Dr. Matteo Duni

The witch, an enduring presence in current pop culture, is imagined alternatively as a scary, horror movie-like creature with supernatural powers or as a harmless, actually benevolent and even funny presence, that dispenses good humor as well as magical recipes. The complex history of this figure shows that such caricatural traits, far from being just the product of present fads, are linked to specific events and social phenomena. Dr. Duni’s presentation will first trace the past of the witch back to some of the most disturbing pages of European history, such as the first mass-persecutions of the Jews and of other medieval outgroups depicted by authorities as the devil’s minions. Then it will reconstruct the other side of the witch, its folkloric dimension and its multiple functions in the local communities, also by drawing on the contemporary imagery of the witch as created by both artists and Catholic theologians and inquisitors of the Renaissance era.