-
Charles G. Leland
ARADIAor the
Gospel of the Witches
Charles G. Leland
A New Translation
by
Mario P azzaglini, Ph.D.
and
Dina Pazzaglini
with additional material by
Chas S. CliftonRobert Mathiesen
Robert E. Chartowich
foreword by
Stewart Farrar
PHOENIX PUBLISHING INC.Maddalena
t1q 6
-
Ft:
il-li
I
Charles G. Leland and the
Witches of Italy: The Origin of
Aradia
Robert Mathiesen'
Introduction
Every great book has its hidden history, which in many cases
is as interesting as the book itself. So it is with Charles
God-frey Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. It
waswritten in 1897, but published only in 1899, when Leland was
in his seventy-fifth year, almost at the end of his long
life.
Leland's Life in Magic
Only a few days after his birth (August 15, 1824), theinfant
Charles vanished from his nursery, to the dismay of his
family. The mystery was soon solved, however: he was dis-
covered lying on his back in the attic, with a Bible, a key
and
a knife on his breast, and with lighted candles, money and
aplate of salt at his head. This was the work of his old
Pennsyl-
vania-German nurse, a reputed mistress of the secret arts,
to
ensure that the child should rise in life, growing up to be
a
25
-
scholar and a wizard.2This happened in Philadelphia-a city
already rich in mys_
teries and legends of ghosts and witches and ominou.
pt.-tents-the capital of a state founded on religious toleration,
inwhich seers and mystics, astrologers and Rosicrucians, hadlong
found a safe
,harbor. Here young Leland could easilyencounter Swedenborgians,
Mesmerists and, in his youngadult years, Spiritualists.
Leland's family had moved to pennsylvania from NewEngland; the
Lelands on his father's side were from Massa-chusetts, the Godfreys
on his mother's from Rhode Island (theother great bastion of
unsanctioned beliefs in colonial NorthAmerica). Every summer his
family returned to Massachu_setts, where his mother kept up an old
acquaintance with theTranscendentalists at Brook Farm, while young
Leland madehis first friends among the Native Americans ai
Mendon.
Even as a schoolboy, Leland was a romantic and buddingmystic,
with uncommonly eccentric interests-and the intelli-gence and luck
needed to pursue them. When he was fourteenhis father gave him a
share in the Free Library of phiraderphia,and this allowed him to
use its very rich colrections.'Lan-guages, whether living or dead,
came easily to him even in hisyouth. He had read Henry Cornelius
Agrippa,s Occult phi_losophy in Latin before he turned eighteen, as
well as theworks of Rabelais and Villon in French.
In his eighteenth year, young Leland went off to princeton,where
he spent most of his time and energy on subjects outsidethe
college's curriculum. He studied Neo-pratonic philoso-phy-and
theurgy!-and the Hermetic writings, learned erenmore languages, and
wrote poetry. When he graduated fromPrinceton, his father gave him
enough money to exploreEurope for three years and to pursue
advanced studies th"r".Leland soon betook himserf to Heiderberg,
where the originarRosicrucian movement had been raunchei in the
early 1i00s,and he enrolled in the ancient university there. At
Heiderberghe learned for the first time how to play, and also how
to fighiBy the time he left Heiderberg, he knew how to use the
saber,
1
I
E
$wB
Ffr
the dirk and the pistol. By then he had grown uncommonly
tall
(6 foot 4 inches), towering over most other men of his era
with
a large and powerful frame.Leland was in Europe from 1846
through 1848. These
were years of intense revolutionary fervor, which had its
seat
and stronghold in many of Europe's liberal old
universities.Leland was caught up in the fervor. Indeed, since he
happened
to be in Paris on February 24, 1848, he joined in the
fighting,
and went out into the streets with his fellow students to
build
barricades and to kill the soldiers of the King of France.When
his money ran out, Leland returned to America to
make a career for himself, trying his hand first at law, then
atjournalism. His first satisfactory position was with P. T.
Bar-num as the associate editor of that showman's iournal,
TheIllustrated News. One can hardly think of another employerwho
might have suited Leland so well as Barnum. When thatwork ended,
other similar positions followed. He continuedworking at
journalism, with some time out to fight in the war
between the states, until 1869. During these years he alsofound
a calling as a writer, achieving considerable fame with
his humorous, mock-German Bollads of Hans Breitmann. He
acquired many curious friends during the war years. Among
them was Colonel Henry Steele Olcott, then a soldier and a
Spiritualist, but not yet a Theosophist. In 1856 he
marriedIsabel Fisher and, to judge by his letters, it was a very
happymarriage throughout the forty years and more that they
were
together.
By 1869 Leland had secured his financial position, andwas
generally able to order his life to suit himself and his wife.
So back to Europe they went, and to such exotic lands asTurkey,
Egypt and Russia. Here his real adventures began, for
he was a man "whose every thought, whose every emotionsteered
straight for the marvellous," as Elizabeth Pennell, his
niece and confidant, characterized him. "If I were in
solitaryconfinement," he wrote in one of his scrapbooks, "l
shouldhave adventures, for my dreams would make them."3
It was in England that Leland first fell in with the Romany
26 27
-
scholar and a wizard.2This happened in philadelphia-a city
already rich in mys_
teries and legends of ghosts and witches and ominou.
pt.-tents-the capital of a state founded on religious toleration,
inwhich seers and mystics, astrologers and Rosicrucians, hadlong
found a safe
,harbor. Here young Leland could easilyencounter Swedenborgians,
Mesmerists and, in his youngadult years, Spiritualists.
Leland's family had moved to pennsylvania from NewEngland; the
Lelands on his father's side were from Massa-chusetts, the Godfreys
on his mother's from Rhode Island (theother great bastion of
unsanctioned beliefs in colonial NorthAmerica). Every summer his
family returned to Massachu_setts, where his mother kept up an old
acquaintance with theTranscendentalists at Brook Farm, while young
Leland madehis first friends among the Native Americans ai
Mendon.
Even as a schoolboy, Leland was a romantic and buddingmystic,
with uncommonry eccentric interests-and the intelli-gence and luck
needed to pursue them. When he was fourteenhis father gave him a
share in the Free Library of phiraderphia,and this allowed him to
use its very rich colrections.'Lan-guages, whether living or dead,
came easily to him even in hisyouth. He had read Henry Cornelius
Agrippa,s Occult phi_losophy in Latin before he turned eighteen, as
well as theworks of Rabelais and Villon in French.
In his eighteenth year, young Leland went off to princeton.where
he spent most of his time and energy on subjects outsidethe
college's curriculum. He studied Neo-pratonic phiroso-phy-and
theurgy!-and the Hermetic writings, learned erenmore languages, and
wrote poetry. When he graduated fromPrinceton, his father gave him
enough money to exploreEurope for three years and to pursue
advanced studies th"r".Leland soon betook himserf to Heiderberg,
where the originarRosicrucian movement had been raunchei in the
early 1i00s,and he enrolled in the ancient university there. At
Heidelberghe learned for the first time how to play, and also how
to fighiBy the time he left Heidelberg, he knew how to use the
saber,
26 27
x
E
E$IF
$
F.l
the dirk and the pistol. By then he had grown uncommonly
tall
(6 foot 4 inches), towering over most other men of his era
with
a large and powerful frame.Leland was in Europe from 1846
through 1848' These
were years of intense revolutionary fervor, which had its
seat
and stronghold in many of Europe's liberal old
universities.Leland was caught up in the fervor. Indeed, since he
happened
to be in Paris on February 24,1848, he joined in the
fighting,and went out into the streets with his fellow students to
build
barricades and to kill the soldiers of the King of France.When
his money ran out, Leland returned to America to
make a career for himself, trying his hand first at law, then
atjournalism. His first satisfactory position was with P. T.
Bar-
num as the associate editor of that showman's iownal,
TheIllustrated News. One can hardly think of another employerwho
might have suited Leland so well as Barnum. When thatwork ended,
other similar positions followed. He continuedworking at
journalism, with some time out to fight in the war
between the states, until 1869. During these years he alsofound
a calling as a writer, achieving considerable fame with
his humorous, mock-German Ballads of Hans Breitmann. He
acquired many curious friends during the war years. Among
them was Colonel Henry Steele Olcott, then a soldier and a
Spiritualist, but not yet a Theosophist. In 1856 he
marriedIsabel Fisher and, to judge by his letters, it was a very
happymarriage throughout the forty years and more that they
were
together.
By 1869 Leland had secured his financial position, andwas
generally able to order his life to suit himself and his wife.
So back to Europe they went, and to such exotic lands asTurkey,
Egypt and Russia. Here his real adventures began, for
he was a man "whose every thought, whose every emotionsteered
straight for the marvellous," as Elizabeth Pennell, his
niece and confidant, characterized him. "If I were in
solitaryconfinement," he wrote in one of his scrapbooks, "l
shouldhave adventures, for my dreams would make them."3
It was in England that Leland first fell in with the Romany
-
(or Gypsies, as they were then freely called) and fell in
lovewith the mysteries of their unwritten language and lore.
Tack-ling these mysteries with volcanic enthusiasm and energy,
hesought out the Romany wherever he could find them, howeverfar off
the beaten track of polite society they might be. He tooka mystic's
delight in his and their common humanity, enjoyedtheir company,
gave them good reason to enjoy his,
-learnei to
speak their language fluently, and drank deeply from the riverof
their folklore. (These were the days when the Romany oftenkept
their language secret from outsiders.) It was among theRomany that
he first discovered for himserf the ethnogra-pher's and
folklorist's art of working with informants inlhefield. The results
of his field work were published in severalbooks from I 879 to 1891
. He also served as the first presidentof the Gypsy Lore Society,
founded in 1ggg.
