Dictionary of Heretics, Dissidents, and Inquisitors in the Mediterranean World
Edizioni CLORI | Firenze | ISBN 978-8894241600 | DOI 10.5281/zenodo.1309444
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The benandanti were folk healers accused of witchcraft in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Friuli.
According to local popular beliefs, the benandanti, who were born «con la camicia»—that is, still enclosed in the amniotic sac (considered an auspicious sign; the amniotic membrane was also believed to possess the power to protect its bearer from wounds)—were able to leave their bodies in spirit in order to fight witches and other demonic beings that threatened the fertility of the fields. These nocturnal battles took place during the Ember Days (quattro tempora), and the benandanti fought armed with fennel stalks against witches and sorcerers wielding sorghum canes. If the benandanti prevailed, the harvest would be abundant; if they were defeated, it would be poor.
Beliefs concerning the benandanti thus included an agrarian dimension (ecstatic battles fought to ensure the fertility of the fields, generally associated with male benandanti), a funerary dimension (benandanti who took part in nocturnal processions and communicated with the dead, an activity mainly involving women), and a therapeutic dimension (benandanti who healed illnesses and wounds, practising a positive and beneficial form of magic in opposition to the destructive diabolical magic of witches; both men and women were involved in these healing activities).
The benandanti became the subject of a landmark study by Carlo Ginzburg, first published in 1966.
Identifying in the benandanti's testimonies the traces of surviving ancient pagan fertility cults, Ginzburg proposed a comparison with shamanism. He also emphasized the gradual "negative" transformation—brought about by inquisitorial intervention—of both the public perception of the benandante and the benandante's own self-perception: initially regarded as a benevolent healer, the benandante gradually came to be identified as a worshipper of the Devil.
The subject was revisited by Franco Nardon in an important volume published in 1999. Drawing upon a different analysis of the sources, Nardon's study challenges the overall framework of Ginzburg's interpretation. By examining the second half of the seventeenth century—a period not considered in Ginzburg's research—Nardon situated the healing and anti-witchcraft activities of the benandanti within the broader social and cultural context of seventeenth-century Friuli.
Nardon's investigation concludes that, contrary to Ginzburg's interpretation, there was no transformation in the image of the benandanti. On the contrary, the documentation from the second half of the seventeenth century demonstrates that the benandanti still regarded themselves as beneficent figures engaged in combating witchcraft, and that they continued to be perceived in this way by popular culture. Rather, it was the priorities of the inquisitors that changed: concern with the witches' sabbath and diabolical witchcraft gradually diminished until it virtually disappeared during the latter half of the seventeenth century. The equation of benandanti with witches was therefore merely a "distortion" imposed by certain inquisitors who were particularly obsessed with the witches' sabbath and convinced of its reality. Significantly, the documentation from the later seventeenth century consistently portrays the benandante as a healer and a benevolent practitioner of magic. Nardon's reconstruction also considerably downplays both the comparison between benandanti and shamans and the emphasis on fertility rites as the sole interpretative key to the phenomenon—two themes central to Ginzburg's work. According to Nardon, Ginzburg's interpretation was excessively influenced by personal a priori assumptions external to the historical phenomenon itself.
Bibliography
- Andrea Del Col, Benandanti, in DSI, vol. 1, pp. 172–173.
- Carlo Ginzburg, I benandanti. Ricerche sulla stregoneria e sui culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento, Einaudi, Turin, 1966.
- Franco Nardon, Benandanti e inquisitori nel Friuli del Seicento, Edizioni dell'Università di Trieste, Trieste, 1999.
- Dario Visintin, I benandanti e il Sant’Ufficio alla metà del Seicento, in «Metodi e Ricerche», n.s., XXVII/1, pp. 23–52.
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et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos
invidia inter dum contemptim in Tartara taetra
invidia quoniam ceu fulmine summa vaporant
plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque
[Lucretius, "De rerum natura", lib. V]