Paganism, also known as Neo-Paganism, is a faith riddled
with contradictions and conundrums. Its reappearance in Italy is no exception.
Many people may not consider Paganism to be a faith, but it is the world's
oldest religion, as well as the newest, pre-modern and postmodern at the same
time.
The world's oldest faith has been helped to return to – or
even re-emerge in – one of its ancestral homes by the twentieth century's
hegemonic globalizing movements, industrialization, and spread of English
speaking and writing. Witchcraft as a formalized, postmodern faith, with Pagan
clergy, has returned to the land where folk rituals of witchcraft and reverence
for ancient priestesses and oracles never completely vanished.
My role as a writer, like that of many other researchers in
religious studies, anthropology, and other disciplines, was often one of
privileged insider status. My affiliation with the
international Pagan community, as well as my background as a scholar and author, contributed to my contacts with the increasing number of Witches,
Druids, Wiccans, and Goddess worshippers. As a result, all emic and
etic views are discussed here. Theoretical and interpretations for this
re-emergence vary from socioeconomic and political to contextual, and all of
them are based on ethnographic analysis.
Many Pantheons, Many Traditions
One would anticipate contemporary Pagan worship of Diana or
Minerva, Vesta and Venus in lands synonymous with the Roman Empire's legacy,
and one might find veneration and ceremonial rituals honoring these Goddesses –
especially closer to Rome. Several years of study, on the other hand, exposed me to myths, myths, and rituals that were
little understood outside of traditional worship areas. A huge, golden Madonna
atop Milan's magnificent main cathedral, for example, can be found in the
northern region of Lombardy at the foot of the Alps. Just those born within
reach of the 'Madonnina' are considered real Milanese, according to Milanese
custom.
Many citizens in Milan today assume that the mother figure
protecting Milan is a Gallo-Celtic Goddess known as Bellisama, rather than the
Christian Madonna. Bellisama was revered by the ancient Gauls, also known as
Celts, in Lombardy and in continental Europe, as far as northwestern France.
‘The Goddess of Milan is Bellisama, her spirit is here, and it's Druidic,' a
Milanese Pagan participant said,
attempting to explain the continuing local presence of Milan's Gaulish culture.
Therefore, the word "re-emergence" is apt, for the
Goddess never left these Mediterranean lands. She was synthesized in what
ultimately appeared as today's Christianity, becoming the iconic Madonna of the
Mediterranean, as was the case with other classical and pagan idols, as well as
with Jesus worship. Sabina Magliocco has explored a strong religiosity and
proclivity for sorcery in numerous ethnographic studies on Italy; it has
coexisted with Christianity for centuries.
This newly unified land built out of the mountainous
peninsula of diverse regions now known as ‘Italy,' is also the home of the
Vatican, and thus a Catholic-dominated republic. Rountree has written about how
Wiccans and Pagans in Malta go back and forth between Madonna and Mother
Goddess veneration. While there are some strong similarities between southern
Italy and Malta, where Italians are deeply enculturated into Roman Catholicism
from birth, Italy has its own distinct development in the advent of contemporary
Paganism. Any of Italy's religiously rooted characteristics aid in the
development of the Pagan culture.
Italy's historic and cultural manifestations of protest are
a significant component. The Italian psychology and society are profoundly
rooted in opposition to external aggression, political injustice, and hegemonic
systems. Examples can be seen in the history of its partisan activities during
World War II and its Communist Party. Alternative spiritualities such as
paganism, shamanism, and other modern, non-Christian faith movements that are
gaining momentum in Italy not only have empowerment and new senses of identity,
but they are also embedded with cultural and religious rebellion avenues and
mores.
The long-term longevity of Italy's popular religious practices
may be influenced by its legacy of witch trials. While the tradition of
witch-hunts and witch trials in the mediaeval and Renaissance periods has often
been cited as a driving and galvanizing force in women's and sometimes men's commitment to Paganism and Witchcraft movements in the twentieth century, it
can be argued that contemporary Witches and Pagans' convictions about ancient
witches and witchcraft are misguided.
According to studies conducted in recent decades, there were
few followers of a pre-Christian Pagan faith who survived into the Christian
period among those persecuted and/or executed during the gruesome years of the
European and British witch-hunts. In Lombardy, however, two examples of
possible surviving vernacular Goddess worship have been recorded: Pierina
Bugatis and Sibillia Zanni, who were burned in one of Milan's main piazzas.
