On Thursday 15 July at 21 pm the sixth appointment of the summer cycle of conferences and presentations proposed by AXIS mundi will be broadcast on our YouTube channel. Our guest this week will be Massimo Centini, professor of cultural anthropology in Turin and Bolzano, and the topic on which we will focus will be that of medieval witchcraft in Western Europe, with a particular focus on what was the Italian situation.
STREAMING:
ABSTRACT:
It is now unanimously recognized that at the basis of the phenomenology referred to as "witchcraft", in reality there were cultural experiences and rituals of pagan tradition that remained entangled in peasant culture and soon became, for the observant culture (that of the Church and the inquisitors), the cult of devil. The idea of โโwitchcraft as a degeneration of previous cults, of which the gnoseological key has been lost to preserve only a more or less impoverished, polluted and misunderstood patrimony of rites (lithic, arboreal, source cults, etc.), is fascinating and would explain many things: for example, it would explain the contradiction between the wealth of rites and also of practical knowledge of witches (medicine, obstetrics, zoology, botany) and the mythical void, at least apparent, the lack of its own "Weltanschauung" that prepared them, beyond the inquisitorial violence, to accept the diabolical one, proposed to them by the inquisitors. It is therefore necessary to reflect on the possibility of seeing two levels in the documentation relating to witchcraft: an older one in which the "Society of Diana" was in fact a sort of congregation practicing syncretistic cults and rituals, of agrarian origin and in contrast with the Christianity; and a more recent one, connected to the devil cult, and often merged with the various heretical components in strong controversy with the central religious power. Thus, the demonization of the remains of ancient cults practiced in rural areas brought about their radical transformation in the collective unconscious: the "Ancient Religion", originally intended to put the human being in tune with the Sacred, was lowered by the central religious power a mere "cult of Satan".
THE GUEST:
MASSIMO CENTINI, graduated in Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Turin. He has worked on contracts with Italian and foreign universities and museums. Among the most recent activities: under contract in the โEthnographic Artโ section of the Natural Science Museum of Bergamo; he taught Cultural Anthropology at the Design Institute of Bolzano. Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Popular University Foundation of Turin; teaches "History of Criminology" at the courses organized by MUA - South Tyrolean University Movement - of Bolzano. He has published numerous essays with Mondadori, Piemme, Rusconi, Newton & Compton, Yume, Xenia, San Paolo and others. Some of his volumes have been translated into various languages.
