Title page of the original edition of Aradia

Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is an 1899 book by Charles Godfrey Leland. The book is an attempt to portray the beliefs and rituals of an underground religious witchcraft tradition in Tuscany that, Leland claimed, had survived for centuries until his discovery of its existence in the 1890s. Scholars have disputed the veracity of this claim. Still, the book has become one of the foundational texts of Wicca and Neopaganism. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 383 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (504 × 789 pixel, file size: 97 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 383 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (504 × 789 pixel, file size: 97 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries... See also: 1898 in literature, other events of 1899, 1900 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903) was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and educated at Princeton University, and in Europe. ... A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. ... It has been suggested that Witch be merged into this article or section. ... Tuscany (Italian: ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. ... The pentagram within a circle, a symbol of faith used by many Wiccans, sometimes called a pentacle. ... Neopaganism or Neo-Paganism is any of a heterogeneous group of new religious movements, particularly those influenced by ancient, primarily pre-Christian and sometimes pre-Judaic religions. ...

The text is a composite. Some of it is Leland's translation into English of an original Italian manuscript, the Vangelo (gospel). Leland reported receiving the manuscript from his primary informant on Italian witchcraft beliefs, a woman Leland called "Maddalena". The rest of the material comes from Leland's research on Italian folklore and traditions, including other related material from Maddalena. Leland had been informed of the Vangelo's existence in 1886, but it took Maddalena eleven years to provide him with a copy. After translating and editing the material, it took another two years for the book to be published. Its fifteen chapters portray the origins, beliefs, rituals and spells of an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition. The central figure of that religion is the goddess Aradia, who came to Earth to teach the practice of witchcraft to peasants in order for them to oppose their feudal oppressors and the Catholic Church. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Heathen redirects here. ... Statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture A goddess is a female deity, in contrast with a male deity known as a god. Many cultures have goddesses. ... In the neopagan religions of Stregheria and Wicca, Aradia was the daughter of Diana and Lucifer. ... torin was here ... The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church (see terminology below) is the Christian Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. It traces its origins to the original Christian community founded by Jesus Christ and led by the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter. ...

Leland's work remained obscure until the 1950s, when other theories about, and claims of, "pagan witchcraft" survivals began to be widely discussed. Aradia began to be examined within the wider context of such claims. Scholars are divided, with some dismissing Leland's assertion regarding the origins of the manuscript, and others arguing for its authenticity as a unique documentation of folk beliefs. Along with increased scholarly attention, Aradia came to play a special role in the history of Gardnerian Wicca and its offshoots, being used as evidence that pagan witchcraft survivals existed in Europe, and because a passage from the book's first chapter was used as a part of the religion's liturgy. After the increase in interest in the text, it became widely available through numerous reprints from a variety of publishers, including a 1999 critical edition with a new translation by Mario and Dina Pazzaglini. This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ... The word leitourgia is derived from the two Greek words, leos and ergon. Leos, meaning the people of God and Ergon meaning the work. ...

Origins

"Maddalena" as a young fortune-teller

Charles Godfrey Leland was an American author and folklorist, and spent much of the 1890s in Florence researching Italian folklore. Aradia was one of the products of Leland's research. While Leland's name is the one principally associated with Aradia, the manuscript that makes up the bulk of it is attributed to the research of an Italian woman that Leland and Leland's biographer, his niece Elizabeth Robbins Pennell, refered to as "Maddalena". According to folklorist Roma Lister, a contemporary and friend of Leland's, Maddalena's real name was Margherita, and she was a "witch" from Florence who claimed a family lineage from the Etruscans and knowledge of ancient rituals.^[1] Maddalena, in correspondence with Leland, signed as "Maddalena Talenti".^[2] Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... For prophecy in the context of revealed religions see Prophet. ... Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903) was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and educated at Princeton University, and in Europe. ... Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore such as fairy tales and folk mythology in oral or non-literary traditions. ... Florence (Italian: ) is the capital city of the region of Tuscany, Italy. ... Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, material culture, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Witchcraft. ... Map showing the extent of the Etruscan civilization and the twelve Etruscan League cities. ...

