the anthropology of venice 497
inhabitants of the Brescian territory as there is between the portuguese and
the people of colocut [in india]. As rumor has it, for a number of years
warlocks and witches have [practiced] there.26Based on the rumor, the bishop sent inquisitors, who found “an incred-
ible number of warlocks and more followers of the devil than christians”
because some priests had not been properly baptizing infants but only
pretending to do so and did not consecrate the host when they celebrated
Mass. “These priests were themselves the chief warlocks.” The letter con-
tinued with a standard description of a witches’ Sabbat and satanic prac-
tices that followed the script laid out in the Malleus Malificorum, a text
that certainly informed the inquisitors’ questions.27 Trials followed in four
places in the Val camonica, which resulted in the burning of more than 60
men and women and many more imprisoned. The anonymous eyewitness
whose letter Sanudo copied was deeply disturbed by what he saw. he wor-
ried that the procedures had been illegal and that some of the condemned
seemed to be truly repentant. nevertheless, the inquisitor insisted they
be burned alive anyway. According to the witness, the condemned had
been so cruelly tortured that they confessed to many false things. Some
of the women, he thought, were truly witches because they admitted to
repudiating baptism, but he was profoundly shaken by what he had seen:
“i realize that these are grave matters to relate, and i am amazed and
beside myself. i believe them, but yet i do not believe them.”28
elite Venetians exhibited a range of opinions about the reality of witch-
craft. The inquisitors were obstinate in their beliefs, but many laymen
seem to have been as undecided as the anonymous letter writer. Among
the highest intellectual and political circles of Venetian society, skepti-
cism was firmer. Sanudo’s patron, the influential luca Tron, thought the
whole matter crazy, refused to credit the Sabbat stories, and insisted the
government should not get involved. Sanudo seemed to follow Tron’s
lead, reporting that the alleged witches were just ignorant and foolish.29
on this crucial subject, which reveals a great deal about the relation-
ships between elite and popular culture, there was no uniformity of opin-
ion. Although the Venetian elites may have found the peasants of the
26 Sanuto, I diarii, 25:602–03. Translation from Sanudo in Cità Excelentissima, p. 403.
27 Sanuto, I diarii, 25:603–08. Translation from Sanudo in Cità Excelentissima, p. 404. on
witchcraft in Venice, see ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650
(oxford, 1989).
28 Sanuto, I diarii, 25:586–88. Translation from Sanudo in Cità Excelentissima, p. 407.
29 Sanudo, Cità Excelentissima, pp. 411–12.