Their tale exemplifies some of feminist scholar Anne
Llewellyn Barstow's points: despite the presence of the Inquisition, Italy and
Spain did not undergo the kind of "witch craze" that swept the rest of
Europe. Inquisitors, especially in Italy, became particularly interested in the
practices of female fortune-tellers and male magicians, and saw them as wrong
beliefs rather than diabolic sorcery, and tried to convert the practitioners to
a papally sanctioned form of Catholicism. Penances, whippings, and banishment
were used as punishments, but not death.
Early testimony mentioned events that were more akin to
modern Goddess worship than those described in witch trial reports. For example, at
certain times of the month, they celebrated rites honoring a sacred feminine
figure; they healed animals, ate and drank together. While Sibillia and Pierina
were sadly lost, the presence of the Inquisition and the Vatican may have
helped the continuation of Italy's folk traditions into modern times, as the
people did not experience the same degree of persecution of folk healers and
vernacular beliefs as people in other countries.
An Enchanted Land and a Rural Country
In northern Europe and North America during the mid-to-late
twentieth century, esoteric traditions, and mystery religions such as Wicca,
Druidry, and others grew and expanded rapidly. However, in Italy, the arrival
of numerous northern European, North American, and British Paganism practices
was hindered by the language barrier. The majority, if not all, of Pagan
literature was written in English.
In the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is
still normal to see educated people in Italy's more sophisticated cities and
towns who do not speak or read English, at least not well. Many now-classic
Wicca, Witchcraft, and Paganism books from the twentieth century, such as
Starhawk's The Spiral Dance and Janet and Stewart Farrar's A Witches' Bible,
were postponed because of this.
The delayed arrival of modern Paganism in Italy was due to several
sociological and historical influences. One was the early nineteenth-century
industrialization of northern Europe, Britain, and North America, as well as
the resulting romanticization of nature in those areas. Another was the study
of mythology, native rituals, and witches in relation to this idealized view of
agricultural customs that flourished in countries like England, Germany, and
the United States from the early to mid-nineteenth century.
This was a response to the disappearance of the countryside
and agricultural lives, as well as the deep feeling of loss brought about by
industrialization. The Romantic revolution in the British Isles was to be a direct
response to England's industrialization. The study of folklore, which was only
recently established in the nineteenth century, is important for Wicca and
perhaps even Druidry in Italy, as it can be claimed that there is a clear line
from American folklorist Charles Leland to British ‘father of Wicca' Gerald
Gardner, and then to the arrival of Wicca and Druidry in Italy in the
twenty-first century. This hypothesis is further developed by examining Italy's Indigenous Practices.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the quest for a
re-enchantment of nature and the search for enchantment in the post-industrial
period may have helped the development of nature mysticism and esoteric
spirituality in northern Europe and North America. A newly urbanized society,
on the other hand, may have already lost touch with nature and its rural
cultures, with their native traditions and indigenous spiritual practices, to
have a thirst for rediscovering enchantment of nature. This was not the case in
Italy, which continued to have a strong agrarian and peasant economy far into
the twentieth century.
It had experienced late industrialization, like other
southern European countries, and yet preserved rural systems, customs, and
mores long into the twentieth century. The belief in vernacular religious
complexes, which involve the production and use of protective amulets, various
healing traditions, and the raising of or protection from the Evil Eye,
exemplifies this.
According to Magliocco, "there are practically
thousands of spells in Italian mythology to turn around the evil eye," and
"all of Italian vernacular magic and curing centers on the evil eye belief
complex." Not only in Italy, but also among the Italian diaspora around the
world, these are often paired with Christianity. Participants in this study in
Italy talked openly about their Evil Eye experience and habits, as well as that
of their friends.
New Movements, Rites, and Consciousness
The late industrialization of Italy and its subsequent
"modernization without growth" are crucial in this debate, not only
in relation to the later advent of Paganism, but also in relation to the late
introduction of feminism and the environmental revolution. The rise and propagation of Goddess worship, Wicca, and Druidry,
among other forms of Paganism, in Italy is a sociological development linked to
the emergence of other movements such as LGBTQ, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual,
transgender, and queer rights, the environmental revolution, and
personal-consciousness movements.