Leland reports meeting Maddalena in 1886, and she became the primary source for his Italian folklore collecting for several years. Leland describes her as belonging to a vanishing tradition of sorcery. He writes that "by long practice [she] has perfectly learned… just what I want, and how to extract it from those of her kind."^[3] He received several hundred pages worth of material from her, which was incorporated into his books Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition, Legends of Florence Collected From the People, and eventually Aradia. Leland wrote that he had "learned that there was in existence a manuscript setting forth the doctrines of Italian witchcraft" in 1886, and had urged Maddalena to find it.^[4] Eleven years later, on January 1, 1897, Leland received the Vangelo by post. The manuscript was written in Maddalena's handwriting. Leland understood it to be an authentic document^[5] of the "Old Religion" of the witches, but explains that he did not know if the text came from written or oral sources.^[3] Maddalena's correspondence with Leland indicated that she intended to marry and emigrate to the United States, and the Vangelo was the last material Leland received from her. The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

Leland's translation and editing was completed in early 1897 and submitted to David Nutt for publication. Two years passed, until Leland wrote requesting the return of the manuscript in order to submit it to a different publishing house. This request spurred Nutt to accept the book, and it was published in July 1899 in a small print run.^[6] Wiccan author Raymond Buckland claims to have been the first to reprint the book in 1968 through his "Buckland Museum of Witchcraft" press,^[7] but a British reprint was made by "Wiccens"^[sic] Charles "Rex Nemorensis" and Mary Cardell in the early 1960s.^[8] Since then the text has been repeatedly reprinted by a variety of different publishers, including as a 1998 retranslation by Mario and Dina Pazzaglini with essays and commentary. Raymond Buckland was the first person in the United States to openly admit to being a practitioner of Wicca. ... Sic is a Latin word meaning thus or so. In writing, it is italicized and placed within square brackets — [sic] — to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, or other preceding quoted material is a verbatim reproduction of the quoted original and is not a transcription error. ...

Contents

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches

After the eleven-year search, Leland writes that he was unsurprised by the contents of the Vangelo. It was largely what he was expecting, with the exception that he did not predict passages in "prose-poetry".^[4] "I also believe that in this Gospel of the Witches", comments Leland in the appendix, "we have a trustworthy outline at least of the doctrine and rites observed at [the witches' Sabbat]. They adored forbidden deities and practised forbidden deeds, inspired as much by rebellion against Society as by their own passions."^[4] Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ... Francisco Goyas Los Caprichos: Linda maestra! (Nice mistress!) - witches heading to a Sabbath In Christian folklore, the Sabbath (also known as Witchs Sabbath) was a gathering supposed to have been celebrated by Satanists, witches and warlocks to honor the Devil, offend God, Jesus, the sacraments, the cross, and... Look up rebellion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Leland's final draft was a slim volume. He organised the material to be included into fifteen chapters, and added a brief preface and an appendix. The published version also included footnotes and, in many places, the original Italian that Leland had translated. Most of the content of Leland's Aradia is made up of spells, blessings and rituals, but the text also contains stories and myths which suggest influences from both the ancient Roman religion and Roman Catholicism. Major characters in the myths include the Roman goddess Diana, a sun god called Lucifer, the Biblical Cain as a lunar figure, and the messianic Aradia. The witchcraft of "The Gospel of the Witches" is both a method for casting spells and an anti-hierarchical "counter-religion" to the Catholic church.^[9] The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... // For the Derek Sherinian album, see Mythology (Derek Sherinian album). ... Roman mythology, the mythological beliefs of the people of Ancient Rome, can be considered as having two parts. ... The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church (see terminology below) is the Christian Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. It traces its origins to the original Christian community founded by Jesus Christ and led by the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter. ... The Diana of Versailles In Roman mythology, Diana was the virgin goddess of the hunt, in literature the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis, though in cult she was thought to be the god of horror and fear. ... It has been suggested that Sun cults be merged into this article or section. ... Lucifer, as depicted in Collin de Plancys Dictionnaire Infernal (1863). ... In stories common to the Abrahamic religions, Cain or Káyin (קַיִן / קָיִן spear Standard Hebrew Qáyin, Tiberian Hebrew Qáyin / Qāyin; Arabic قايين Qāyīn in the Arabic Bible; قابيل Qābīl in Islam) is the eldest son of Adam and Eve, and the first man born in creation... An 18th century drawing of Khoikhoi worshipping the moon In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon: see moon (mythology). ... In Judaism, the Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ Standard Hebrew Arabic: Al-Masih, المسيح), Tiberian Hebrew , Aramaic ) initially meant any person who was anointed by a prophet of God. ... In the neopagan religions of Stregheria and Wicca, Aradia was the daughter of Diana and Lucifer. ...

