Document Highlights

November 2001

Jacques Callot (1592-1635), The Temptation of St. Anthony (published 1635), etching 45 x 67 cm (Spencer Museum, University of Kansas)

DOCUMENT CITATION:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 3255, unpaginated (Entry 10654 in the "Documentary Sources" database.)

TRANSLATION:
Late in the day on the first of May past which was the feast of the Apostles Saint Philip and Saint James, a cloud appeared in the town of Canege, in the territory of Palamós in Catalunya. As was witnessed by all of the inhabitants, this cloud brought in its wake a terrifying storm and a legion of demons which transformed themselves into the most horrifying and monstruous shapes—some as lions, some as wolves, some as dogs, some as humans, some as other kinds of ferocious animals, many as stags and also some as birds. In order to exorcize them, the clerics came out and carried the cross up above the cemetery of the church though this seemed to have no effect. When the priest saw what was happening, he came out of the church with the Holy Sacrament and almost all of those demons were immediately seen to unite and move to an inlet formed by a creek about two stone’s throw outside the town. From this there rose a sulpher-like flame as high as the bell tower of a church. Indeed, taking the form of a tower it grew until it reached the cloud and many of the demons were seen to fly up it like ravens and there was among them one particular bird of great ferociousness bigger than the others. They uprooted nine olive trees as well as many walnut trees, cherry trees and other trees. They carried away many clumps of plants with the soil around them. As witnessed by the inhabitants of the town, they burned [alternately: withered] a vineyard. Since the priest saw that the storm was continuing unabated, he went up on the bell tower of the church with the Holy Sacrament but then fell with his shoulders on the cross and was entirely unhurt. The storm thus ceased, turning into mere rain which did no harm, though the whole town was terrified to have seen so horrifying an occurence.

TRANSCRIPTION:
Nella terra di Canege, contado di Palamós in Catalonia, il giorno di S.to Giacomo et Filippo Apostoli primo di Maggio passato, comparve una nuvola verso il tardi accompagnata da spaventosa tempesta a vista di tutto il populo, et da una legione di demonii trasformati in diverse mostruosità molto orrende, alcuni come leoni, altri come lupi, altri come cani, altri come huomini, altri come altri feroci animali, et molti come cervi, et come altri augelli. Uscirono i chierici con la croce sopra il cimiterio della chiesa a scongiurarli, et pareva che non ne facessero conto, il che visto dal sacerdote, uscì della chiesa con il Santissimo Sacramento, et subito si videro quasi tutti quei demonii unire, et mettere in una laguna d'acqua d'un piciolo torrente che passa lontano da la terra due tiri di pietra, di dove uscì una fiama di fuoco come di zolfo sì grande, et alta come un campanile, che crebbe a guisa di torre fino alla nuvola, per la quale si videro molti di quei demonii andar volando come corvi, fra quali si vede uno augello di ferocità grande, et molto maggiore degli altri. Spiantarono nove olive, molte noci, cerase, et molti altri arbori, se ne portarono molti fasci d’herba con la terra, et a vista del populo abbruggiarono una vigna. Visto che la tempesta continuava il sacerdote andò sul campanile della chiesa con il Santissimo Sacramento, dove cadde con le spalle sopra la croce senza pericolo alcuno, così cessò la tempesta convertendosi in acqua senza far altro danno. Et rimase tutta la terra spaventata d’haver visto un tanto horrendo caso.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
What in fact happened on the first of May 1582? More than just a sensational news story, the present avviso offers a dramatic account of an apocalyptic battle between the forces of Good and Evil fought in the skies over a remote village in Catalunya.

Let’s run through the (alleged) events in the order they occurred: Evil made its appearance as a cloud, which gave rise to a storm, which gave rise to a host of demons in bestial form. Clerics from the parish church (presumably unordained acolytes and deacons but possibly also ordained chaplains) responded to this infernal menace by processing with a cross (probably a large processional or rogatory cross used for special intercessions) to a point above the local cemetery (which was evidently on a hill or else overlooked by a hill.) This deployment proved inadequate, so the forces of Good escalated their counter-attack; the parish priest himself emerged from his church bearing the ultimate weapon, the Holy Sacrament. This put the demons to flight, but only temporarily. They effected a strategic withdrawal to a nearby body of water from which they raised a fortress; this began as a great sulphurous flame the height of a bell tower and grew into an actual tower that ascended the heavens, ultimately reaching the cloud in which they made their initial incursion. Meanwhile, the storm continued to rage and the demons transformed themselves into birds, especially ravens (including one of exceptional size and fierceness); they proceeded to ravage the countryside, destroying olive, nut and fruit trees and burning (or withering) a vineyard. Witnessing this crescendo of destruction, the priest marshalled his resources and ascended the bell tower of his church, bearing the Holy Sacrament. He then "fell with his shoulders on the cross" but suffered no harm (there are two available readings: the priest was blown back against a large upright cross on the presumably flat roof of the bell tower or else was thrown to the ground from that great height, landing on a cross.) This reversed the ascendency of the forces of Evil and the storm was transformed into benign rain.