Leland also became extremely proficient at one of thetraditional
Romany crafts, the art of dukkering, or fortune-tell-ing. He took
to this as a duck takes to water, and it was to standhim in very
good stead later. Among his papers in the BritishLibrary is a
handwritten copy of Dukkerin' Lit,his own thirty-two-page summary
of this art, ,,with fantastic illustrations.i,aIn the same vein,
the last of his several books on the Romanywas about Gypsy Sorcery
and Fortune Telling (1g91).
From the Romany it was only a short step for Leland toexplore
other kinds of people who lived on the open road.Here, too, his
love of mystery led him to another unstudiedlanguage, even more
obscure than Romany. He was the firstoutsider to note the existence
of Shelta, an unwritten tongueused primarily by tinkers; he was
arso the first to determ]nethat much of its vocabulary was of
Celtic origin.
All this happened whire the Lerands had their principarhome in
England, from 1869 to 1879. During the next flwyears they made
their home once again in the United States.Here, too, Leland was
able to satisfy his curiosity about un_written languages and the
folklore transmitted in them. InI 882 and 1883 he turned his
attention to Native Americans, inparticular to the Passamaquoddy of
New Brunswick and
E
$trb
riIIY
Maine, and in yet other books he gave what he had collectedto
the world.5
But this was just an interlude; the Lelands returned toEurope in
1884, and by the end of 1888 they had settled inFlorence, where
they would remain for the rest of their years.
It was in Florence, as we shall soon see, that Leland
foundmysteries which he alone could begin to unravel and
wouldoccupy him in doing so for a decade and more.
On July 9, 1902, Leland's wife died. Some nine monthslater he
followed her, on March 20, 1903. His heirs broughttheir ashes back
to Philadelphia, where they rest in Laurel HillCemetery. All his
many books and papers were retrieved andentrusted to Elizabeth
Pennell as his literary executor whoused them to prepare Leland's
biography.6 Later his workswere divided between several libraries
and museums.
Most of his early letters and writings, as well as the
sur-viving drafts and proof sheets of many of his later
literaryworks and translations, went to the Historical Society of
Penn-sylvania.T His early printed books, about 150 volumes in
all,went to the old Pennsylvania Museum of Industrial Art,
whichlater became the Philadelphia Museum of Art; they are
nowhoused in the museum's print room and are accessible onlyunder
conditions appropriate to objects of art, not to booksmeant to be
read and studied.8 His ethnographic and linguisticmaterials on the
gypsies were donated to the library of theBritish Museum.e
Elizabeth Pennell retained the rest ofLeland's papers, including
his numerous scrapbooks (whichhe titled Memoranda) and most of his
letters, for some years.Eventually they were given to the Library
of Congress, wherethey form a small part of the very large
Whistler-PennellCollection.ro
It was in two of these libraries that I had the good fortuneto
find the materials which are the subject of the rest of
thiswriting, and which shed much new light on the origin ofLeland's
book, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.
28 29
-
(or Gypsies, as they were then freely called) and fell in
lovewith the mysteries of their unwritten ranguage and lore.
Tack-ling these mysteries with volcanic enthusiasm and energy,
hesought out the Romany wherever he could find them, howeverfar off
the beaten track of polite society they might be. He tooka mystic's
delight in his and their common humanity, enjoyedtheir company,
gave them good reason to enjoy his,-learned tospeak their language
fluently, and drank deeply from the riverof their folklore. (These
were the days when the Romany oftenkept their language secret from
outsiders.) It was among theRomany that he first discovered for
himserf the ethnogra-pher's and folklorist's art of working with
informants in-thefield. The results of his field work were
published in severalbooks from 1 879 to 1891. He also served as the
first presidentof the Gypsy Lore Society, founded in lggg.
Leland also became extremely proficient at one of thetraditional
Romany crafts, the art of dukkering, or fortune-tell-ing. He took
to this as a duck takes to water, and it was to standhim in very
good stead later. Among his papers in the BritishLibrary is a
handwritten copy of Dukkerin' Lit,his own thirty-two-page summary
of this art, "with fantastic iilustrations.i,aIn the same vein, the
last of his several books on the Romanywas about Gypsy Sorcery and
Fortune Telling (lggl).
From the Romany it was only a short step for Leland toexplore
other kinds of people who lived on the open road.Here, too, his
love of mystery led him to another unstudiedlanguage, even more
obscure than Romany. He was the firstoutsider to note the existence
of Shelta, an unwritten tongueused primarily by tinkers; he was
arso the first to determ]nethat much of its vocabulary was of
Celtic origin.
All this happened while the Lerands had their principarhome in
England, from 1869 to 1g79. During the next flwyears they made
their home once again in the United States.Here, too, Leland was
able to satisfy his curiosity about un_written languages and the
folklore transmitted in them. In1 882 and 1883 he turned his
attention to Native Americans, inparticular to the Passamaquoddy of
New Brunswick and
F
EgP
kt:
rrr
t:
Maine, and in yet other books he gave what he had collectedto
the world.5
But this was just an interlude; the Lelands returned toEurope in
1884, and by the end of 1888 they had settled inFlorence, where
they would remain for the rest of their years.
It was in Florence, as we shall soon see, that Leland
foundmysteries which he alone could begin to unravel and
wouldoccupy him in doing so for a decade and more.
On July 9, 1902, Leland's wife died. Some nine monthslater he
followed her, on March 20, 1903. His heirs broughttheir ashes back
to Philadelphia, where they rest in Laurel HillCemetery. All his
many books and papers were retrieved andentrusted to Elizabeth
Pennell as his literary executor whoused them to prepare Leland's
biography.6 Later his workswere divided between several libraries
and museums.
Most of his early letters and writings, as well as the
sur-viving drafts and proof sheets of many of his later
literaryworks and translations, went to the Historical Society of
Penn-sylvania.T His early printed books, about 150 volumes in
all,went to the old Pennsylvania Museum of Industrial Art,
whichlater became the Philadelphia Museum of Art; they are
nowhoused in the museum's print room and are accessible onlyunder
conditions appropriate to objects of art, not to booksmeant to be
read and studied.8 His ethnographic and linguisticmaterials on the
gypsies were donated to the library of theBritish Museum.e
Elizabeth Pennell retained the rest ofLeland's papers, including
his numerous scrapbooks (whichhe titled Metnoranda) and most of his
letters, for some years.Eventually they were given to the Library
of Congress, wherethey form a small part of the very large
Whistler-PennellCollection.ro
It was in two of these libraries that I had the good fortuneto
find the materials which are the subject of the rest of
thiswriting, and which shed much new light on the origin ofLeland's
book, Arqdia, or the Gospel of the Witches.
r*i
P
i
28 29
-
Maddalena and the Witches of Italy
In 1886 Leland first met the remarkable witch womanwhom he calls
Maddalena in all his subsequent works. Havingwon her confidence by
a display of his own skills in otheitraditions of magic. he
managed, with her assistance, to pene_trate the secret world of the
fortune-tellers and spell casters ofthe region lying between Forli
and Ravenna, and especially atFlorence. After Leland and his wife
settled more or less per-manently in Florence, during the winter of
l88g- l gg9, he wasable to explore these hidden traditions in great
detail fornearly a decade.
Maddalena was not this woman,s legal name, but one thatLeland
gave her to guard her privacy. His niece, ElizabethRobins Pennell,
who also knew her, is equally discreet, thoughshe reproduces a
striking old photograph of Maddaleru u, uyoung fortune-teller.rr
But another writer and folklorist, RomaLister, reveals her real
given name:
In Mr. Leland's company I interviewed the witches ofFlorence.
One of them, Margherita, lived in a tower nearthe Ponte Vecchio.
Her family, she averred, dated fromEtruscan days. Her people had
been priests of the oldreligion. Indeed, as she used the little
known names ofEtruscan deities in familiar talk, this is quite
possible: theItalians, notably among the peasantry, retain in
theirmemories curiously long and quaint pedigrees. Mar_gherita is
the heroine of Mr. Leland,s Florentine books,especially the
"Legends of Florence.,, She was stillgood-looking and one not to be
forgotten day I went withthe master to take coffee with her. It was
a curious expe_rience-like all Italians in her walk of life, she
receivedus with the manner of a great lady. The coffee was servedus
with true peasant luxury, bright cups and spotlessnapkins, and the
little cakes with colored icing dear topeasant fancy. The
conversation turned upon ancient ritu_als known to Margherita and
her folk long before Romeruled. We were told stories of
enchantments into which
medirval beliefs obtruded-a medley of lore and super-stition not
easy to keep apart any more than the ageswhich the mind's eye
spanned looking from her window
over the Arno, where yonder San Miniato towered abovethe shade
of Michael Angelo, his name a yesterday.l2
Maddalena soon became not merely Leland's foremostinformant on
the witch lore of Florence and its environs, butalso one of his
best friends in that city, as is clear from thenumerous references
to her in his letters to Elizabeth Pennell.Although Leland
eventually met other women-and, rarely, aman-who possessed this
same witch lore, most of the mate-rial which he published came
directly from Maddalena orthrough her intermediation. Elizabeth
Pennell, with all ofLeland's letters, papers and notebooks in her
study, tells usthat Maddalena "wrote often, sending him legends and
incan-tations and odd news of the witches her friends; her letters
andmanuscripts rival in bulk the letters and manuscripts, withnews
of the Red Indians, from Louis Mitchell."r3
Leland, too, wrote in his Etruscan Roman Remains inPopular
Tradition (1892) that she had sent him many texts,including one
large manuscript in her own hand:
I have been assured that there is in existence a manu-script
collection of charms and spells such as are now inuse-in fact, it
was promised me as a gift, but I have notsucceeded in obtaining it.