Themes

François Boucher's nude Diana Leaving Her Bath. The goddess is wearing a crescent moon crown.

Entire chapters of Aradia are devoted to rituals and magic spells. These include enchantments to win love (Chapter VI), a conjuration to perform when finding a stone with a hole or a round stone in order to turn it into an amulet for Diana's favour (Chapter IV) and the consecration of a ritual feast for Diana, Aradia and Cain (Chapter II). The narrative material makes up less of the text, and is composed of short stories and legends about the birth of the witchcraft religion and the actions of their gods. Leland summarises the mythic material in the book in its appendix, writing "Diana is Queen of the Witches; an associate of Herodias (Aradia) in her relations to sorcery; that she bore a child to her brother the Sun (here Lucifer); that as a moon-goddess she is in some relation to Cain, who dwells as prisoner in the moon, and that the witches of old were people oppressed by feudal lands, the former revenging themselves in every way, and holding orgies to Diana which the Church represented as being the worship of Satan".^[4] Diana is not only the witches' goddess, but is presented as the primordial creatrix in Chapter III, dividing herself into darkness and light. After giving birth to Lucifer, Diana seduces him while in the form of a cat, eventually giving birth to Aradia, their daughter. Diana demonstrates the power of her witchcraft by creating "the heavens, the stars and the rain", becoming "Queen of the Witches". Chapter I presents the original witches as slaves that escaped from their masters, beginning new lives as "thieves and evil folk". Diana sends her daughter Aradia to them to teach these former serfs witchcraft, the power of which they can use to "destroy the evil race (of oppressors)". Aradia's students thus became the first witches, who would then continue the worship of Diana. Leland was struck by this cosmogony: "In all other Scriptures of all races, it is the male… who creates the universe; in Witch Sorcery it is the female who is the primitive principle".^[4] Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1576x1153, 147 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Foot fetishism Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1576x1153, 147 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Foot fetishism Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches ... The Toilet of Venus (1751) typifies the superficially pleasing elegance of Bouchers mature style. ... An amulet from the Black Pullet grimoire An amulet (from Latin amuletum, meaning A means of protection) or a talisman (from Arabic tilasm, ultimately from Greek telesma or from the Greek word talein wich means to initiate into the mysteries. ... Herodias (c. ... It has been suggested that Sun cults be merged into this article or section. ... An 18th century drawing of Khoikhoi worshipping the moon In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon: see moon (mythology). ... torin was here ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Satan (disambiguation). ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Structure

Aradia is composed of fifteen chapters, the first ten of which are presented as being Leland's translation of the Vangelo manuscript given to him by Maddalena. This section, while predominantly made up of spells and rituals, is also the source of most of the myths and folktales contained in the text. At the end of Chapter I is the text in which Aradia gives instructions to her followers on how to practice witchcraft. A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ...

The first ten chapters are not entirely a direct translation of the Vangelo; Leland offers his own commentary and notes on a number of passages, and Chapter VII is Leland's incorporation of other Italian folklore material. Medievalist Robert Mathiesen contends that the Vangelo manuscript actually represents even less of Aradia, arguing that only chapters I, II and the first half of Chapter IV match Leland's description of the manuscript's contents, and suggests that the other material came from different texts collected by Leland through Maddalena.^[10] Medievalism divides into both serious academic study of the medieval world and also leisure-time romanticism about that world. ...

The remaining five chapters are clearly identified in the text as representing other material Leland believed to be relevant to the Vangelo, acquired during his research into Italian witchcraft, and especially while working on his Etruscan Roman Remains and Legends of Florence. The themes in these additional chapters vary in some details from the first ten, and Leland included them partly to "[confirm] the fact that the worship of Diana existed for a long time contemporary with Christianity".^[11] Chapter XV, for example, gives an incantation to Laverna, through the use of a deck of playing cards. Leland explains its inclusion by a note that Diana, as portrayed in Aradia, is worshipped by outlaws, and Laverna was the Roman goddess of thievery.^[12] Other examples of Leland's thoughts about the text are given in the book's preface, appendix, and numerous footnotes. Fourth-century inscription, representing Christ as the Good Shepherd. ... An incantation is the words spoken during a ritual. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Some typical Anglo-American playing cards from the Bicycle brand Set of 52 playing cards A playing card is a typically hand-sized piece of heavy paper or thin plastic. ...

