The transformation model
Ginzburg’s influential account follows the pressure of institutional categories as beneficial night-walkers increasingly became identified with the witches they had opposed. The model is strongest when traced through the language and sequence of particular proceedings.
The continuity challenge
Nardon’s later-period focus suggests that healing and counter-witchcraft identities continued even after some inquisitorial reinterpretations. That does not mean that officials were benign or that earlier prosecutions did not matter. It challenges the completeness of a universal conversion story.
What would resolve the disagreement?
Construct a dated table of all recoverable records, keeping speaker, inquiry, locality, function and reported self-identification apart. Test the prevalence of each role across time and ask whether changes in the case mix or the inquisitors’ interests better explain the observed pattern. The archive’s claim explorer makes the models inspectable rather than hiding them under a dramatic headline.
Source and revision record
- Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles (updated edition, 2026)Publisher listing · Publisher bibliographic and interpretive overview; updated edition dated September 8, 2026.
- Franco Nardon (ed.), Benandanti e inquisitori nel Friuli del Seicento (1999)University repository · University of Trieste volume focused on seventeenth-century healing and counter-witchcraft.
- Santarelli and Weber, Benandanti, EreticopediaScholarly reference · Survey of agrarian, funerary and therapeutic strands, with discussion of scholarly disagreement.