I have, however, a large MS.of this kind which was written for me
from collection andmemory, which I have used in writing this
book.la
Leland mentions Maddalena frequently in all of his bookson
Italian witch lore, and also in his letters and scrapbooks.r5It is
clear from all these references that he eventually obtainedseveral
hundred pages of Italian text from her, in addition tothe large
manuscript just mentioned.
Unfortunately, although most of the other letters,
papers,scrapbooks and texts cited by Leland (or by his niece in
herbiography of him) are still to be found in one or another of
the
HF,
F
rs
E
r'h
cF.
p
6..
$E
s
l
trir;:
Ii,'
It:
x
ig,
!
Ii,
3l30
-
Maddalena and the Witches of Italy
In 1886 Leland first met the remarkable witch womanwhom he calls
Maddalena in all his subsequent works. Havingwon her confidence by
a display of his own skills in otheitraditions of magic. he
managed, with her assistance, to pene_trate the secret world of the
fortune-tellers and spell casters ofthe region lying between Forli
and Ravenna, and especially atFlorence. After Leland and his wife
settled more or less per-manently in Florence, during the winter of
l88g- l gg9, he wasable to explore these hidden traditions in great
detail fornearly a decade.
Maddalena was not this woman,s legal name, but one thatLeland
gave her to guard her privacy. His niece, ElizabethRobins Pennell,
who also knew her, is equally discreet, thoughshe reproduces a
striking old photograph of Maddaleru u, uyoung fortune-teller.rr
But another writer and folklorist, RomaLister, reveals her real
given name:
In Mr. Leland's company I interviewed the witches ofFlorence.
One of them, Margherita, lived in a tower nearthe Ponte Vecchio.
Her family, she averred, dated fromEtruscan days. Her people had
been priests of the oldreligion. Indeed, as she used the little
known names ofEtruscan deities in familiar talk, this is quite
possible: theItalians, notably among the peasantry, retain in
theirmemories curiously long and quaint pedigrees. Mar_gherita is
the heroine of Mr. Leland,s Florentine books,especially the
"Legends of Florence.,' She was stillgood-looking and one not to be
forgotten day I went withthe master to take coffee with her. It was
a curious expe_rience-like all Italians in her walk of life, she
receivedus with the manner of a great lady. The coffee was servedus
with true peasant luxury, bright cups and spotlessnapkins, and the
little cakes with colored icing dear topeasant fancy. The
conversation turned upon ancient ritu_als known to Margherita and
her folk long before Romeruled. We were told stories of
enchantments into which
mediaval beliefs obtruded-a medley of lore and super-stition not
easy to keep apart any more than the ageswhich the mind's eye
spanned looking from her window
over the Arno, where yonder San Miniato towered abovethe shade
of Michael Angelo, his name a yesterday.l2
Maddalena soon became not merely Leland's foremostinformant on
the witch lore of Florence and its environs, butalso one of his
best friends in that city, as is clear from thenumerous references
to her in his letters to Elizabeth Pennell.Although Leland
eventually met other women-and, rarely, aman-who possessed this
same witch lore, most of the mate-rial which he published came
directly from Maddalena orthrough her intermediation. Elizabeth
Pennell, with all ofLeland's letters, papers and notebooks in her
study, tells usthat Maddalena "wrote often, sending him legends and
incan-tations and odd news of the witches her friends; her letters
andmanuscripts rival in bulk the letters and manuscripts, withnews
of the Red Indians, from Louis Mitchell."r3
Leland, too, wrote in his Etruscan Roman Remains inPopular
Tradition (1892) that she had sent him many texts,including one
large manuscript in her own hand:
I have been assured that there is in existence a manu-script
collection of charms and spells such as are now inuse-in fact, it
was promised me as a gift, but I have notsucceeded in obtaining it.
I have, however, a large MS.of this kind which was written for me
from collection and
memory, which I have used in writing this book.la
Leland mentions Maddalena frequently in all of his bookson
Italian witch lore, and also in his letters and scrapbooks.r5It is
clear from all these references that he eventually obtainedseveral
hundred pages of Italian text from her, in addition tothe large
manuscript just mentioned.
Unfortunately, although most of the other letters,
papers,scrapbooks and texts cited by Leland (or by his niece in
herbiography of him) are still to be found in one or another of
the
F
&
F&,
3l30
-
HE
$E:
Fr
i.tfour libraries named above, not even a single page of all
thiswitch lore in Maddalena's own hand seems to have been
pre-served anywhere. I have found only one letter from her,
pasted
into one of Leland's scrapbooks for 1895. It is dated June
17,1895, addressed to Leland as her "patron" and signed "Mad-dalena
Talenti" (if I have read her difficult handwriting cor-rectly). It
appears to discuss her impending marriage to an oldsuitor and their
proposed emigration from Italy to the UnitedStates.l6
If Maddalena did in fact succeed in emigrating, it wouldseem to
have been after the end of 1 896, when she sent Lelandthe
manuscript of Aradia from Colle near Siena.rT Indeed,
thismanuscript may be the very last text she sent Leland, to
judge
by his books and papers. By 1896, however, Leland had grownso
old and so physically weak that he was nearly housebound,so the
absence of any further references to texts from her maybe due to
his infirmity rather than her emigration.
Leland writes about Maddalena in several places, a few ofwhich
are of interest to us here. He first described her in hisGypty
Sorcery and Fortune Telling, published in 1891 butcompleted about
two years earlier: she is a woman "who wasof the Tuscan Romagna and
who looked Etruscan with a touchof gypsy blood, was a repertory of
popular superstitions, espe-cially witch-lore, and a maker and
wearer of fetishes, alwayscarrying a small bag of them."l8
Leland has other things to say about her elsewhere. In
hisEtruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition, as in Aradia,he
emphasizes that this witch lore is handed down in secretonly within
a few families such as Maddalena's.1e In an unpub-lished letter to
Elizabeth Pennell, written on Christmas Day(of 1894, from internal
evidence), he gives a long descriptionof a ritual that Maddalena
performed to free him from theeffects of the evil eye, and ends it
by describing Maddalenaherself as o'a relic of old Etruscan
shamanic witch faith."20
But Leland's fullest published account of Maddalena is tobe
found in the "Preface to the First Edition" (1895) in thefirst
volume of his Legends of Florence'.
In the year 1886 I made the acquaintance in Florence of
a woman who was not only skilled in fortune-telling, but
who had inherited as a family gift from generations, skill
in witchcraft-that is, a knowledge of mystical cures, the
relieving people who were bewitched, the making amu-
lets, and who had withal a memory stocked with a liter-
ally incredible number of tales and names of spirits, with
the invocations to them, and strange rites and charms'
She was a native of the Romagna Toscana, where there
still lurks in the recesses of the mountains much antique
Etrusco-Roman heathenism, though it is disappearingvery rapidly.
Maddalena-such was her nsms-5ssn $s-
gan to communicate to me all her lore. She could read
and write, but beyond this never gave the least indication
of having opened a book of any kind; albeit she had an
immense library of folklore in her brain. When she could
not recall a tale or incantation, she would go aboutamong her
extensive number of friends, and being per-
fectly familiar with every dialect, whether Neapolitan,
Bolognese, Florentine, or Venetian, and the ways and
manners of the poor, and especially of witches, who are
the great repositories of legends, became in time wonder-
fully well skilled as a collector. Now, as the proverb says,
"Take a thief to catch a thief," so I found that to take a
witch to catch witches, or detect their secrets, was an
infallible means to acquire the arcana of sorcery. It was
in this manner that I gathered a great part of the lore in
my "Etruscan Roman Remains." I however collectedenough, in all
conscience, from other sources, and veri-
fied it all sufficiently from classical writers, to fully
test
the honesty of my authorities. The witches in Italy form
a class who are the repositories of all the folklore; but,
what is not generally known, they also keep as strict
secrets an immense number of legends of their own,
which have nothing in common with the nursery or popu-
lar tales, such as are commonly collected and published.
The real witch story is very often only a frame, so to
32 JJ
-
HE,
EE.
[|v:9rt&9.
four libraries named above, not even a single page of all
thiswitch lore in Maddalena's own hand seems to have been
pre-served anywhere. I have found only one letter from her,
pasted
into one of Leland's scrapbooks for 1895. It is dated June
17,1895, addressed to Leland as her "patron" and signed "Mad-dalena
Talenti" (if I have read her difficult handwriting cor-rectly). It
appears to discuss her impending marriage to an oldsuitor and their
proposed emigration from Italy to the UnitedStates.l6
If Maddalena did in fact succeed in emigrating, it wouldseem to
have been after the end of 1 896, when she sent Lelandthe
manuscript of Aradia from Colle near Siena.rT Indeed,
thismanuscript may be the very last text she sent Leland, to
judge
by his books and papers. By 1896, however, Leland had grownso
old and so physically weak that he was nearly housebound,so the
absence of any further references to texts from her maybe due to
his infirmity rather than her emigration.
