APPENDIX I

MEDICAL MAGIC IN ITALY DURING THE FOURTEENTH–FIFTEENTH CENTURIES

Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380–1444), nicknamed the Star of Tuscany, never halted in his battle against the magical practices of healing, but, in so doing, left us a small overview of the recipes used in his time. In his tenth sermon (De idolatria cultu, 3.2), he lists twenty-five practices, some examples of which follow¹:

1. First they do not eat the heads of animal so as to not have headaches and do other stupidities [et alias stultitias operantur].

4. There are many other errors of this kind inspired by the devil, such as this one. Against the falling or royal sickness,^*26 on the day^†27 of Assumption² and thereby offending the Virgin, they spend the night dancing³ and at various follies, taking special pains not to fall on the ground, thinking themselves to be protected from this ill for the entire year. *†‡§††‡‡§§

5. Against dental pains, they touch their teeth with the tooth of a hanged man or the bone of those who died in other ways, or stick a sword in the ground with certain words, or else place a blade between their teeth when the bells ring on holy Saturday, and do many other like things.

6. To be cured of a sore throat or inflammation of the throat, some take a knife to the black sleeve and recite an incantation [incantant].

7. Against the ill of cramps, wear a ring made during the Passion of Our Lord, while observing the day and hour of the apostle.

8. Against dislocated bones or limbs they use two reeds and a young hazel shoot,^*28 joining them end to end whereupon the devil unites them, and thinking this is a miracle, they hang them around their necks like holy relics [quasi sanctus reliquias ad collum suspendunt].

9. To heal kidney disease, they have the patient lie down with his face against the ground, as if he worshiped the devil, then a woman who has had twins treads on his kidneys [calcando lumbo ejus] while holding two frogs in her hands, then walks over him three times while speaking laughable idiocies. . . .

11. Against worms, especially in children, they write on their stomach, on lead, or on parchment, attaching the text with the thread of a virgin girl [cum filo puellae virginis] and throwing melted lead or garlic into the water. . . .

15. For healing daily, tertian, or quartan fever, they give the fasting patient leaves of trees, or apples, or sacred hosts with writing to eat for three days.

16. Against certain illnesses of children, they pass them into [faciunt illos transire] the roots of hollow oaks or the like, or through a recent hole.

19. Against the falling sickness [epilepsy], or the royal illness, they light twelve candles for the twelve apostles and, when the patient has been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, they rebaptize him in the name of the devil, changing the name given him at baptism by giving him that of the apostle whose candle remained the last one alight.