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This book deals with a fascinating and original claim in 16th-century Europe. Witches should be cured, not executed. It was the physician and scholar Johann Wier (1515-1588) who challenged the dominant idea. For his defense of witches, more than three centuries later, Sigmund Freud chose to put Wier's work among the ten books to be read. According to Wier, Satan seduced witches, thus they did not deserve to be executed, but they must be cured for their melancholy. When the witch hunt was rising, Wier was the first to use some of the arguments adopted in the emerging debate on religious tolerance in defence of witches. This is the first overall study of Wier which offers an innovative view of his thought, by highlighting Wier's sources and his attempts to involve theologians, physicians, and philosophers in his fight against cruel witch hunts. Johann Wier: Debating the Devil and Witches situates and explains his claim as a result of a moral and religious path as well as the outcome of his medical experience. The book aims to provide an insightful examination of Wier's works to read his pleas emphasizing the duty of every good Christian to not abandon anyone who strays from the flock of Christ. For these reasons, Wier was overwhelmed by bitter confutations, such as those of Jean Bodin, but he was also celebrated for his outstanding and prolific heritage for debating religious tolerance.

This article critically assesses Italian scholarship on the history of witchcraft over the last 60 years. Beginning with Carlo Ginzburg’s influential Night Battles (published in 1966 and translated to English in 1983) and ending with the recent work of Matteo Duni, Tamar Herzig, Vincenzo Lavenia and Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, the article traces the intellectual contexts and shifts in historiographical debates.

This book deals with a fascinating and original claim in sixteenth-century Europe. Witches should be cured, not executed. It was the physician and scholar Johann Wier (1515-1588) who challenged the dominant idea. For his defense of witches, more than three centuries later, Sigmund Freud chose to put Wier's work among the ten books to be read. According to Wier, Satan seduced witches, thus they did not deserve to be executed, but they must be cured for their melancholy. When the witch hunt was rising, Wier was the first to use some of the arguments adopted in the emerging debate on religious tolerance in defence of witches. This is the first overall study of Wier which offers an innovative view of his thought by highlighting Wier's sources and his attempts to involve theologians, physicians, and philosophers in his fight against cruel witch hunts. Johann Wier: Debating the Devil and Witches situates and explains his claim as a result of a moral and religious path as well as the outcome of his medical experience. The book aims to provide an insightful examination of Wier's works to read his pleas emphasizing the duty of every good Christian to not abandon anyone who strays from the flock of Christ. For these reasons, Wier was overwhelmed by bitter confutations, such as those of Jean Bodin, but he was also celebrated for his outstanding and prolific heritage for debating religious tolerance.

The essay deals with the discussion of Tamar Herzig's new book, A Convert's tale. She wrote the story of a Jewish goldsmith, Salomone da Sessa, who worked for Duke Ercole d'Este and his wife, Eleonora d'Aragona in the Italian peninsula at the end of the XVth century. In 1491 Salomone converted to Christianism as Ercole de' Fedeli. Through this case, Herzig highlights several important features such as the social and religious relationships between Jews and Christians.

This book deals with a fascinating and original claim in 16th-century Europe. Witches should be cured, not executed. It was the physician and scholar Johann Wier (1515-1588) who challenged the dominant idea. For his defense of witches, more than three centuries later, Sigmund Freud chose to put Wier's work among the ten books to be read. According to Wier, Satan seduced witches, thus they did not deserve to be executed, but they must be cured for their melancholy. When the witch hunt was rising, Wier was the first to use some of the arguments adopted in the emerging debate on religious tolerance in defence of witches. This is the first overall study of Wier which offers an innovative view of his thought, by highlighting Wier's sources and his attempts to involve theologians, physicians, and philosophers in his fight against cruel witch hunts. Johann Wier: Debating the Devil and Witches situates and explains his claim as a result of a moral and religious path as well as the outcome of his medical experience. The book aims to provide an insightful examination of Wier's works to read his pleas emphasizing the duty of every good Christian to not abandon anyone who strays from the flock of Christ. For these reasons, Wier was overwhelmed by bitter confutations, such as those of Jean Bodin, but he was also celebrated for his outstanding and prolific heritage for debating religious tolerance.

After Brandi’s monumental biography and Chabod’s detailed studies of, Charles V continued to attract attention resulting in important and significant innovations, such as the abandonment of the exclusively Eurocentric perspective. Likewise, more and more attention is being paid to political propaganda mechanisms.

On the basis of the new inquisitorial sources, the essay examines the trials of Girolamo Cardano and of Giovan Battista Della Porta in order to highlight the important and sometimes hidden consequences of facing the Roman Inquisition. Both were partially protected by their social and political relationships, but their trials affected and influenced their life and the circulation of their ideas in Europe.

The topic of witch-hunts has been widely studied across the ages. Multiple complex interpretations have been offered to explain how the phenomenon arose, developed, and finally ended, thus tackling the difficulties inherent in a historical fact that occurred everywhere and over a significant period of time. This chapter takes up some of these stages, focussing on the interpretation and critique of Wier's thought. Wier was celebrated as the first advocate of witches and later defined as a forerunner of psychiatry, while others condemned him as a magician.

In 1563, Wier published his De praestigiis daemonum. The premises and evolution of this work is analysed in this chapter, from Wier's choice to publish in Basel to the various editions that followed, which contained significant revisions. For the first time, providing explanations based on a variety of aspects, Wier defined actions that were considered to be witchcraft as demonic tricks, and not as reality. In this early phase, he debated on what punishment should be imposed on witches with the prominent theologian Johann Brenz. The French and German translations of his work attest to the positive reception Wier's thought received.