Leland writes about Maddalena in several places, a few ofwhich
are of interest to us here. He first described her in hisGypty
Sorcery and Fortune Telling, published in 1891 butcompleted about
two years earlier: she is a woman "who wasof the Tuscan Romagna and
who looked Etruscan with a touchof gypsy blood, was a repertory of
popular superstitions, espe-cially witch-lore, and a maker and
wearer of fetishes, alwayscarrying a small bag of them."r8
Leland has other things to say about her elsewhere. In
hisEtruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition, as in Aradia,he
emphasizes that this witch lore is handed down in secretonly within
a few families such as Maddalena's.1e In an unpub-lished letter to
Elizabeth Pennell, written on Christmas Day(of 1894, from internal
evidence), he gives a long descriptionof a ritual that Maddalena
performed to free him from theeffects of the evil eye, and ends it
by describing Maddalenaherself as o'a relic of old Etruscan
shamanic witch faith."20
But Leland's fullest published account of Maddalena is tobe
found in the "Preface to the First Edition" (1895) in thefirst
volume of his Legends of Florence:
In the year 1886 I made the acquaintance in Florence of
a woman who was not only skilled in fortune-telling, but
who had inherited as a family gift from generations, skill
in witchcraft-that is, a knowledge of mystical cures, the
relieving people who were bewitched, the making amu-
lets, and who had withal a memory stocked with a liter-
ally incredible number of tales and names of spirits, with
the invocations to them, and strange rites and charms'
She was a native of the Romagna Toscana, where there
still lurks in the recesses of the mountains much antique
Etrusco-Roman heathenism, though it is disappearingvery rapidly.
Maddalena-such was her nsms-5ssn $s-
gan to communicate to me all her lore. She could read
and write, but beyond this never gave the least indication
of having opened a book of any kind; albeit she had an
immense library of folklore in her brain. When she could
not recall a tale or incantation, she would go aboutamong her
extensive number of friends, and being per-
fectly familiar with every dialect, whether Neapolitan,
Bolognese, Florentine, or Venetian, and the ways and
manners of the poor, and especially of witches, who are
the great repositories of legends, became in time wonder-
fully well skilled as a collector. Now, as the proverb says,
"Take a thief to catch a thief," so I found that to take a
witch to catch witches, or detect their secrets, was an
infallible means to acquire the arcana of sorcery. It was
in this manner that I gathered a great part of the lore in
my "Etruscan Roman Remains." I however collectedenough, in all
conscience, from other sources, and veri-
fied it all sufficiently from classical writers, to fully
test
the honesty of my authorities. The witches in Italy form
a class who are the repositories of all the folklore; but,
what is not generally known, they also keep as strict
secrets an immense number of legends of their own,
which have nothing in common with the nursery or popu-
lar tales, such as are commonly collected and published.
The real witch story is very often only a frame, so to
32 JJ
-
speak, the real picture within it being the arcanum of along
scongiurazione or incantation, and what ingredientswere used to
work the charm.2l
Equally interesting is a manuscript note of Leland,s, pub_lished
by Elizabeth pennell, which says:
I did not gather all the facts for a long time, but
graduallyfound that she was of a witch famity, o, o* *tosemembers
had, from time immemorial, told fortunes, re_peated ancient
legends, gathered incantations andlearned how to intone them,
prepared enchanted medi_cines, philtres, or spells. As a girl, her
witch grand_mother, aunt, and especially her stepmother brouglt
herup to believe in her destiny as a sorceress, and taught herin
the forests, afar from human ear, to chant in .t.ung"prescribed
tones, incantations or evocations to the ai_cient gods of Italy,
under names but little changed, whoare now known asfolletti,
spiriti,fate, or lari_the Laresor household goblins of the ancient
Etruscans.22
After all this there should be no serious question thatMaddalena
truly existed, and that she was more than able tosupply Leland with
any desired quantity of witch lore in ex_:.h"-rg:
for his patronage and pay. The serious questions whichlie before
us are far more subtle ones:
' How did Leland use this materiar as he prepared his booksfor
publication?
. Yo* should we judge Maddalena,s material, to the extentthatwe
can recover it from Leland,s books (so long ur,t"original texts
that she sent him remain toit;Z Wu'. it unauthentic record of old
tradition? Was it Maddalena,s owninvention to please her patron? Or
does the truth Iie some_where between these two extremes?
The Gospel of the Witches (It Vangelo delle Streghe)On January
l, l9g7, Leland received a post from Mad_
dalena with a manuscript in Italian "entitled Aradia, or
theGospel of the l|titches." This manuscript was in her own
hand,but Leland presumed, or was told by her, that she had copiedit
from an older manuscript "setting forth the doctrines ofItalian
witchcraft," which she had long assured him existed.Leland himself
never saw this older manuscript.23
The casual reader of the published Aradia may well beginby
supposing that Leland simply translated Maddalena,smanuscript into
English and sent it to press; but even a hastyreading of the book
reveals that things are not nearly so simpleas this.
There are, first of all, many passages in the published
bookwhere Leland is clearly writing in his own person as a
scholar,commenting on the text which he has just given in
translation.These passages are easy to recognize, and are usually
markedby the use of a larger font of type or square brackets.
Obvi-ously, they cannot have been in Maddalena,s manuscript.
Yet this is not all. A somewhat more attentive examinationof the
published Aradia reveals that many other parts of itwere not
translated from this manuscript, either.
Leland himself says that the texts in chapters VII, XI,
XII,XIII, XIV and XV were not in Maddalena,s manuscript ofAradia,
but were found elsewhere-as a rule in some othermanuscript which he
had already received from Maddalena.2aThe same is clearly true of
the texts printed at the very end ofthe published book, after
Leland's own scholarly appendix.Moreover, as Leland himself points
out, the texts in chaptersXII, XIII and XV also appear by
themselves in two of his otherbooks, the second volume of Legends
of Florence (publishedin 1896), and Unpublished Legends of Virgit
(published in1899, at the same time as Aradia). Likewise, a shorter
versionof the text in chapter III is to be fOund in Legends
o/Florence.25
Thus at least six or seven of the fifteen chapters in
thepublished Aradia do not derive at all from the manuscript
ofAradia which Leland had received from Maddalena on thefirst day
of 1898.
re!'is;,,.
3435
)
-
speak, the real picture within it being the arcanum of along
scongiurazione or incantation, and what ingredientswere used to
work the charm.2r
Equally interesting is a manuscript note of Leland,s, pub_lished
by Elizabeth pennell, which says:
I did not gather all the facts for a long time, but
graduallyfound that she was of a witch family, o. o* *t,osemembers
had, from time immemorial, told fortunes. re_peated ancient
Iegends, gathered incantations andlearned how to intone them,
prepared enchanted medi_cines, philtres, or spells. As a girl, her
witch grand_mother, aunt, and especially her stepmother broug-ht
herup to believe in her destiny as a sorceress, and taught herin
the forests, afar from human ear, to chant in ,,.ung"prescribed
tones, incantations or evocations to the ai_cient gods of Italy,
under names but little changed, whoare now known asfolletti,
spiriti,fate, or lari_the Laresor household goblins of the ancient
Etruscans.22
After all this there should be no serious question thatMaddalena
truly existed, and that she was more than able tosupply Leland with
any desired quantity of witch lore in ex_:.h".ng:
for his patronage and pay. The serious questions whichlie before
us are far more subtle ones:
' How did Leland use this materiar as he prepared his booksfor
publication?
. Yo* should we judge Maddalena,s material, to the extentthat we
can recover it from Leland,s books (so long as theoriginal texts
that she sent him remain to.t;f Wi', it unauthentic record of old
tradition? Was it Maddalena,, o*ninvention to please her patron? Or
does the truth lie some_where between these two extremes?
The Gospel of the Witches (Il Vangelo delte Streghe)On January
1, 1897, Leland received a post from Mad_
dalena with a manuscript in Italian "entitled Aradia, or
theGospel of the l4ritches." This manuscript was in her own
hand,but Leland presumed, or was told by her, that she had copiedit
from an older manuscript "setting forth the doctrines ofItalian
witchcraft," which she had long assured him existed.Leland himself
never saw this older manuscript.23
The casual reader of the published Aradia may well beginby
supposing that Leland simply translated Maddalena,smanuscript into
English and sent it to press; but even a hastyreading of the book
reveals that things are not nearly so simpleas this.
There are, first of all, many passages in the published
bookwhere Leland is clearly writing in his own person as a
scholar,commenting on the text which he has just given in
translation.These passages are easy to recognize, and are usually
markedby the use of a larger font of type or square brackets.
Obvi-ously, they cannot have been in Maddalena,s manuscript.
Yet this is not all. A somewhat more attentive examinationof the
published Aradia reveals that many other parts of itwere not
translated from this manuscript, either.
