonging to it; and so he did by his cunning, and called it Naples : and the foundation of it was of eggs. And in that town of Naples he made a tower with four corners and on the top he set an apple upon an iron yard, and no man could pull away that apple without he brake it; and through that iron set he a bottle, and on that bottle set he an egg; and he hanged the apple by the stalk upon a chain, and so hangeth it still. And when the egg stirreth, so-should the town of Naples quake; and when the egg brake, then should the town sink. When he had made an end, he let call it Naples."
After accomplishing so much for his Babylonian beauty, Virgil did not marry her, but endowing her with the town of Naples and its lands, gave her in marriage to a certain grandee of Spain. Having thus disposed of her and her children, the enchanter returned to Rome, collected all his treasures, and removed them to the city he had founded, where he resided for some years, and established a school which speedily became of illustrious renown. Here he-lost his wife, by whom he had had no issue; built baths and bridges, and wrought the most extraordinary miracles. So passed an uncounted number of years, and Virgil at length abandoned Naples for ever, and'retired to Rome.
" Outside the walls of the Imperial City he built a goodly town, that had but one gate, and was so fenced round with water as to bar any one fiom approaching it. And the entry of its one gate was made " with twenty-four iron flails, and on each side was there twelve men smiting" with the flails, never ceasing, the one after the other ; and no man might come in without the flails stood still, but he-was slain. And these flails were made with such a gin (contrivance) that Virgilius stopped them when he Hst to enter in thereat, but no man else could find the way. And in this castle put Virgilius part of his treasure privily ; and, when this was done, he imagined in his mind by what means he might make himself young again, because he thought to live longer many years, to do many wonders and marvellous things. And upon a time went Virgilius to the Emperor, and asked him of licence (of absence) by the space of three weeks. But the Emperor in no wise would grant it unto him for he would have Virgihus at all times by him."
Spiritualism.—We have perhaps our first indication of the rise and spread of spiritualism in Italy in the modern acceptance of the term in an article published in the Civitta Catholica the well-known Roman organ, entitled " Modern Necromancy." The conclusions of the article were :—
" ist. Some of the phenomena may be attributed to imposture, hallucinations, and exaggerations in the reports of those who describe it, but there is a foundation of reality in the general sum of the reports which cannot have originated in pure invention or be wholly discredited without ignoring the value of universal testimony.
" 2nd. The bulk of the theories offered in explanation of the proven facts, only cover a certain percentage of those facts, but utterly fail to account for the balance.
" 3rd. Allowing for all that can be filtered away on mere human hypotheses, there are still a large class of phenomena appealing to every sense which cannot be accounted for by any known natural laws, and which seem to manifest the action of intelligent beings."
D. D. Home last visited the principal cities of Italy in 1852, and had been so active in his propaganda that numerous circles were formed after his departure. Violent journalistic controversies arose out of the foundation of these societies, with the result that public interest was so aroused that it could only be satisfied with the publication of a paper issued from Geneva, and edited by Dr Pietro Suth and Signer B. E. Manieri entitled // amore del Vero. In the journal accounts of the spiritual movements in the various countries of Europe, and America, were published although the Church and press levelled the anathemas against the journal. In the spring of 1863 a society was proved at Palermo entitled II Societa Spiritual di Palermo, which had for president Signor J. V. Paleolozo, and for members men of the stamp of Paolo Morelle, professor of Latin and Philosophy.
It was about the autumn of 1864 that lectures were first given on Spiritualistic subjects in Italy. They were started in Leghorn and Messina, and though of a very mixed character, and often partaking largely of the lecturer's peculiar idiosyncrasies on religious subjects, they served to draw attention to the upheaval of thought going on in all directions, in connection with the revelations from the Spirit world. It could not be expected that a movement so startling and unprecedented as that which opened up a direct communication between the natural and the Spirit worlds could gain ground in public acceptance without waking up all the latent elements of enthusiasm, fanaticism, and bigotry, which prevailed in the Italian as in every other community.
In the year 1870, there had been over a hundred different societies formed, with varying success, in different parts of Italy. Two of the most prominent flourishing at that date were conducted in Naples, and according to the French journal, the Revue Spirite represented the two opposing schools which have prevailed in Continental Spiritualism, namely, the " Reincarnationists " whom we have elsewhere classified as " Spiritists " and the " Immortalists," or those known in America and England merely as " Spiritualists." (See France.)
About 1868, an immense impulse was communicated to the cause of Spiritualism—at least in the higher strata of Italian Society—by the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Guppy to Naples, at which place they took up their residence for two or three years. Mrs. Guppy—nee Miss Nichol—of London,
was renowned throughout Europe for her marvellous powers* as a " Physical force Medium " and as Mr. Guppy's wealth and social standing enabled him to place his gifted wife's services at the command of the distinguished visitors who-crowded his salons, it soon became a matter of notoriety that the highest magnates of the land, including King Victor Emmanuel and many of his nearest friends and counsellors, had yielded conviction to the truth of the astounding phenomena exhibited through Mrs. Guppy's Mediumship.
