Dancing with the Devil: Salvator Rosa’s Manifestations of Witchcraft in Seventeenth Century Italy

Banks, Claire

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Dancing with the Devil: Salvator Rosa’s Manifestations of Witchcraft in Seventeenth Century Italy Open Access Deposited

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Date Uploaded: 04/26/2026
Date Modified: 04/26/2026

Throughout the seventeenth century, ideas of the occult and mystique of witchcraft consumed public interest in artistic circles in Florence, Italy. Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), an Italian artist from Naples, participated in this movement from 1640 until his death. As interests in the occult heightened during his time in Florence, he participated in suspicions of witchcraft through his Scenes of Witchcraft (1645-1649). Located at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the series consists of four tondi, each portraying a witch with harrowing spectators at different times of the day. However, to ensure his esteemed prominence, he returned to Rome and produced religious works. The macabre interests that captivated Rosa in Scenes of Witchcraft (1645-49) became a vehicle of undermining the church through The Shade of Samuel Appears to Saul (1668) when the artist returned to Rome. In this paper I propose that through shared iconography, The Shade of Samuel Appears to Saul is a painting of witchcraft, and serves to undermine the authority of the church. Witches or other necromancing subjects were accepted solely to elevate the morality of biblical characters. By giving the witch of Endor agency, Rosa is offering an alternative subject that serves to rival the power of God.

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