Leland himself says that the texts in chapters VII, XI,
XII,XIII, XIV and XV were not in Maddalena,s manuscript ofAradia,
but were found elsewhere-as a rule in some othermanuscript which he
had already received from Maddalena.2aThe same is clearly true of
the texts printed at the very end ofthe published book, after
Leland's own scholarly appendix.Moreover, as Leland himself points
out, the texts in chaptersXII, XIII and XV also appear by
themselves in two of his otherbooks, the second volume of Legends
of Florence (publishedin 1896), and Unpublished Legends of Virgil
(published inI 899, at the same time as Aradia). Likewise, a
shorter versionof the text in chapter III is to be fOund in Legends
ofFlorence.25
Thus at least six or seven of the fifteen chapters in
thepublished Aradia do not derive at all from the manuscript
ofAradia which Leland had received from Maddalena on thefirst day
of 1 898.
ffiit;ii;
3435
)
-
The careful reader can take this line offurther, for Leland
himself has described theof Maddalena's manuscript more fully in
twopreface he writes:
reasoning evenwhole contents
passages. In the
I may say that witchcraft is known to its votaries as /avecchia
religione, or the old religion, of which Diana isthe Goddess, her
daughter Aradia (or Herodias) the fe_male Messiah, and that this
littre work sets forth how thelatter was born, came down to the
earth, estabrishedwitches and witchcraft, and then returned to
heaven.with it are given the ceremonies and invocations or
in-cantations to be addressed to Diana and Aradia, the ex_orcism of
Cain, and the spells of the holy-stone, rue, andverbena,
constituting, as the text declares, the regularchurch service, so
to speak, which is to be chanted orpronounced at the witch
meetings. There are also in_cluded the very curious incantations or
benedictions ofthe honey, meal, and salt, or cakes of the witch
supper,which is curiously classical, and evidently a relic
#tn"Roman Mysteries.26
His other, more discursive account of the contents in
thepublished book's appendix occupies several pages. It is toolong
to quote in full here, but it says that much of Maddarena,sItalian
text was in ,,prose-poetry,,, which Leland has ,,ren_dered in metre
or verse,,, and that it covered the followingtopics in order:27.
that Aradia is the daughter of Diana (Goddess of the
Moon) and her brother Lucifer (God of the Sun). that Diana, in
association with Aradia, is eueen of the
Witches and the Goddess and protectress of the oppressed,the
outcast, the ungodly and the god-forsaken
. that she is in some relation to Cain, who dwells as aprisoner
in the moon
. that the witches of old were people oppressed under
feu_dalism, revenging themselves on theii iords in every way
36 3t
sDkEE6sF6
!.Fl'
i
ii'1. a
:
and holding orgies to Diana which the Church misrepre-sented as
the worship of Satan
how the supper of the witches is to be conducted, with itscakes
of meal, salt and honey in the form of crescentmoons, and its
conjuration of the meal or bread
that there is a relationship between the brightness of thegrains
of wheat and the brightness of fireflies
how the Goddess may be compelled by threats to grant theprayers
of her worshippers
how a holy stone (i.e. a stone with a hole through it) is tobe
charmed, and rue and verbena or vervain are to begathered
These two accounts of the manuscript's contents
agreesufficiently with one another for us to regard them as
reliable.It is noteworthy that all of these topics are covered only
andwholly in chapters I and II and the first half of chapter IV
inthe publishe d Aradia, and that they are treated there in j ust
theorder in which Leland mentions them. All the rest of the
book,then, must be added text-not just chapters III, VII and
XIthrough XV (as Leland himself indicated), but also chapters V,VI
and VIII through X.
In characterizing most of the published Aradict as materialadded
by Leland to Maddalena's short manuscript of Aradia,I do not want
to be understood as implying that he inventedthese added texts.
Rather, he found them among the manytexts which he had already
collected from Maddalena, and hechose to include them because he
supposed that they wouldappropriately supplement her newest
manuscript, the shorttext titled Aradia, or the Gospel of the
Witches.2s That all, oralmost all, of these additional Italian
texts were also in thehand of a single person, that is, in
Maddalena's own hand, maybe deduced from what Leland himself writes
about them in thepublished book:
I would remind certain very literal readers that if theyfind
many faults of grammar, misspelling, and worse in
-
The careful reader can take this line of reasoning evenfurther,
for Leland himserf has described the whore contentsof Maddalena's
manuscript more fully in two passages. In thepreface he writes:
I may say that witchcraft is known to its votaries as /avecchia
religione, or the old religion, of which Diana isthe Goddess, her
daughter Aradia (or Herodias) the fe_male Messiah, and that this
little work sets forth how thelatter was born, came down to the
earth, establishedwitches and witchcraft, and then returned to
heaven.with it are given the ceremonies and invocations or
in-cantations to be addressed to Diana and Aradia, the ex_orcism of
Cain, and the spells of the holy_stone, rue, andverbena,
constituting, as the text declares, the regularchurch service, so
to speak, which is to be chanted orpronounced at the witch
meetings. There are also in_cluded the very curious incantations or
benedictions ofthe honey, meal, and salt, or cakes of the witch
supper,which is curiously-classical, and evidently a relic
Jtn"Roman Mysteries.26
His other, more discursive account of the contents in
thepublished book's appendix occupies several pages. It is tooIong
to quote in full here, but it says that much of Maddalena,sItalian
text was in ,,prose-poetry,,, which Leland has ,,ren_dered in metre
or verse,,, and that it covered the followingtopics in order:27.
that Aradia is the daughter of Diana (Goddess of the
Moon) and her brother Lucifer (God of the Sun). that Diana, in
association with Aradia, is eueen of the
Witches and the Goddess and protectress of the oppressed,the
outcast, the ungodly and the god_forsaken
. that she is in some relation to Cain, who dwells as aprisoner
in the moon
. that the witches of old were people oppressed under
feu_dalism, revenging themselves on theii iords in every way
3637
and holding orgies to Diana which the Church misrepre-sented as
the worship of Satan
how the supper of the witches is to be conducted, with itscakes
of meal, salt and honey in the form of crescentmoons, and its
conjuration of the meal or bread
that there is a relationship between the brightness of thegrains
of wheat and the brightness of fireflies
how the Goddess may be compelled by threats to grant theprayers
of her worshippers
how a holy stone (i.e. a stone with a hole through it) is tobe
charmed, and rue and verbena or vervain are to begathered
These two accounts of the manuscript's contents
agreesufficiently with one another for us to regard them as
reliable.It is noteworthy that all of these topics are covered only
andwholly in chapters I and II and the first half of chapter IV
inthe publishedAradia, and that they are treated there injust
theorder in which Leland mentions them. Allthe rest of the
book,then, must be added text-not just chapters III, VII and
XIthrough XV (as Leland himself indicated), but also chapters V,VI
and VIII through X.
In characterizing most of the published Aradia as materialadded
by Leland to Maddalena's short manuscript of Aradia,I do not want
to be understood as implying that he inventedthese added texts.
Rather, he found them among the manytexts which he had already
collected from Maddalena, and hechose to include them because he
supposed that they wouldappropriately supplement her newest
manuscript, the shorttext titled Aradia, or the Gospel of the
lV'itches.28 That all, oralmost all, of these additional Italian
texts were also in thehand of a single person, that is, in
Maddalena's own hand, maybe deduced from what Leland himself writes
about them in thepublished book:
I would remind certain very literal readers that if theyfind
many faults of grammar, misspelling, and worse in
-
the Italian texts in this book, they will not, as a
distin-guished reviewer has done, attribute them all to the
igno-
rance of the author, but to the imperfect education of the
person who collected and recorded them'2e
Leland further alludes to this process of selection
andcompilation in two other places, where he writes that
thepublished Aradia could have been made much longer, and that
it is merely the "initial chapter" in a much longer volumewhich
might be compiled to preserve "the Scripture of Witch-
craft," the "principal tenets, formulas, medicaments,
andmysteries" of la vecchia religione, the old religion, of
thewitches of Italy, which has been "the faith of millions in
the
past." Indeed, he says that "(I) would gladly undertake thework
if I believed that the public would make it worth thepublisher's
outlay and pains."3o
Behind the Scenes in Leland's Study
The preceding could have been worked out by anyonefrom the
published Aradia alone. However, thanks to a fortu-
nate discovery, I have now been able to look a bit more
deeply
into the way in which Leland compiled his book. Some years
ago, as I was going through the boxed bundles of Leland'sloose
papers preserved in the library of the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, I recognized several sheets of paper
withfamiliar text. Assembling all of these scattered sheets in
their
indicated order-they had been numbered-I found that I hadbefore
me the text in Leland's own hand, in English and ltal-
ian, of Aradla as he had published it in 1899.3'It was not
Maddalena's original manuscript, obviously.
The present location of all the manuscripts which she
prepared
for Leland still remains an unsolved mystery.32 Yet it was
thenext best thing to that lost original, for it was Leland's
owncareful working draft of his translation and commentary,
with
many additions and corrections on the original sheets and
also
on slips of paper which he had pasted to these sheets'
Thisdraft, as it happened, was neat and clean enough for him to
send directly to his publisher, where it was marked up by an
editor and handed over to the typesetters to serve as their
working copy. When the editor and the typesetters had fin-
ished theirwork, the draft was returned to Leland, who never
got around to discarding it in the course of the last few,
diffi-
cult years of his life.From these handwritten pages we can learn
more about
how Leland compiled the text of the published Aradia from
the mass of material which Maddalena had collected for him'
There is no need to describe all the detail ofthe process
here,
for most of his changes were stylistic, or were additions to
the
commentary which occurred to Leland as afterthoughts'13Only two
observations bear directly on the questions that we
are considering here.
The more important of these two observations is thatLeland was
still revising his English text-his translations and
his commentaries alike-as he wrote out the manuscript for
his publisher, but that he did not revise the Italian text that
he
included in his manuscript. All the deletions, insertions
and
other corrections in the English text show that Leland was
not
just copying out a work that he had already written and pol-
ished, but was still improving his text as he prepared
themanuscript for the printer. In sharp contrast to this, the
texts
in Italian are written almost without any corrections. The
few
corrections he made to the Italian are precisely the sort that
a
proofreader would make as he compared his copy to the origi-
nal.
Before I had examined the manuscript carefully, I was sti11
somewhat of two minds whether Leland might have invented
Aradia by himself, Italian and English texts alike. Now,
how-
ever, I am convinced that Leland had clearly written
Italiantexts, such as he said that Maddalena had sent to him.