In several places Leland provides the Italian he was translating. According to Mario Pazzaglini, author of the 1999 translation, the Italian contains misspellings, missing words and grammatical errors, and is in a standardised Italian rather than the local dialect one might expect.^[13] Pazzaglini concludes that Aradia represents material translated from dialect to basic Italian and then into English,^[13] creating a summary of texts, some of which were mis-recorded.^[14] Leland himself called the text a "collection of ceremonies, "cantrips," incantations, and traditions"^[4] and described it as an attempt to gather material, "valuable and curious remains of ancient Latin or Etruscan lore"^[4] that he feared would be lost. There is no cohesive narrative even in the sections that Leland attributes to the Vangelo. This lack of cohesion, or "inconsistency", is an argument for the text's authenticity, according to religious scholar Chas Clifton, since the text shows no signs of being "massaged... for future book buyers."^[15] The Italian people generally indicates as Italian dialects all vernacular idioms spoken in Italy other than Italian and other recognized languages. ... Area under Roman control  Roman Republic  Roman Empire  Western Empire  Eastern Empire Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ...

Claims questioned

Charles Godfrey Leland wrote journalism, comedy and books on folklore and linguistics. Aradia has proved the most controversial.

Leland's writings show no doubt that "the witches even yet form a fragmentary secret society or sect, that they call it that of the Old Religion, and that there are in the Romagna entire villages in which the people are completely heathen".^[4] Accepting this, Leland supposed that "the existence of a religion supposes a Scripture, and in this case it may be admitted, almost without severe verification, that the Evangel of the Witches is really a very old work… in all probability the translation of some early or later Latin work."^[4] Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 317 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (1058 × 2000 pixel, file size: 574 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Charles Godfrey Leland... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 317 × 599 pixel Image in higher resolution (1058 × 2000 pixel, file size: 574 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Charles Godfrey Leland... Emilia-Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...

Leland's claim that the manuscript was genuine, or even that he received such a manuscript, has been called into question. After the 1921 publication of Margaret Murray's The Witch-cult in Western Europe, which hypothesised that the European witch trials were actually a persecution of a pagan religious survival, American sensationalist author Theda Kenyon's 1929 book Witches Still Live connected Murray's thesis with the witchcraft religion in Aradia.^[16][17] Arguments against Murray's thesis would eventually include arguments against Leland. Witchcraft scholar Jeffrey Russell devoted some of his 1980 book A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans to arguing against the claims in Aradia, Murray's thesis, and Jules Michelet's 1862 La Sorcière, which also theorised that witchcraft represented an underground religion.^[18] Historian Elliot Rose's A Razor for a Goat dismissed Aradia as a collection of incantations unsuccessfully attempting to portray a religion.^[19] In his Triumph of the Moon, historian Ronald Hutton summarises the controversy as having three possible extremes: This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia entry. ... A witch-hunt is a search for suspected witches; it is a type of moral panic. ... http://id-www. ... Jules Michelet (August 21, 1798 - February 9, 1874) was a French historian. ... Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol and is an occasional commentator on British television and radio on the history of paganism in the British Isles. ...

1. The Vangelo manuscript represents a genuine text from an otherwise undiscovered religion.
2. Maddalena wrote the text, either with or without Leland's assistance, possibly drawing from her own background with folklore or witchcraft.
3. The entire document was forged by Leland.

Hutton himself is a sceptic, not only of the existence of the religion that Aradia claims to represent,^[20] but also of the existence of Maddalena, arguing that it is more likely that Leland created the entire story than that Leland could be so easily "duped" by an Italian fortune-teller.^[21] Clifton takes exception to Hutton's position, writing that it amounts to an accusation of "serious literary fraud" made by an "argument from absence";^[22] one of Hutton's main objections is that Aradia is unlike anything found in medieval literature.^[20] The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam (appeal to ignorance [1]) or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or that a premise is false only because... Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (encompassing the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. ...