Whatever happened or didn’t happen on Mayday in Catalunya, it is clear that this avviso presents us with an evolved story rather than a simple eyewitness account. Indeed, the Florentines had the news at no less than fourth hand. Though the event occurred in "Canege" in the province of Palamós, word traveled to the Spanish capital of Madrid, then to the Spanish territory of Milan, where it was incorporated into an avviso and sent on to Florence. There is no apparent place named "Canege" (though there are various present-day approximations, including Calella and Calonge near Palamós, not to mention Canet now in Languedoc-Rousillon.) The elusiveness of the actual site might well be due to a threeway translation from Catalán into Spanish and then Italian.

This indirect diffusion of information was highly characteristic of avvisi, which were handwritten newsletters distributed to elite subscribers throughout Europe (including in the present case Francesco de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.) News was gathered and processed by networks of correspondents based in the chief political, diplomatic and commercial centers. Information regarding Spain and the Spanish empire therefore generally came by way of Madrid, information from Central Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean by way of Venice and information from Northern Europe and the Baltic by way of Amsterdam and Antwerp. Rome and Paris produced a cosmopolitan mix of news from almost anywhere, as well as information about local occurrences.

Even if we don’t know this story’s precise point of departure, we can recognize a compelling set of images and references, drawing on the Book of Revelations, the visual iconography of the Last Judgement and Hell, and a long tradition of both popular and learned demonology. There are dramatic reversals of nature (fire rising from water with a diabolic tinge of sulpher.) There are spirits in animal form. There is Satan (presumably the great ravening bird) as Prince of Demons. Most of all, there is the vision of Evil as a self-willed force that can express itself with ingenious and malevolent capriciousness.

The central image in this allegorized account is the combat between the two towers: the bell tower of the parish church and the monstruous tower in the lake which erupted as a kind of temporary siege engine. The chief weapon of defense was the Holy Sacrament. Over the centuries, processions with the Sacrament, relics or miraculous images had often been organized on emergent occasions including plague, war, famine and flood. However, this emphasis on the efficacy of the real presence of the Sacrament seems particularly apt in the full flush of the Counter Reformation; if the story turned on a miracle working relic or image, the immediate point might have been the potency of that particular relic or image, not the defining mystery of the faith. The author of the present avviso took the matter to a dramatic extreme, having the parish priest "fall with his shoulders on the cross", in effect re-enacting the crucifixion.

Beneath the surface of this account lies an intriguing range of other possible meanings. Traditional popular beliefs have often proven most tenacious in borderlands and lands subject to dominant alien cultures. And over the centuries, such submerged beliefs and related practices were routinely demonized by the Church. As a result, the previously benign forces of nature central to the local "old religion" were eventually transformed into elements of witchcraft and sorcery. Northern Catalunya might well have been a classic case in point. A perpetual borderland, it fell just within the zone of Muslim penetration in Europe. In later centuries, Christian Catalunya became a satellite of the Kingdom of Castille, struggling however to maintain its political, cultural and linguistic identity. Rosselló and Cerdanya, the northernmost reaches of Catalunya, passed back and forth between Spanish and French control (and are now absorbed into the French province of Languedoc-Rousillon.)

It is interesting to note that this demonic attack took place on the first of May, a major pre-Christian nature festival in many parts of Europe long before it had been incompletely expropriated by Saints Philip and James Minor. "Mayday" had been the Celtic "Beltane" or "Day of Fire" dedicated to the god of the sun and the preceding eve became the Germanic "Walpurgisnacht", allegedly one of the four annual great sabbaths for practitioners of the black arts. If we could in fact fix the geographical location of "Canege", we might be able to discover ancient associations regarding the hill (to which the clerics processed with the cross) and the body of water (from which the tower rose.) In any case, at its most fundamental level this avviso clearly addresses concerns that are pre-Roman, pre-Christian, pre-Muslim and pre-Spanish—the unruly forces of nature that threaten crops and by extension man’s basic sustenance. The victory of Catholic Good over Satanic Evil thus finds elemental expression as the transformation of a destructive storm into nourishing rain.