He
seems to have translated these Italian texts as he went
along,
and he continued to polish his English translations and com-
mentaries as he wrote them out. When he gave the text of
some
spell in Italian as well as English, he already had a final
copy
of the Italian before him, which he could simply transcribe
38 39
-
the Italian texts in this book, they will not, as a
distin-guished reviewer has done, attribute them all to the
igno-
rance of the author, but to the imperfect education of the
person who collected and recorded them'2e
Leland further alludes to this process of selection
andcompilation in two other places, where he writes that
thepublished Aradio could have been made much longer, and that
it is merely the "initial chapter" in a much longer volumewhich
might be compiled to preserve "the Scripture of Witch-
craft," the "principal tenets, formulas, medicaments,
andmysteries" of la vecchia religione, the old religion, of
thewitches of Italy, which has been "the faith of millions in
the
past." Indeed, he says that "(I) would gladly undertake thework
if I believed that the public would make it worth thepublisher's
outlay and pains."3o
Behind the Scenes in Leland's Study
The preceding could have been worked out by anyonefrom the
published Aradia alone. However, thanks to a fortu-
nate discovery, I have now been able to look a bit more
deeply
into the way in which Leland compiled his book. Some years
ago, as I was going through the boxed bundles of Leland'sloose
papers preserved in the library of the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, I recognized several sheets of paper
withfamiliar text. Assembling all of these scattered sheets in
their
indicated order-they had been numbered-I found that I hadbefore
me the text in Leland's own hand, in English and ltal-
ian, of Aradia as he had published it in 1899.3'It was not
Maddalena's original manuscript, obviously.
The present location of all the manuscripts which she
prepared
for Leland still remains an unsolved mystery.32 Yet it was
thenext best thing to that lost original, for it was Leland's
owncareful working draft of his translation and commentary,
with
many additions and corrections on the original sheets and
also
on slips of paper which he had pasted to these sheets'
Thisdraft, as it happened, was neat and clean enough for him to
send directly to his publisher, where it was marked up by an
editor and handed over to the typesetters to serve as their
working copy. When the editor and the typesetters had fin-
ished theirwork, the draft was returned to Leland, who never
got around to discarding it in the course of the last few,
diffi-
cult years of his life.From these handwritten pages we can learn
more about
how Leland compiled the text of the published Aradia ftom
the mass of material which Maddalena had collected for him'
There is no need to describe all the detail ofthe process
here,
for most of his changes were stylistic, or were additions to
the
commentary which occurred to Leland as afterthoughts'13Only two
observations bear directly on the questions that we
are considering here.
The more important of these two observations is thatLeland was
still revising his English text-his translations and
his commentaries alike-as he wrote out the manuscript for
his publisher, but that he did not revise the Italian text that
he
included in his manuscript. All the deletions, insertions
and
other corrections in the English text show that Leland was
not
just copying out a work that he had already written and pol-
ished, but was still improving his text as he prepared
themanuscript for the printer. In sharp contrast to this, the
texts
in Italian are written almost without any corrections. The
few
corrections he made to the Italian are precisely the sort that
a
proofreader would make as he compared his copy to the origi-
nal.
Before I had examined the manuscript carefully, I was sti11
somewhat of two minds whether Leland might have invented
Aradia by himself, Italian and English texts alike. Now,
how-
ever, I am convinced that Leland had clearly written
Italiantexts, such as he said that Maddalena had sent to him.
He
seems to have translated these Italian texts as he went
along,
and he continued to polish his English translations and com-
mentaries as he wrote them out' When he gave the text of
some
spell in Italian as well as English, he already had a final
copy
of the Italian before him, which he could simply transcribe
38 39
-
into his own manuscript-with all its original errors in
spell-ing, as he informed us.3a This fact is further valuable
supportfor Leland's own statement that he was working from
existingtexts in Italian which had been sent to him.
The other of these two observations is of nearly
equalimportance. All the chapter divisions and titles in the
publish-ed Aradia were added by Leland himself, and were not in
theItalian texts which he had received from Maddalena. The
draftmanuscript reveals that Leland divided the early part of
Ara-dia into chapters only after he had written out the first
37sheets of that manuscript. Moreover, these 37 sheets
containprecisely the text*that is, chapters I and II and the first
halfof chapter IV-which corresponds in its contents to Mad-dalena's
original manuscript of Aradia, as Leland himself de-scribed it (see
the previous section of this essay).35
It is difficult to convey the details of this to a reader whois
not in a position to look at the draft manuscript himself(either in
the original or on microfilm), but I shall try to do sofor the sake
of those readers who need to weigh the evidencefor themselves.
The first thing that one sees is that the final headings
forchapter II and chapter IV were added by Leland, on
insertedsheets of paper, sometime after he wrote the first part of
themanuscript.
When Leland wrote out the first part of his draft, the
placewhere chapter II now begins fell towards the bottom of sheet33
in the manuscript, and originally had no chapter number ortitle.
The text continues on the sheet that immediately fol-lowed this
one, but is now numbered 35. Sheet 34 is an in-serted half sheet,
which contains only the heading of chapterII (its number and its
title) and the first few words of thechapter which were at the
bottom of sheet 33.
Similarly, the place where chapter IV now begins felltowards the
bottom of sheet 53 in the manuscript, and had nochapter number or
title originally. The text continues on thesheet that immediately
followed this one, but is now numbered61. Here two things happened.
First, a sheet (now numbered
40 41
60) was inserted, which contains only the heading of chapter
IV (its number and its title) and the first few words of
thechapter which were at the bottom of sheet 53. Second, anentire
new chapter-the present chapter III-
-
into his own manuscript-with all its original errors in
spell-ing, as he informed us.3a This fact is further valuable
supportfor Leland's own statement that he was working from
existingtexts in Italian which had been sent to him.
The other of these two observations is of nearly
equalimportance. All the chapter divisions and titles in the
publish-ed Aradia were added by Leland himself, and were not in
theItalian texts which he had received from Maddalena. The
draftmanuscript reveals that Leland divided the early part of
Ara-dia into chapters only after he had written out the first
37sheets of that manuscript. Moreover, these 37 sheets
containprecisely the text-that is, chapters I and II and the first
halfof chapter IV-which corresponds in its contents to Mad-dalena's
original manuscript of Aradia, as Leland himself de-scribed it (see
the previous section of this essay).35
It is difficult to convey the details of this to a reader whois
not in a position to look at the draft manuscript himself(either in
the original or on microfilm), but I shall try to do sofor the sake
of those readers who need to weigh the evidencefor themselves.
The first thing that one sees is that the final headings
forchapter II and chapter IV were added by Leland, on
insertedsheets of paper, sometime after he wrote the first part of
themanuscript.
When Leland wrote out the first part of his draft, the
placewhere chapter II now begins fell towards the bottom of sheet33
in the manuscript, and originally had no chapter number ortitle.
The text continues on the sheet that immediately fol-lowed this
one, but is now numbered 35. Sheet 34 is an in-serted half sheet,
which contains only the heading of chapterII (its number and its
title) and the first few words of thechapter which were at the
bottom of sheet 33.
Similarly, the place where chapter IV now begins felltowards the
bottom of sheet 53 in the manuscript, and had nochapter number or
title originally. The text continues on thesheet that immediately
followed this one, but is now numbered61. Here two things happened.
First, a sheet (now numbered
40 4t
FrE
rs&,
r
rF
r
f
l
I,
r
:
:
60) was inserted, which contains only the heading of chapter
IV (its number and its title) and the first few words of
thechapter which were at the bottom of sheet 53' Second, anentire
new chapter-the present chapter III--on 6 new sheetswas inserted
between the sheets now numbered 53 and 60.
(See following pages.)These three insertions-sheet 34, sheets 54
through 59,
and sheet 60-were all made at the same time, since the chap-
ter numbers which they bear are consistent with one another:
"Chapter Second" on sheet 34, "Chapter Third" on sheet 54,and
"Chapter Fourth" on sheet 60. At the same time the first
few words of chapter II which were originally at the bottom
ofsheet 33 were cut away, and the first few words of chapter IV
which were originally at the bottom of sheet 53 were crossed
out (but can still be read).All this happened after Leland wrote
the sheets that are
now numbered 61 through 66 (which contain the first half
ofchapter IV), but before he wrote the sheets now numbered
67through 73 (which contain the second half of chapter IV)' Thiscan
be seen from the fact that sheet 67 originally began with
the words "Chapter Fifth" and a chapter title. The
heading"Chapter Fifth" on this sheet was soon crossed out, for
whatis now chapter V begins on sheet 74, and at the top of sheet
74
stood-and stands-the same heading, "Chapter Fifth."Now Leland
had intended to divide his book into chapters
from the beginning of his work on it, for the very first sheet
ofthe main text (after the preface and table of contents) openswith
the words "Aradia / or the Gospel of the Witches /Chapter First."36
Therefore he must also have planned from
the beginning to supplement Maddalena's brief manuscript
ofAradia with other texts that he had already received from
her.
The only thing that changed was where he would place the
chapter divisions.
Originally, he intended that Maddalena's entire text of
Aradia would be the first chapter of the compilation which
he
was making. Sometime after he had drafted this original
chap-
ter in its entirety, but before he had done much more work,
he
- 2
-
A*) ZL4-jz-) a 6-*.- *-'/a--T*-'^-..-?* Z>---"- +21*--Z
.r4^. 4 r A.*;----
-?--* z---i- J*-A
Sheet 53
The following illustrations are reproductions of Leland,s
manuscript showinghow the original text was broken to add more
material. sheets 55 to sg, whichare not reproduced here, contain
the balance of chapter 3.
