Benevento — the walnut tree of the witches

OVERVIEW

The legend of the witches of Benevento, an ancient Samnite city in Campania, dates from at least the 13th century and is one reason for the city's fame: popular belief made it the gathering place of Italy's witches, the janare. Writers have looked for its roots in the Roman cult of Isis, identified with Hecate and Diana (janara may come from Diana's name), and in the rites of the 7th-century Lombard dukes.

HISTORY

Pietro Piperno, Benevento's chief physician, traced the legend in 1639 to Lombard warriors who hung a goatskin on a sacred tree by the Sabato and galloped around it tearing off shreds to eat; Saint Barbatus is said to have cut the tree down and melted the dukes' golden viper into a chalice — a legend the article shows to be incompatible with the historical record of who ruled in 663. Reports of witches' gatherings began to circulate in 1273; Matteuccia da Todi, tried in 1428, said they met under a walnut tree. Saint Bernardino of Siena preached against the witches of Benevento in the 15th century and demanded they be exterminated; after the Malleus Maleficarum (1486), confessions extracted under torture from the 15th to the 17th century often spoke of sabbats at Benevento, and most of those accused were put to death. About 200 trial records in the archiepiscopal archive were largely destroyed in 1860 and in wartime bombing.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The janare were said to look like any other women by day; at night they anointed themselves, chanted 'Unguent, unguent, send me to the walnut tree of Benevento, under the water and under the wind, under all bad weather', and flew off on sorghum brooms, preferring stormy nights, from a bridge called the 'bridge of the janare'. Under the walnut they feasted and danced with demons in the shape of cats and goats; afterwards they caused miscarriages and deformities, pressed on sleepers' chests, and rode stolen horses until they foamed, leaving their manes braided. A broom or salt on the threshold kept them out, since a janara had to count every fibre or grain before entering. The city also had the zucculara of the Triggio quarter, heard by her clogs, and the manalonga who drags passers-by into wells. In the 18th century Tartarotti and Muratori explained the witches as hallucination or illness; later writers suggested a hallucinogenic ointment. Piperno himself drew a map of possible walnut-tree sites to disprove the rumour.

VISITING

The pin marks the city. The walnut tree's site was never fixed — the banks of the Sabato, the Stretto di Barba at Ceppaloni and a circle of trees near today's Porta Rufina station are all named.