VISCONTI, Zaccaria

by Zaccaria Visconti

£3,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

Rare Venetian edition of this important and most influential work on Excorcism and remedies against evil spirits by the Milanese exorcist Visconti. Zaccaria Visconti, a professional exorcist from Milan, belonged to the order of SS. Barnaba e Ambrogio, a company of secular priests founded by Carlo Borromeo. He taught the art of exorcism (he is referred to on the title page as a professor of the art of exorcism and perhaps taught at the university of Pavia) and flourished between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. This most interesting treatise addresses all aspects of exorcism, provides the theological and theoretic framework for the practise of exorcism as well as a manual of instruction on techniques, prayers, formulae, rituals and all sorts of remedies to expel the Evil within. As pointed out in the initial dedication, Visconti hoped that his books would help reduce the number of cases of demonic possession recently recorded in the Milanese area. Visconti s work shared many similarities with other works on demons, and the art of exorcism, with other Franciscan exorcists, though his own work has much local reference particular to Italy, and more specifically to Milan. His work was printed, by Lazarus Zetzner, in Cologne, in a collection of the six major works of the Franciscan Exorcists in a single volume, Thesaurus exorcismorum ( The treasury of Exorcists ) in 1607, often described as the greatest compendium of exorcism manuals. These works shared many simila

• Binding: Hardcover

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