Legal Reactions to Social Deviance in Renaissance Venice

FAIN: FT-14029-78

Sally A. Scully
San Francisco State University (San Francisco, CA 94132-1722)

A study of instances of and attitudes toward witchcraft in Venice from the 14th century to the 17th century. Unpublished legal records in the Archivo di Stato of Venice will be analyzed for accusations and prosecutions of witchcraft and sorcery during the period when it was a general European phenomenon. Victims of these proceedings will be identified personally and socially located; no similar investigation has been conducted. Immediate result: an article on the status of witchcraft trials in Early Modern Venice. Long- range plan: to incorporate this material into a larger work on attitudes toward "otherness" in Early Modern Venice, i.e. treatment of marginal groups such as women, Jews, heretics and prostitutes, and their legal relationship to the political elite.