Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Date

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Art History

Committee Chair

Rebecca Howard

Committee Member

Earnestine Jenkins

Committee Member

William McKeown

Abstract

The ideological and visual construction of the witch reached its peak during the early modern period when the witch-hunting craze claimed the lives of thousands. This thesis visually and textually analyzes the 1608 witch-hunting treatise the Compendium Maleficarum by Francesco Maria Guazzo, especially considering the Compendium’s images and their inversion of holy Christian and Greco-Roman art to create images depicting socially corrupt behavior, as well as considering some of their connections to other early modern art that sought to label specific populations as dangerous to society. Books I and II of the Compendium are specifically discussed in relation to their ideological and visual construction of witches during the early modern period. This study not only examines these descriptions, images, and anecdotes, but also seeks to understand how the early modern image of the witch transformed vulnerable populations into dangerous individuals who supposedly sought to harm and corrupt early modern society.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest/Clarivate.

Notes

Open Access

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