“I foresee that a day will come, and that perhaps not so very far distant, that the world of scholars will be amazed to consider to what a late period an immense body of antique tradition survived in northern Italy, and how indifferent the learned were regarding it; there having seen in truth, only one man, and he a foreigner, who earnestly occupied himself with collecting and preserving it.”

Charles Godfrey Leland – 1899

Welcome to the home of Stregheria (Italian Witchcraft) on the Web

This site is operated by initiates of Italian witchcraft in conjunction with author Raven Grimassi.

Our site is dedicated to the preservation of the Pagan roots of Italian Witchcraft. Its primary goal is to present material that supports the existence of a pre-Christian sect of Witches and to trace the history of its evolvement over the centuries. A secondary goal is to dispel the erroneous association and conflation of common folk magic elements in popular lore with the authentic forms of Italian Witchcraft. By doing so we hope to reduce the misinformation and misrepresentation found on websites and on various Internet forums.

Italian Witchcraft is often referred to as The Old Religion (La Vecchia Religione). In 1890, folklorist Charles Leland published a book titled Aradia: Gospel of the Witches. Although it was typical in many ways of the distorted Christian image of Witchcraft of this period, we do find several things of interest. In Leland’s book, the Witches of Italy worship a goddess and a god, meet for full moon rituals and celebrate with singing, dancing and making love. Their celebration also includes a feast containing cakes and wine. In 1609, Francesco Guazzo (an Italian Witch Hunter) published several woodcuts in his book Compendium Maleficarum. One of these Italian woodcuts depicts Witches gathered inside a circle drawn upon the ground. He also states that Witches work with spirits of earth, air, fire and water. In 1954, Gerald Gardner describes English Witchcraft as something very similar.

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We invite you to take a look at some of the topics on our website for interesting similarities between the Strega Path and modern Wicca. For your enjoyment we also have a collection of images on this site. Please note that the articles on this page are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without written permission.

Other Recommended Sites: We have searched the Internet and seen many web pages that contain material on Italian Witchcraft (or purport to do so). We cannot recommend many of these sites because of misinformation and misrepresentation. Unfortunately, at this time, we have not found websites in Italy that we feel portray authentic Italian Witchcraft traditions as they appear to lack accurate historical or cultural material related to the Old Religion of Italy. Instead they appear to contain reconstructions of Egyptian and Hermetic traditions reworked into a newly constructed system that is passed off as Witchcraft. Other sites feature a modified form of Stregoneria that is Catholic-rooted in nature and conflated with folk magic traditions having little if anything to do with authentic forms of Italian Witchcraft (despite claims to the contrary).

LINKS TO INTERESTING MATERIAL

1. Supressed History

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/index.html

2. The Indigenous Healing Tradition in Calabria, Italy

http://stanleykrippner.com/papers/Calabria2004Rev_1B_.htm

3. The Roman Farmer and the Moon

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/journals/TAPA/49/Roman_Farmer_and_Moon*.html

4. Folk Veterinary Medicine in Italy

http://www.andreapieroni.eu/Viegi et al., 2003.pdf

5. Folk Pharmaceutical Knowledge

http://www.stregheria.com/Italian-Folk-Herbs.pdf

6. Paganism in Provence: How the Mother-Goddess became the Mother of God