42 43
+-,7'zi=ffi
o-4^ ry --:*ff z-c24r--
* a--z).Q- -?d lG - 7 .--*Z-9.:;*- . tT,#I* a- b-,.,4
Sheet 54
-
%diva--.tr
/,-
Sheet 60
44 45
.Lb.e..A-A-->
Sheet 61
-
,L
Sheet 60
44 45
d----*-C-aJ
m%e,-aoz
e!2P+a*rJZsae"-42--,-:r4^4; L 1^- -eze-^Ze*--^-?- -eeoa-+
l4=a:--,-24-* a A=r- --'-fu^* e,1.*o
Sheet 61
-
decided to insert what is now chapter III into this text
abouttwo-thirds of the way toward its end. Needing to keep
thischapter as a distinct unit, he then divided the original
firstchapter into three parts by inserting two further sheets.
Lettingthe first of these three parts remain chapter I, he labeled
theothers chapter II and chapter IV.
He then proceeded to write a further additional chapter,"Chapter
Fifth / The Spell or Conjuration / of the RoundStone," which
occupies sheets 67 through 73. But he soonchanged his plan here,
realizing that this short chapter blendedwell with the previous
short chapter about stones with holesthrough them. Accordingly, he
crossed out the heading "Chap-ter Fifth" on sheet 67,but wrote the
same words at the top ofsheet 74, where chapter V in the published
Aradia begins.From here onward there are no further revisions in
the chapterheadings, but everything proceeds in the draft
manuscript asin the published Aradia.
As I already pointed out, the bottom of sheet 66 is exactlywhere
Maddalena's manuscript of Aradia seems to haveended, to judge by
Leland's accounts of its contents. Theformer existence of a chapter
division at this point stronglyconfirms this conjecture. When
Leland crossed out the head-ing "Chapter Fifth" on sheet 67, he
effectively masked thepoint at which Maddalena's manuscript of
Aradia ended, butwith his manuscript draft we can lift the
mask.
The manuscript draft, with all these additions and correc-tions,
was finished early in 1897, and sent promptly to aprospective
publisher, David Nutt. There it remained untilearly 1899, when
Leland finally wrote to reclaim it, presum-ably to send it to some
other publisher. Nutt responded byfinally accepting the manuscript
for publication. It seems tohave reached the bookstores by July, I
899, atthe very latest.37How it fared at the hands of the reading
public remains to bestudied.38
46 47
How Should we Judge Aradia?
When all is said and done, what are we to think of
Leland,spublished Aradia? In the past, extreme views have
predomi-nated. Some have thought that the whole of Aradia (apart
fromthe obviously added scholarly commentary) is a
straightfor-ward, accurate translation of a single text, long kept
secret bythe witches of Italy. Others have voiced their suspicions
thatLeland made the whole of Aradia up out of his
imagination.3e
We have seen that neither of these extreme views can becorrect.
As often happens, the truth lies somewhere in themiddle. The
evidence which we have examined strongly com-pels us to regard the
published Aradia as a compilation madeby Leland from a number of
written texts and oral materialscollected mostly (or entirely) from
just one very unusual Ital-ian informant, whom he named
Maddalena.
As a compilation, of course, the publish ed Aradia reflectsthe
views and interests of its compiler; it could not be other-wise,
given Leland's own high degree of personal involvementwith the
themes of these texts. We have already stated thatLeland himself
was from his youth onwards a romantic and amystic. It remains to be
noted that by the time he met Mad-dalena he had-as many mystics
will-arrived at his ownhighly individual views on the basic
questions of religion andthe effectiveness of magic, which were
very different fromthose of any established church of his era.a0 He
seems also tohave come to hold strong views on the equality of men
andwomen which were unusual in his age.al
So strong-minded and individualistic a scholar as Leland,so
deeply involved with the magic and lore of his informantsin an age
when folklore was just becoming a scholarly disci-pline, could not
help putting a lot of himself in his books. Anobituary notice by F.
York Powell has this to say aboutLeland's folklore research:
He could and did make careful and exact notes, but whenhe put
his results before the public he liked to give themthe seal of his
own personality and to allow his fancy to
-
decided to insert what is now chapter III into this text
abouttwo-thirds of the way toward its end. Needing to keep
thischapter as a distinct unit, he then divided the original
firstchapter into three parts by inserting two further sheets.
Lettingthe first of these three parts remain chapter I, he labeled
theothers chapter II and chapter IV.
He then proceeded to write a further additional chapter,"Chapter
Fifth / The Spell or Conjuration / of the RoundStone," which
occupies sheets 67 through 73. But he soonchanged his plan here,
realizing that this short chapter blendedwell with the previous
short chapter about stones with holesthrough them. Accordingly, he
crossed out the heading "Chap-ter Fifth" on sheet 67,but wrote the
same words at the top ofsheet 74, where chapter V in the published
Aradia begins.From here onward there are no further revisions in
the chapterheadings, but everything proceeds in the draft
manuscript asin the published Aradia.
As I already pointed out, the bottom of sheet 66 is exactlywhere
Maddalena's manuscript of Aradia seems to haveended, to judge by
Leland's accounts of its contents. Theformer existence of a chapter
division at this point stronglyconfirms this conjecture. When
Leland crossed out the head-ing "Chapter Fifth" on sheet 67, he
effectively masked thepoint at which Maddalena's manuscript of
Aradia ended, butwith his manuscript draft we can lift the
mask.
The manuscript draft, with all these additions and correc-tions,
was finished early in 1897, and sent promptly to aprospective
publisher, David Nutt. There it remained untilearly 1899, when
Leland finally wrote to reclaim it, presum-ably to send it to some
other publisher. Nutt responded byfinally accepting the manuscript
for publication. It seems tohave reached the bookstores by July, I
899, atthe very latest.37How it fared at the hands of the reading
public remains to bestudied.38
46 47
How Should we Judge Aradia?
When all is said and done, what are we to think of
Leland,spublished Aradia? In the past, extreme views have
predomi-nated. Some have thought that the whole of Aradia (apart
fromthe obviously added scholarly commentary) is a
straightfor-ward, accurate translation of a single text, long kept
secret bythe witches of Italy. Others have voiced their suspicions
thatLeland made the whole of Aradia up out of his
imagination.3e
We have seen that neither of these extreme views can becorrect.
As often happens, the truth lies somewhere in themiddle. The
evidence which we have examined strongly com-pels us to regard the
published Aradia as a compilation madeby Leland from a number of
written texts and oral materialscollected mostly (or entirely) from
just one very unusual Ital-ian informant, whom he named
Maddalena.
As a compilation, of course, the publish ed Aradia reflectsthe
views and interests of its compiler; it could not be other-wise,
given Leland's own high degree of personal involvementwith the
themes of these texts. We have already stated thatLeland himself
was from his youth onwards a romantic and amystic. It remains to be
noted that by the time he met Mad-dalena he had-as many mystics
will-arrived at his ownhighly individual views on the basic
questions of religion andthe effectiveness of magic, which were
very different fromthose of any established church of his era.ao He
seems also tohave come to hold strong views on the equality of men
andwomen which were unusual in his age.4l
So strong-minded and individualistic a scholar as Leland,so
deeply involved with the magic and lore of his informantsin an age
when folklore was just becoming a scholarly disci-pline, could not
help putting a lot of himself in his books. Anobituary notice by F.
York Powell has this to say aboutLeland's folklore research:
He could and did make careful and exact notes, but whenhe put
his results before the public he liked to give themthe seal of his
own personality and to allow his fancy to
-
play about the stories and poems he was publishing, sothat those
who were not able quickly to distinguish whatwas folklore and what
was Leland were shocked, andgrumbled (much to his astonishment and
even disgust)and belittled his real achievements. He thought
clearly,and many of his "guesses" have been or are being
con-firmed.a2
So the published Aradia definitely reflects something ofLeland's
views on religion, on magic and on women. Theseviews are, for the
most part, overtly expressed in his commen-tary; but they may also
have somewhat colored his transla-tions, and they have without
question colored his selection ofsupplementary texts in the
published Aradia.a3
But the published Aradia also reflects the views of Mad-dalena:
the Italian texts which Leland gave in the original andin
translation were all (or almost all) in her handwriting, andwere
either composed or edited by her before Leland ever sawthem.
Maddalena presented herself (and her fellows) to Lelandas
streghe (witches) and also-the two are not necessarily thesame
thing-as followers of la vecchia religione (the old re-ligion), in
other words, as custodians of a secret tradition ofmagic and
"counter-religion" which had survived from Ro-man antiquity, and
even from the Etruscans who were therebefore the Romans, in
Florence and the Tuscan territoryaround it.44 The texts which he
received from her, as we canread them in his transcriptions and
translations, reflect thisview of Maddalena's over and over
again.
As we have shown, Leland did not invent Maddalena. Shewas a real
person, whom scholars may still be able to tracethrough the civil
and ecclesiastical records of Florence. Shewas also Leland's
principal source for all his books on Italianwitch lore, including
Aradia. Whatever we may concludeabout the anliquity of Maddalena's
witch lore, there should nolonger be any question that it was
originally hers, notLeland's.45
48 49
But there is a real likelihood that Maddalena to a certainextent
invented herself in response to the interests and enthu-siasms of
her friend Leland, who also employed her to collectItalian witch
lore and thus became her patron as well as herfriend.a6 Maddalena,
before Leland met her, worked at manytrades, but mostly as a
professional fortune-teller and spellcaster. Now a professional
fortune-teller, whatever her otherskills, must be able to "read"
the unspoken desires and fearsof her clients from the many subtle
clues and cues which theygive aS the consultation progresses.