Avvisi were an expensive form of information, which attracted an affluent, cultivated and often influential readership. How did Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici, his family and his ministers of state, react to a story like this? It is hard to imagine that any regular reader could take avvisi as unqualified gospel, since avviso writers frequently jumped the gun with sensational undocumented stories for the sake of scooping their competitors. (See "ARMADA!", our August 2001 "Document Highlights".) A more important question is whether the demonic invasion of a small town in Catalunya fell within the range of reasoned credibility in the late sixteenth century. Did sophisticated readers dissect the story critically ("There was a storm. I wonder what kind of storm? A cyclone might have sucked in birds and other small animals. Do we see a satanic tower appearing?") Or did they simply shrug it off with a laugh, like the "alien abductions" and "Elvis sightings" that sell supermarket tabloids today? Or else, did they believe, disbelieve and suspend judgement all at once, while passing the story on to their friends? It must have been difficult to dismiss the account entirely, since it reinforced so many cultural, intellectual and religious expectations.

RESEARCH QUESTION:
We are eager to hear from anyone who has information regarding a storm or other natural disaster that occurred in Catalunya on or about the first of May 1582.

UPDATE:
Dr.Viviana Castelli of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) proposed an interesting hypothesis regarding the location of this terrifying event “nella terra di Canege, contado di Palamós in Catalonia”. “Canege” might well be a garbled reference to Mont Canigou in the Pyrenees (now in the French Department of Languedoc-Rousillon.) An alternate translation of the relevant phrase would then be, “in the territory of Canigou in the County of Palamós in Catalunya”. In fact, Mont Canigou has an ancient tradition both as a symbol of Catalan national identity and the locus of supernatural activity. The first person to climb Mont Canigou was allegedly King Pere II of Catalunya (also known as Pedro III “El Grande”of Aragón), who made the ascent in 1285. According to a contemporary account, this proprietary act caused a fearsome dragon to arise from a nearby lake and unleash terrible storms. In the region of Mont Canigou, various folk customs incorporating propitiatory or exorcistic rites have continued to the present day, most notably the lighting and diffusion of torches from the summit of the mountain on the night of the Feast of St. John. It is curious to note that particularly in the early days of aviation, Mont Cangiou was considered to mark the center of a notorious “Bermuda Triangle” in the Pyrenees where aircraft disappeared without a trace.

ILLUSTRATION NOTES:

Jacques Callot (1592-1635), The Temptation of St. Anthony (published 1635), etching 45 x 67 cm (Spencer Museum, University of Kansas)

Though this etching was realized half a century after the events described in the present avviso, they are both the products of a world in which the struggle between good and evil was seen as a tangible everyday reality. Like the priest at "Canege", St. Anthony (in the lower right-hand corner, dressed in sacred regalia and wielding a small cross), appears hopelessly outmatched by the adversary, exemplified by the enormous winged and horned dragon that fills the top half of the image. In both cases, however, the priest and the saint emerged victorious through the power of their faith.

The draftsman and printmaker Jacques Callot was born and died in Nancy in the Dukedom of Lorraine but spent ten of the most productive years (1611—21) of his short career in Florence. His experience of the Medici Court Theater, then the most technologically sophisticated in Europe, helped him give concrete form to such apocalyptic dramas. (In fact, he did a previous version of the "Temptation of St. Anthony" in Florence in 1617.) The scene is framed by an apparent proscenium arch and its elaborately constructed setting, brilliant special effects and innovative mechanical creations (dropped in from the fly-space or driven across the stage) exaggerate only slightly the technical capabilities of early baroque theatrical engineering.

For more details of this print, visit the website of the Print Room of the Spencer Museum at: http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/prints.html

Detail: The Chief Demon.
http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/callot/prc151y.jpg

Detail: St. Anthony.
http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/callot/prc152y.jpg

The romanesque monastery of St. Martin de Canigou.
http://www.jtosti.com/stmartincan/01.jpg

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