In The Farrell Auditorium

Member Lecture—Magic and Melancholy: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione’s Witch, Circe

Gather ‘round for a magical Member lecture with Hannah Segrave, associate curator of European Art to 1800. Delving into the enigmatic etching of the witch Circe by the Italian artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-64), this Halloween-inspired talk will explore the wild world of witchcraft in early modern Italy.

During the era of the witch-hunts that raged across the European continent, Circe, the classical witch from ancient myth, became a symbol of the seductive dangers of witchcraft, but in Castiglione’s print, she also stands for Europeans’ attempts to understanding the phenomenon of magic through the notion of female melancholy.

Join Seagrave as she discusses the stereotypes of witches and women during the “Witch Craze,” the evolution of demonological and medical theories that shaped these ideas, and how images communicated and changed the course of this history.