Art and Witchcraft in Early Modern Italy / / Guy Tal.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Amsterdam University Press Complete eBook-Package 2023
• VerfasserIn: Tal, Guy,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Monsters and Marvels. Alterity in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds ; 2
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (376 p.)

The figure of the witch is familiar from the work of early modern German, Dutch, and Flemish artists, but much less so in the work of their Italian counterparts. Art and Witchcraft in Early Modern Italy seeks to explore the ways in which representations of witchcraft emerged from and coincided with the main cultural currents and artistic climate of an epoch chiefly celebrated for its humanistic and rational approaches. Through an in-depth examination of a panoply of arresting paintings, engravings, and drawings—variously portraying a hag-ridden colossal phallus, a horror-stricken necromancer dodging the devil’s scrabbling claws, and a nocturnal procession presided over by an infanticidal crone—Guy Tal offers new ways of reading witchcraft images through and beyond conventional iconography. Artists such as Parmigianino, Alessandro Allori, Leonello Spada, and Angelo Caroselli effected visual commentaries on demonological notions that engaged their audience in a tantalizing experience of interpretation.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- DEDICATION -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Old Women under Investigation -- 2. Chimerical Procession -- 3. Priapic Ride -- 4. Magical Metamorphoses -- 5. A Visit from the Devil -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index