It was about the year 1863, that Spiritualism began to enjoy the advantage of fair and honourable representation in the columns of a new paper entitled, the Annali dello Spiritismo, or " Annals of Spiritualism." This excellent journal was commenced at Turin, and published by Signor Niceforo Filalete, with all the liberality, energy, and talent worthy alike of the subject and its editor.
From the columns of the Annali we learn that a Venetian Society of Spiritualists, named " Atea " elected General Giuseppe Garibaldi their honorary president, and received the following reply by telepraph from the distinguished hero, the liberator of Italy: " I gratefully accept the presidency of the Society Atea. Caprera, 23rd September."
The same issue of the Annali contains a verbatim leport of a " grand discourse, given at Florence, by a distinguished literary gentleman, Signor Sebastiano Fenzi, in which the Listeners were considerably astonished by a rehearsal of the many illustrious names of those who openly avowed their faith in Spiritualism.
The years 1863-4 appear to have been rich in Spiritualistic efforts. Besides a large number of minor associations, the existence of which was recorded from time to time the early numbers of the Annali and Revue Spirile, a society which continued for a long time to exert a marked influence in promoting the study of occult forces and phenomena, was formed about this time in Florence, under the title of The Magnetic Society of Florence. The members of this association were without exception persons remarkable for literary and scientific attainments, or those of high influential position in society. .
About this time Mr. Seymour Kirkup, a name familiar to the early initiators of Spiritualism, resided in Florence, and communicated many records of spiritual phenomena to the London Spiritual Magazine. Nearly ten years after the establishment of the Magnetic Society of Florence, Baron Guitern de Bozzi, an eminent occultist, founded the Pneumatological Psychological Academy of Florence, but upon his demise it was discontinued.
Modern Sorcery.—In his Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches of Italy, the late Charles Godfrey Leland gives a valuable account of the life and practice of the modern Italian s/rega or witch. He says : " In most cases she comes of a family in which her calling or art has been practised for many generations. I have no doubt that there are instances in which the ancestry remounts to mediaeval, Roman, or it may be Etruscan times. The result has naturally been the accumulation in such families of much tradition. But in Northern Italy, as its literature indicates, though there has been some slight gathering of fairy tales and popular superstitions by scholars, there has never existed the least interest as regarded the strange lore of the witches, nor any suspicion that it embraced an incredible quantity of old Roman minor myths and legends, such a& Ovid has recorded, but of which much escaped him and all other Latin writers. ..... Even yet there are old people in
the Romagna of the North who know the Etruscan names-of the Twelve Gods, and invocations to Bacchus, Jupiter, and Venus, Mercury, and the Lares or ancestral spirits, and in the cities are women who prepare strange amulets, over which they mutter spells, all known in the old Roman time. and who can astonish even the learned bv their legends of Latin gods, mingled with lore whieh may be found in Cato or Theocritus. With one of these I became intimately acquainted in 1886, and have ever since employed her specially to collect among her sisters of the lu'dden spell in many places all the traditions of the olden times known to them. It is true that I have drawn from other sources but this woman by long practice has perfectly learned what .few understand, or just what I. want, and how to extract it from those of her kind.
" Among other strange relics, she succeeded, after many years, in obtaining the following ' Gospel,' which I have in her handwriting A full account of its nature with many details will be found in an Appendix. I do not know definitely whether my informant derived a part of these traditions from written sources or oral narration, but believe it was chiefly the latter. .....
" For brief explanation I may say that witchcraft is known to its votaries as la vecchia religion?, or the old religion, of which Diana is the Goddess, her daughter Aradia (or Herodias) the female Messiah, and that this little work sets forth how the latter was'born, came down to earth, established witches and witchcraft, and then returned to heaven. With it are given the ceremonies and invocations or incantations to be addressed to Diana and Aradia, the exorcism of Cain, and the spells of the holystone, rue, and verbena, constituting, as the text declares, the regular church-service, so to speak, which is to be -chanted or pronounced at the witch-meetings. There are also included the very carious incantations or benedictions of the honey, meal, and salt, or cakes of the witch-supper, which is curiously classical, and evidently a relic of the Roman Mysteries."
Briefly the ritual of the Italian witches is as follows: At the Sabbath they take meal and salt, honey and water, .and say a conjuration over these, one to the meal, one to the salt, one to Cain, one to Diana, the moon-goddess.
They then sit down naked to supper, men and women, and after the feast is over they dance, sing and make love in the darkness, quite in the manner of the mediaeval Sabbath of the sorcerers. Many charms are given connected with stones, especially if these have holes in them and are found by accident. A lemon stuck full of pins we are told is a good omen. Love-spells fill a large space in the little work, which for the rest recounts several myths of Diana and Endymion in corrupted form. (See also Leland's Etruscan-Roman Remains.)