Complementum Artis Exorcisticae cui simile nunquam visum est...In Tres Partes divisum

FIRST EDITION, [6], 716, [4bl], 32pp., marginal tear to foot of title with loss, not affecting text, small worm hole to first 4p., occasional light foxing, bookplate to front free endpaper of E.R.D. Maclagan, contemporary limp vellum, small 8vo (145x95mm), Venice: Francesco Barilettum 1600.

Despite the Biblical exhortation to practice exorcism, official guides and rules only appeared in the Catholic Church with the adoption of the official Roman Rite in 1614. The formalisation of the rites relating to exorcism followed a long process of debate and a series of detailed studies of exorcism of which this book by Visconti, first published in 1600 and running to seven editions over the next forty five years is among the most important.

Milanese exorcist, Zaccaria Visconti, belonged to the order of Saint Barnabas and Ambrose, and taught the art of exorcism to a professional level. In Complementum Artis Exorcistica, Visconti sought to educate on all aspects of exorcism, from how to identify the possessed to instructions on techniques, prayers, rituals and remedies to free the possessed victim from their demons. He hoped that his book would help reduce the number of cases of demonic possession recently recorded in and around Milan.

Visconti helpfully provides a list of twenty-five “signs of the possessed”, including refusing to eat, weeping without knowing why, “terrible and horrible eyes”, and implausible knowledge or skill, to name a few. Interestingly, this list is significantly different to his list of fifteen “signs of the bewitched”, (feeling pains the victim cannot explain, fainting, unstoppable wasting of the body). This is due to Visconti’s belief that there are more similarities between melancholia and demonic affliction than the former and the diabolic magic of witchcraft. Visconti describes the power of the devil causing melancholia by blurring one’s senses and making them feverish, mute, deaf and having visions. The urgency that Visconti felt making his case was heightened by the opposing argument which took a far more lenient view, believing sufferers of melancholia to only imagine themselves to be vexed by demons instead. These claims were backed by several medical tracts. Without completely disregarding the physician’s view, Visconti insists corporeal physicians are capable of dealing with natural illnesses, but only the theologically knowledgeable exorcists can prescribe the higher medicine of the soul.

In 1607 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’), often described as the greatest compendium of exorcism manuals. These works shared many similarities and all were particularly preoccupied with witchcraft, often merging exorcism, counter-witchcraft and the demonstration of techniques on how to ward off demons or evil spirits. Visconti’s work was therefore part of a body of work that was distilled into the shorter exorcism ritual prescribed in the Rituale Romanum (1612) the church’s official guide for exorcisms in use down to the present day.

Overall a very good copy of a rare and influential work on the theology, practice and rituals of exorcism.

Provenance: E.R.D. Maclagan who was an art historian and Director of the V&A.

[The Debate Over the Origin of Genius During the Italian Renaissance, Brann, 2002; Witchcraft and Inquisition in Early Modern Venice, Seitz, 2011]