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  • Des montagnards endiablés: Chasse aux sorciers dans la vallée de Chamonix (1458–1462) by Carine Dunand, and: De cognitionibus quas habent Daemones liber unus by Federico Borromeo
  • Armando Maggi
Des montagnards endiablés: Chasse aux sorciers dans la vallée de Chamonix (1458–1462). By Carine Dunand. [Cahiers lausannois d’histoire medieval, 50.] (Lausanne: Université de Lausanne, Section d’histoire, Faculté des Lettres. 2009. Pp. iii, 208. €24,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-940110-63-8.)
De cognitionibus quas habent Daemones liber unus. By Federico Borromeo. Edited by Francesco di Caccia. [Accademia Ambrosiana: Classe di studi Borromaici: Fonti e studi, Vol. 9.] (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana; Rome: Bulzoni Editore. 2009. Pp. 282. €20,00 paperback. ISBN 978-88-7870-436-7.)

These two recent studies testify to the significant vitality of our contemporary interest in medieval and early-modern Christian witchcraft and demonology. These volumes represent the two most frequent approaches to this complex thematic. On the one hand, Dunand presents a historical examination of a specific case of witch craze in late-fifteenth-century France through a detailed analysis of the social and cultural foundations that led to the execution of at least thirteen citizens of the valley of Chamonix. Dunand also transcribes some of the most fascinating documents related to these disturbing events. Di Caccia, on the other hand, publishes an accurate edition of De cognitionibus quas habent daemones liber unus (1624), one of Federico Borromeo’s treatises on demonology, which represents a sophisticated reinterpretation of some of the key concepts of Renaissance views of demonic knowledge. Borromeo’s book is a late representative of a philosophical and theological genre that dominated fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe. Borromeo’s daring and fascinating conclusions about the limits of demonic knowledge can be understood only if read as a reaction to a set of received ideas that had remained unchallenged for several decades.

As Dunand points out in the introduction to her volume dedicated to a series of executions between 1458 and 1462 in the valley of Chamonix, it is rare to find documents related to a “crisis of witchcraft in the diocese of Geneva,” and this is why she was led to investigate the archives in High-Savoy and other close-by locations, with a unquestionably interesting results (p. 3). Dunand underscores that an understanding of this historical event requires consideration of the contemporary political tensions in that region. In the first chapter the author offers a historical survey of the historical conditions and geographical isolation that led to the transformation of the valley of Chamonix into an independent community at the end of the thirteenth century. Although the valley fell under the jurisdiction of a priory, its inhabitants resisted this political arrangement. In Dunand’s words, the “wave of witchcraft” between 1458 and 1462 reflected a deep fracture between the citizens of the valley of Chamonix and their rulers (p. 25), who tried to limit political rights—first, in criminal justice, which often had unclear jurisdiction (p. 30). The prior, Guillaume de Ravoire, who displayed morally questionable conduct, tried to transfer all political decisions to members of his family, triggering anger in the valley (p. 38). Particularly interesting is the second part of the volume, which reproduces a series of legal documents connected to the witch hunt of those years, such as the death sentences of the victims of the inquisition’s persecution. [End Page 341]

Francesco di Caccia’s volume is first and foremost a critical edition and Italian translation of Borromeo’s little-known Latin treatise. In his brief introduction, di Caccia makes it clear that he primarily intends to highlight the genesis and the main points of interest of this seventeenth-century volume. According to di Caccia, Borromeo decided to compose a treatise on the complex topic of demonic knowledge while writing a text on ecstatic and delusional women (De ecstaticis mulieribus et illusis, 1616). Considering how easily he had uncovered the demons’ deceptions against feeble-minded women, Borromeo came to the conclusion that demons’ intelligence was limited in actuality (p. 15). Although demons have all the ontological characteristics of any angelic being, in Borromeo’s view God must have somehow blurred...

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