''Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath'' is a study of visionary traditions in
Early Modern Europe
Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the mid 15th century to the late 18th century. Histori ...
written by the Italian historian
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg (; born 15 April 1939) is an Italian historian and a proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an I ...
. First published by
Giulio Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi (; 2 January 1912 – 5 April 1999) was an Italian book publisher. The eponymous company that he founded in 1933 became "a European wellspring of fine literature, intellectual thought and political theory"Saxon, Wolfgang ''The Ne ...
in 1989 under the Italian title ''Storia notturna: Una decifrazione del Sabba'', it was later translated into English by Raymond Rosenthal and published by
Hutchinson Radius in 1990.
''Ecstasies'' builds on the theories put forward in Ginzburg's 1966 book ''
The Night Battles'', in which he studied the ''
benandanti
The () were members of an agrarian visionary tradition in the Friuli district of Northeastern Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries. The claimed to travel out of their bodies while asleep to struggle against malevolent sorcerers (; ) in order ...
'', a visionary folk tradition found in the north-eastern Italian province of
Friuli
Friuli (; ; or ; ; ) is a historical region of northeast Italy. The region is marked by its separate regional and ethnic identity predominantly tied to the Friulians, who speak the Friulian language. It comprises the major part of the autono ...
during the 16th century.
Reception
In his study of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, ''
The Triumph of the Moon'' (1999), the English historian
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an Indian-born English historian specialising in early modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion, and modern paganism. A professor at the University of Bristol, Hutton has writte ...
(1953–) of the
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...
noted that ''Ecstasies'' was "something which probably nobody else could have written, and which broke important new ground." Nonetheless, he felt that it had "the faults common to such bold and broad-brush enterprises, of covering too much too fast, and with too much dependence upon the author's original, narrower body of expertise; in this case, his impressions of tribal shamanism and ancient paganism were both somewhat sketchy, and arguably too much was extrapolated from the very unusual phenomenon of the ''benandanti'' of Friuli, his first study."
[ Hutton 1999. p. 378.]
Hutton proceeded to note that Ginzburg's work in ''Ecstasies'' represented "an extensive and fruitful development" of the idea that "underlying the early modern stereotype of satanic witchcraft lay not merely intellectual constructs but a network of ancient popular beliefs regarding night-flying spirits and goddesses, with their retinues." He asserted that in this manner, ''Ecstasies'' built on the work of the historian
Norman Cohn
Norman Rufus Colin Cohn FBA (12 January 1915 – 31 July 2007) was a British academic, historian and writer who spent 14 years as a professorial fellow and as Astor-Wolfson Professor at the University of Sussex.
Life
Cohn was born in London, ...
(1915–2007) in his book ''Europe's Inner Demons'' (1975).
See also
* ''
The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries''
* ''
Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night''
* ''
Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age''
* ''
Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic''
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
;Academic sources
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{{refend
1989 non-fiction books
History books about witchcraft
Hutchinson (publisher) books
Witchcraft in Italy
Giulio Einaudi Editore books