(There is nothing super-natural about this ability, which is also a
part of the stock intrade of many a good psychiatrist and many a
successful sales-man.) It is clear, even from the relatively little
we know abouther, that Maddalena was highly skilled at her craft of
fortune-teller and spell caster.
It is very likely, therefore, that Maddalena could
,,read,,Leland as she read her clients, and that during the ten
years oftheir acquaintance she learned to understand him very
wellindeed. It would have been easy for so competent acraftswoman
as Maddalena to have selected-and even tohave adapted-from the vast
amount of lore at her disposalprecisely those texts and practices,
those legends and spells,which would most fascinate her patron,
which would bestserve to hold his interest by meeting the desires
and satisfyingthe passions ofhis very unusual intellect.
This means that all of Leland's books on Italian witch
loredocument for us, ultimately, the magic and counter-religion
ofone remarkable, strong-minded woman from Florence. Al-though she
claimed to be a representative of a secret tradition,and may truly
have been what she claimed, she is almost thesole voice from that
tradition that we can hear in Leland,sbooks. Moreover, what we find
in these books is only a smallpart of all her witch lore, which she
clearly had selected-andno doubt adapted-in order to delight and
satisfy one remark-able, strong-minded man from Philadelphia.
Aradia was thefinal product of the interaction between these two
people,somewhat as iron is shaped between the hammer and the
anvil.
-
play about the stories and poems he was publishing, sothat those
who were not able quickly to distinguish whatwas folklore and what
was Leland were shocked, andgrumbled (much to his astonishment and
even disgust)and belittled his real achievements. He thought
clearly,and many of his "guesses" have been or are being
con-firmed.a2
So the published Aradia definitely reflects something ofLeland's
views on religion, on magic and on women. Theseviews are, for the
most part, overtly expressed in his commen-tary; but they may also
have somewhat colored his transla-tions, and they have without
question colored his selection ofsupplementary texts in the
published Aradia.a3
But the published Aradia also reflects the views of Mad-dalena:
the Italian texts which Leland gave in the original andin
translation were all (or almost all) in her handwriting, andwere
either composed or edited by her before Leland ever sawthem.
Maddalena presented herself (and her fellows) to Lelandas
streghe (witches) and also-the two are not necessarily thesame
thing-as followers of la vecchia religione (the old re-ligion), in
other words, as custodians of a secret tradition ofmagic and
"counter-religion" which had survived from Ro-man antiquity, and
even from the Etruscans who were therebefore the Romans, in
Florence and the Tuscan territoryaround it.44 The texts which he
received from her, as we canread them in his transcriptions and
translations, reflect thisview of Maddalena's over and over
again.
As we have shown, Leland did not invent Maddalena. Shewas a real
person, whom scholars may still be able to tracethrough the civil
and ecclesiastical records of Florence. Shewas also Leland's
principal source for all his books on Italianwitch lore, including
Aradia. Whatever we may concludeabout the antiquity of Maddalena's
witch lore, there should nolonger be any question that it was
originally hers, notLeland's.45
48 49
But there is a real likelihood that Maddalena to a certainextent
invented herself in response to the interests and enthu-siasms of
her friend Leland, who also employed her to collectItalian witch
lore and thus became her patron as well as herfriend.a6 Maddalena,
before Leland met her, worked at manytrades, but mostly as a
professional fortune-teller and spellcaster. Now a professional
fortune-teller, whatever her otherskills, must be able to "read"
the unspoken desires and fearsof her clients from the many subtle
clues and cues which theygive aS the consultation progresses.
(There is nothing super-natural about this ability, which is also a
part of the stock intrade of many a good psychiatrist and many a
successful sales-man.) It is clear, even from the relatively little
we know abouther, that Maddalena was highly skilled at her craft of
fortune-teller and spell caster.
It is very likely, therefore, that Maddalena could
,,read,,Leland as she read her clients, and that during the ten
years oftheir acquaintance she learned to understand him very
wellindeed. It would have been easy for so competent acraftswoman
as Maddalena to have selected-and even tohave adapted-from the vast
amount of lore at her disposalprecisely those texts and practices,
those legends and spells,which would most fascinate her patron,
which would bestserve to hold his interest by meeting the desires
and satisfyingthe passions ofhis very unusual intellect.
This means that all of Leland's books on Italian witch
loredocument for us, ultimately, the magic and counter-religion
ofone remarkable, strong-minded woman from Florence. Al-though she
claimed to be a representative of a secret tradition,and may truly
have been what she claimed, she is almost thesole voice from that
tradition that we can hear in Leland,sbooks. Moreover, what we find
in these books is only a smallpart of all her witch lore, which she
clearly had selected-andno doubt adapted-in order to delight and
satisfy one remark-able, strong-minded man from Philadelphia.
Aradia was thefinal product of the interaction between these two
people,somewhat as iron is shaped between the hammer and the
anvil.
-
Yet despite their strong individuality, all the texts which
Maddalena copied out for Leland, and all the practices which
she taught him, constitute one authentic variety of Italianmagic
and Italian counter-religion. A fortune-teller and spell
caster like Maddalena does not cease to be authentic when
she
practices her crafts for a foreigner, even though she will
treathim differently than she would treat an Italian client. After
all,
she cannot treat all Italian clients alike, either, if she is to
besuccessful at her trade.
There are two traps we must avoid as we try to judge
Aradia and Leland's other writings on Italian witch lore.
First,
we must not suppose that what has been collected from an
individual like Maddalena is representative, or typical,
simply
because it is authentic. Second, we must not suppose that
what
has been collected by an individual like Leland is not
authen-
tic simply because it is not representative, or not typical.
Anauthentic piece of folklore and a typical piece of folklore
are
two utterly different things, even though most pieces of
folk-
lore are both at once. Each is valuable for itself and each
is
important to us in its own waY.This, then, is how we should
judge Aradia.It is authentic,
but not representative. It offers a selection and adaptation
offamily lore, which may not even be folklore in the strictest
sense of the term. This lore is witch lore, that is, it is
partlyabout witches and their magic, and it serves to transmit
thelegends and practices of that magic from generation to
genera-
tion. But this witch lore is not limited to magic; it also
trans-mits a counter-religion, that is, a religion held in
deliberate
opposition to the prevailing norms of the society and
culture
in which its adherents live. In Italy the normative religion
at
that time was the Catholic Church, so the counter-religion
ofAradia is naturally anti-Catholic and antihierarchical (anti-
clerical, antifeudal, etc.). No outside influence need be
posited
to account for these features ofthe texts published in
Aradia.
There is one remaining question, which unfortunately can-
not be answered in this essay. Is the counter-religion of
Aradia
also an old, pre-Catholic religion (as Maddalena's term, /4
50 5l
vecchia religione, suggests)? If not, how much does it
trulypreserve of the earlier rerigions-and conceivabry of
earliercounter-religions-which once flourished in Tuscan Italy
be_fore.christianity prevailed there, and how much of it is of
laterorigin? This question must be left to another scholar,
whoseexpertise will have to rie in different fierds than mine.
ourinvestigation must end here with this rast great question
stirlunanswered.
-
Yet despite their strong individuality, all the texts which
Maddalena copied out for Leland, and all the practices which
she taught him, constitute one authentic variety of Italianmagic
and Italian counter-religion. A fortune-teller and spell
caster like Maddalena does not cease to be authentic when
she
practices her crafts for a foreigner, even though she will
treathim differently than she would treat an Italian client. After
all,
she cannot treat all Italian clients alike, either, if she is to
besuccessful at her trade.
There are two traps we must avoid as we try to judge
Aradia and Leland's other writings on Italian witch lore'
First,
we must not suppose that what has been collected from an
individual like Maddalena is representative, or typical,
simply
because it is authentic. Second, we must not suppose that
what
has been collected by an individual like Leland is not
authen-
tic simply because it is not representative, or not typical.
Anauthentic piece of folklore and a typical piece of folklore
are
two utterly different things, even though most pieces of
folk-
lore are both at once. Each is valuable for itself and each
is
important to us in its own waY.This, then, is how we should
judge Aradia.It is authentic,
but not representative. It offers a selection and adaptation
offamily lore, which may not even be folklore in the strictest
sense of the term. This lore is witch lore, that is, it is
partlyabout witches and their magic, and it serves to transmit
thelegends and practices of that magic from generation to
genera-
tion. But this witch lore is not limited to magic; it also
trans-mits a counter-religion, that is, a religion held in
deliberate
opposition to the prevailing norms of the society and
culture
in which its adherents live. In Italy the normative religion
at
that time was the Catholic Church, so the counter-religion
ofAradia is naturally anti-Catholic and antihierarchical (anti-
clerical, antifeudal, etc.). No outside influence need be
posited
to account for these features ofthe texts published in
Aradia.
There is one remaining question, which unfortunately can-
not be answered in this essay. Is the counter-religion of
Aradia
also an old, pre-Catholic religion (as Maddalena's term, /4
50 5l
vecchia religione, suggests)? If not, how much does it
trulypreserve of the earlier rerigions-and conceivably of
earliercounter-religions-which once flourished in Tuscan Italy
be_fore.christianity prevailed there, and how much of it is of
laterorigin? This question must be left to another scholar,
whoseexpertise will have to rie in different fierds than mine.
ourinvestigation m