This extraordinary document, considered one of the most important manuals ever compiled on witchcraft, offers striking insight into the early seventeenth-century mind and society's attempts to cope with the evils it saw manifested in sorcery.
A collection of writings by the Ambrosian monk Francesco Maria Guazzo, the Compendium comprehensively and penetratingly describes the entire practice and profession of witchcraft. First published in 1608, the commentaries came at an appropriate time. Contemporary accounts noted that witchcraft and sorcery had -spread in all directions, -...