Witches of Benevento

Many hypotheses on the birth of the witches' legend exist. It has probably been the synergy of several elements that gave Benevento lasting fame as the "city of witches."

In the following centuries the legend of the witches took form. Beginning in 1273 reports of witches' gatherings began to circulate in Benevento. Based on the statements of Matteuccia da Todi, who was put on trial for witchcraft in 1428, they took place under a walnut tree, and it was believed that it was the tree that had been cut down by Barbatus, perhaps restored by the work of the Devil or, rather, replanted by the witches from seed.[upper-alpha 1] Later, in the 16th century, bones with the flesh recently stripped off were found under a tree; an aura of mystery was created around the matter, gradually becoming more complex.

'Nguento, 'nguento,
mànname a lu nocio 'e Beneviento,
sott'a ll'acqua e sotto ô viento,
sotto â ogne maletiempo.

Unguent, unguent,
send me to the walnut tree of Benevento,
under the water and under the wind,
under all bad weather.

(Magic spell that many women accused of witchcraft recounted during the trials.)

The legend has it that the witches, indistinguishable from the other women by day, at night anointed their underarms (or their breasts) with an unguent and took off flying, pronouncing a magic phrase (recounted above), riding on brooms of sorghum. At the same time the witches became incorporeal, spirits like the wind; indeed, their preferred nights for flying were stormy ones. In particular, it was further believed that there was a bridge from which the witches of Benevento usually launched themselves into flight, which was therefore called the "bridge of the jannaras," destroyed during World War II. At night they stole horses out of their stables and after plaiting the horses' hair they would race the horse until it started to foam around the mouth; they would then rub themselves with it.

Witches of various origins participated in the sabbats under the walnut tree.[7] These sabbats consisted of banquets, dances, and orgies with spirits and demons in the form of cats or goats, and they also came to be called the "games of Diana."

After the gatherings the witches spread horror. It was believed that they were able to cause abortions, to generate deformities in newborns, making them suffer dreadful afflictions, which brushed against sleepers like a gust of wind and caused a sense of oppression on the chest, which at times was felt while they lay on their backs. Also feared were certain more "innocent" pranks, which, for example, would make the horses be found in their stables in the morning with their manes braided, or sweating from having been ridden all night. In some small Campanian villages, rumors circulated among the elderly that they kidnapped newborns from their cradles in order to be passed among them, throwing them on the fire, and finishing the game by bringing them back to where they had taken them from.

The janaras, because of their incorporeal consistency, entered a house by passing under the door (corresponding with another possible etymology of the term: ianua, 'door'. For this reason a broom or some salt was usually left on the threshold; the witch would have to count all the fibers of the broom or grains of salt before entering, but in the meantime the day would arrive and they would be compelled to go away. The two objects have a symbolic value: the broom is a phallic symbol opposed to the sterility brought by the witch; the salt was connected through a false etymology to salus ('safety').

If someone was harassed by a janara, they freed themselves from her by shouting behind her "Come get the salt on Sunday!" If janaras were mentioned in a conversation, the ill omen was warded off with the sentence "Today is Saturday."

Besides the janaras, there were other types of witches in the popular imagination of Benevento. The zucculara ('lame person') haunted Triggio, the medieval Lombard quarter, the area of the Roman Theater, and she was called that because of her noisy clogs. The figure probably derives from Hecate, who wore only one sandal and was venerated at the crossroads (the name Triggio derives from trivium, 'crossroads').

There is also the manalonga, 'the one with the long arm', who lives in wells and pulls down passersby in the vicinity. The fear of pits, imagined to be the passageways to hell, is a recurring element: in the cliff under the Bridge of the Janaras there is a pool in which whirlpools are suddenly formed, which is called "the whirlpool of hell." Finally, there are the urias, domestic spirits who recall the lares and penates of Roman times.

In popular beliefs the legend of the witches still survives in part today, enhanced by anecdotes and manifested in superstitious attitudes and fear of supernatural events.

The persecutions of the purported witches may be considered to have begun with the preaching of Saint Bernardino of Siena, who preached harshly against them in the 15th century, referring in particular to those of Benevento. He denounced them to the people as responsible for disasters and bluntly asserted that they must be exterminated.

A final incentive to witch hunting came from the publication of Malleus Maleficarum in 1486, which explained how to recognize witches and how to try them effectively and interrogate them using the cruelest tortures. From the 15th to the 17th centuries, many confessions were coerced from supposed witches in this way, who often spoke of sabbats in Benevento. Common elements turned up, such as flight or practices like that of sucking children's blood; however, discrepancies also turned up about, for example the frequency of their meetings. In the great majority of cases the "witches" were burned, sent to the gallows, or otherwise given the death penalty, with more or less atrocious methods.

Only in the 17th century was it realized that truthful confessions could not be made under torture. During the Enlightenment a rational interpretation of the legend came to prevail with Girolamo Tartarotti, who in 1749 explained the witches' flight as a hallucination provoked by the Devil, or Ludovico Antonio Muratori, who in 1745 asserted that the witches were only psychologically ill women. Successive hypotheses held that the unguent the witches were anointed with was a hallucinogenic substance.

A local historian, Abele De Blasio, reported that in the archiepiscopal archive of Benevento were kept the records of about two hundred trials for witchcraft, largely destroyed in 1860 to avoid saving documents that could further inflame the anticlerical tendencies that accompanied the era of Italian unification. Another part was lost because of the bombardments in World War II.

Like all popular beliefs, the legend of the witches is fueled by a large number of popularly spread tales.

• A man, seeing his wife anoint herself with an unguent and take off flying out the window, realized that she was a janara. He replaced the unguent with another substance, so the next night his wife died crashing into the ground.
• Saint Bernardino of Siena in his preaching told of the family of a cardinal who, having arrived in Benevento, joined a nighttime banquet, and brought with him a girl he knew, who had not spoken for three years; later it was discovered that she was a janara.
• A tale possibly deriving from a Neapolitan poem of the 19th century titled Story of the Famous Walnut Tree of Benevento tells of a man who has his wife, a janara, take him to the sabbat. He asks for salt because the food is insipid, but as soon as he salts his food the sabbat disappears.

Italian and foreign poets and writers, as well as musicians and others, relate tales of the witches, taking inspiration from the Benevento legend.

• The scientist and author Francesco Redi wrote a tale, titled "The Hunchback of Peretola," in which he narrates the story of a local hunchback—who was envious of another hunchback's good fortune in meeting the witches of Benevento to heal his deformity—headed there without delay, but, having treated the witches badly, was instead punished with the addition of a second hump.
• In the mock-heroic epic Il Malmantile racquistato by Lorenzo Lippi, the 30th canto is about witches.
• The ballet Il Noce di Benevento by Salvatore Viganò and Franz Xaver Süssmayr (La Scala, April 25, 1812) is about the witches' sabbat there.[8]
• Niccolò Paganini composed the violin piece Le Streghe as variations on a theme from Süssmayr's ballet score (premiered at La Scala, October 29, 1813).
• In turn, Paganini's variations inspired the witchery in the second act of the ballet La Sylphide (premiered at the Paris Opéra, 1832).
• Laurence Stern's novel Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman repeatedly mentions the "demons of Benevento."
• The musical Il Santo e la Strega by Antonio Coppolaro is about the deeds of Saint Barbato, who defeated the witches of Benevento and eliminated the walnut tree.
• Strega liqueur is made in Benevento and takes its name from the legend of the streghe there. Its label depicts the streghe dancing under the famous walnut tree.
• Benevento Calcio is a football club in Benevento; its club logo features a witch riding a broomstick.