Girolamo Tartarotti

Girolamo Tartarotti (1706–1761) was an Italian author.

He is notable for his Congresso notturno delle lammie (1749) and Apologia del Congresso notturno delle lammie (1751) in which he attacked belief in the existence of witches as depicted by the Church. Tartarotti rejected the idea of supernatural powers related to the popular notion of witchcraft. He argued that supernatural witchcraft is mostly superstition and its effects imaginary, but that practicers of sorcery certainly existed. He suggested that such beliefs derived from a pre-Christian cult of the goddess Diana, which has been popularized in the 1970s by Leo Martello, who was among the first Italian Americans to reveal a specifically Italian branch of witchcraft known as Stregheria that some commentators regard as neopaganism. In the latter half of the 20th century Stregheria was written about in greater detail by pagan scholar Raven Grimassi who demonstrated its similarities and differences when compared to Wicca as depicted by such authors as Gerald Gardner.

Bibliography

Published in Raccolta d'opuscoli scientifici e filologici edited by Angelo Calogerà:

Published posthumously:

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