Professor Fabrizio Conti Publishes "Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers"

Fabrizio Conti, who teaches history at JCU recently published his monograph Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers: Pastoral Approach and Intellectual Debate in Renaissance Milan with Brepols Publishers.

The volume explores the study of magic and witchcraft in Italy from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It is the result of Prof. Conti’s doctoral research, which focused on the pastoral model for classifying ‘superstition’ elaborated by some little studied Milanese Observant Franciscan preachers and confessors at the end of the fifteenth century. Within that, he reconstructed their original skeptical approach towards witchcraft, which ultimately generated open contrast between Franciscans and Dominicans. By considering the writings of these men in their wider literary and pastoral context, and in the light of the broader reforming aims of the Franciscans, this study offers new insights into the late medieval understanding of superstition and witchcraft and contributes to the history of pastoral care.

Professor Conti earned his Ph.D in History and Medieval Studies at Central European University (Budapest) in 2011. Prior to lecturing in history at JCU, he taught History of Medieval Christianity and Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe in the Department of History at the Ohio State University – Columbus (USA) in 2015, and he has lectured in a number of universities and colleges, such as Middlebury College (Vermont, USA), Ouachita Baptist University (Arkansas, USA), Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), the University of Dallas – Rome Campus, Central European University (Budapest).

Read more about Prof. Fabrizio Conti’s book.