D’ANANIA, Giovanni Lorenzo

A very good copy of the second Aldine edition of this important work on demonology, first published in 1581. Giovanni Lorenzo d’Anania (1545-1609) was an Italian theologian and geographer, also the author of a famous ‘Cosmografia’ (1576). Anania believed that witchcraft had been particularly active in his age and ‘De natura daemonum’ provided a thorough study of the ways in which daemons were responsible. It theorises the existence and nature of subterranean and aerial malevolent spirits (from movement to voice) and studies how they affect human life as the cause of sundry physical and social ills: e.g., incurable diseases, earthquakes, false images generated through astrology and necromancy, and some poetic ‘fables’. Fascinating are his remarks on exorcisms, a few of which he apparently witnessed, and miracles derived from saints’ relics; these could be used to scare demons away (though not always successfully) and help treat serious illnesses. Despite Anania’s Catholicism, the whole work is pervaded by mild Protestant leanings which surface, for instance, in his belief that demons encouraged people not to use their own vernaculars during mass as well as in his often ambivalent opinion on the a nature of relics (Thorndike VI, 528).