Del Congresso Notturno delle Lammie. Libri tre s'aggiungono due dissertazioni epistolari sopra l'arte magica
TARTAROTTI, Girolamo.
Venezia: Giambatista Pasquali, 1749. First Edition Hardcover, Quarto, xxxii + 460pp (ii). Contemporary (?) pig skin, with gilt stamped leather title label to spine. Title page in red and black, with central woodcut design. Occasional woodcut initials and head and tailpieces. Text in Italian. An interesting work by Girolamo Tartarotti (1702 - 1761) an Italian journalist and historian. At the time of writing there was a renewed interest in witchcraft and satanism following the Cadiere-Girard scandals at Toulon, and widespread rumours that the upper echelons of Parisian society were said to be awash with witches, necromancers, satatnists, and alchemists. A number of significant works on magic and witchcraft had also been issued or reissued in the earlier decades of the century. "Del Congresso notturno delle Lammie" ("A Study of the Midnight Sabbats of Witches") was a largely skeptical study of witchcraft drawn from broad research involving some four hundred earlier books and other sources. Whilst Tartarotti denied the existance of supernatural powers, sabbats, and witchcraft as it was popularly he did make a connection between witchcraft and Goddess worshipping folk religion (refered by to by hims as the "Dianic Cult"). Tartarotti even went so far as to title his his ninth chapter "Si mostra l'identita della Societa Dianiana colla moderna Stregheria, e fi esamina il" ("The identity of the Dianic cult with modern witchcraft is demonstrated and proven.") anticipating the thesis presented by Charles Godfrey Leland in his "Aradia, or, the Gospel of the Witches," (1899) by a hundred and fifty years. As called for, the main text is followed by the two essays: "Lettera del Signor Conte Gianrinaldo Carli al signor Girolamo Tartarotti intorno all'origine, e falsità della dottrina de' Maghi e delle Streghe," and "Risposta di Girolamo Tartarotti alla Lettera, intorno all'origine, e falsità della dottrina de' Maghi e delle Streghe, de Conte Gio Rinaldo Carli." Binding a little rubbed at points. A small, circular hole in the title page is covered with an old, neat repair. Matchbox size section from upper corner of last blank excised. Otherwise a remarkably fresh, clean copy. (Item ID: 37298)
$975.00