In this respect, the revival of paganism in Italy is related
to the rise of paganism in other parts of southern Europe, as well as other
late-industrialized countries such as those in South America. The quest for
modern rites of passage was another important component of Italy's hunger for
alternate modes of worship and communal celebration. The educated, newly urbanized,
younger generations, as well as the vast Italian left wing, felt increasingly
alienated from conventional Catholic rituals in the late twentieth century.
An increasing desire for a new way to ritualize these
occasions emerged from a lack of fulfilment in and a growing trend away from
Catholicism's traditional ceremonies, especially those marking life
transitions. Was the Women's Faith revolution the guiding force behind the
exponential development of Paganism in Italy? Is it the growing awareness of
environmental issues that followed industrialization? Is it a mixture of these
causes, as well as more widespread schooling and employment for women?
It's difficult to say what was the "chief mover"
in this case. However, as the Women's Spirituality movement grew in popularity
in Italy over the last ten to fifteen years, new artistic manifestations arose,
encouraging the development of unique rites of passage such as newborn
blessings, young girls' coming of age, weddings, and women's rites honoring menopause. There would be a new
meaning to Liberation Theology if this were combined with the fervent sense of
new empowerment provided by various Pagan cultures, especially for women raised
in patriarchal Italian society.
In his study of Paganism in the British Isles, Graham Harvey
identified this link; it holds true in Italy as well. Goddess Spirituality is
perhaps modern Paganism's most overt "liberation religion" – or, more
accurately, theology. It studies the history, current, and future expectations
for signs of alternative lifestyles using several methods. It proposes that the
honoring of the Earth and the honoring of women go hand in hand.
The need for modern rites of passage, experience of what was
taking form overseas as books arrived and were eventually translated into
Italian, and the delayed yet now fervent social and psychological consciousness
revolutions all combined to give Italians a fertile blend of ideas ‘whose time
had come' at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the
twenty-first.
These events signaled a new emergence of alternative thought
and artistic expression in Italy, as well as reaffirming the Italian proclivity
for rebellion through a new kind of cultural resistance movement. Goddess Faith
offers Italian women a feeling of empowerment, much as it does in other
cultures. A significant nuance of this trend in Italy is that it can find
influence in the context of bella figura, a nuanced and profoundly rooted
Italian cultural characteristic whose direct meaning may be "making a good
impression." This is the standard use, but there are many variations and
social ramifications, especially when it comes to women asserting their
position in the public sphere.
Bella Figura, according to anthropologist Emanuela Guano, is
more than just a way of expressing yourself, dressing and walking – it's a
means for a woman to build an identity that provides a sort of resistance and a
way to carve out a position of dignity in a "oppressively
masculinized" public domain.
As some Italian women experiment with modern and complex
modes of empowered identity, my findings show a strong connection between the
Ancient persona of Goddess Spirituality and priestesshood and Bella Figura. A
Goddess statue stands outside a Pagan temple. The photographer, Ossian
D'Ambrosio, gave his permission for this image to be included. It's important
to remember the linguistic distinction between traditional Italian witchcraft,
native rituals with a long background of Italian society, and modern Pagan
Witchcraft concepts.
According to Italian scholars and practitioners, such as the
participants in this ethnographic study, the Italian word for traditional
vernacular witchcraft is stregoneria. There are regional dialectal variants for
‘witch' in Italy, such as stria and masca; however, strega is the most well recognized
and used in the general Italian language. The word stregheria may be familiar
to some readers.
This holds true for some modern vernacular manifestations of
‘witchcraft,' the topic of Charles Leland's nineteenth-century studies in
central Italy, and particularly Italian-American mystical practices inside
postmodern Paganism. Raven Grimassi, an American Pagan teacher and blogger, popularized
the word. There are many variations in Italian stregheria and stregoneria
customs, but there are also many parallels. In a nutshell, Gardnerian Wicca,
and the imagination of Italian Americans, as well as authentic regional Italian
traditions, have influenced Italian American stregheria.
However, some Italian authors, such as Menegoni, the
translator of Leland's Aradia, advocate the use of stregheria primarily for the
local Tuscan worship of Diana and 'Aradia' that Leland encountered. As a result,
there are modern Italian witch sects that emphasize their inherited ancient
roots and focus on using that name rather than stregoneria. It is a topic of
continuing discussion both within and outside Italy.