Mathiesen also dismisses this "option three", arguing that while Leland's English drafts for the book were heavily edited and revised in the process of writing, the Italian sections, in contrast, were almost untouched except for corrections of "precisely the sort that a proofreader would make as he compared his copy to the original".^[23] This leads Mathiesen to conclude that Leland was working from an extant Italian-language original that he describes as "authentic, but not representative" of any larger folk tradition.^[9] Anthropologist Sabina Magliocco examines the "option one" possibility, that Leland's manuscript represented a folk tradition involving Diana and the Cult of Herodias, in her article Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend. Magliocco writes that Aradia "may represent a 19th century version of [the legend of the Cult of Herodias] that incorporated later materials influenced by medieval diabolism: the presence of "Lucifero," the Christian devil; the practice of sorcery; the naked dances under the full moon."^[24] Anthropology is the study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity through the examination of historical and present geographical distribution, cultural history, acculturation, and cultural relationships. ... The Cult of Herodias, in medieval folklore, was a coven of witches worshipping the Roman goddess Diana and the Biblical character Herodias. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Influence on Wicca and Neopaganism

Magliocco calls Aradia "the first real text of the 20th century Witchcraft revival",^[25] and it is repeatedly cited as being profoundly influential on the development of Wicca and Neopaganism. The text apparently corroborates the thesis of Margaret Murray that early modern and Renaissance witchcraft represented a survival of ancient pagan beliefs, and after Gerald Gardner's claim to have encountered religious witchcraft in 20th-century England,^[26] the works of Michelet, Murray and Leland helped support at least the possibility that such a survival could exist.^[27] The pentagram within a circle, a symbol of faith used by many Wiccans, sometimes called a pentacle. ... Neopaganism or Neo-Paganism is any of a heterogeneous group of new religious movements, particularly those influenced by ancient, primarily pre-Christian and sometimes pre-Judaic religions. ... The early modern period is a term used by historians to refer to the period in Western Europe and its first colonies which spans the time between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution that has created modern society. ... Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. ... It has been suggested that New Forest coven be merged into this article or section. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ...

The Charge of the Goddess, an important piece of liturgy used in Wiccan rituals,^[28] was inspired by Aradia's speech in the first chapter of the book. Parts of the speech appeared in an early version of Gardnerian Wicca ritual.^[29] According to Doreen Valiente, one of Gardner's priestesses, Gardner was surprised by Valiente's recognising the material as having come from Leland's book. Valiente subsequently rewrote the passage in both prose and verse, retaining the "traditional" Aradia lines.^[30] Some Wiccan traditions use the name "Aradia", or Diana, to refer to the Goddess or Queen of the Witches, and Hutton writes that the earliest Gardnerian rituals used the name Airdia, a "garbled" form of Aradia.^[31] Hutton further suggests that the reason that Wicca includes skyclad practice, or ritual nudity, is because of a line spoken by Aradia:^[32] The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in Neopaganism and Wicca. ... Doreen Valiente (1922 - 1999) was a co-creator of Wicca, together with Gerald Gardner. ... The pentagram within a circle, a symbol of faith used by many Wiccans, sometimes called a pentacle. ... In Wicca, skyclad properly means naked outdoors, though it is frequently used to mean nudity anywhere. ...

"And as the sign that ye are truly free,

Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men

And women also: this shall last until

The last of your oppressors shall be dead;"^[33]

Accepting Aradia as the source of this practice, Robert Chartowich points to the 1998 Pazzaglini translation of these lines, which read "Men and Women / You will all be naked, until / Yet he shall be dead, the last / Of your oppressors is dead." Chartowich argues that the ritual nudity of Wicca was based upon Leland's mistranslation of these lines by incorporating the clause "in your rites".^[34]

The reception of Aradia amongst Neopagans has not been entirely positive. Clifton suggests that modern claims of revealing an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition, for example those of Leo Martello, and Raven Grimassi of Stregheria, must be "match[ed] against", and compared with the claims in Aradia. Clifton further suggests that a lack of comfort with Aradia may be due to an "insecurity" within Neopaganism about the movement's claim to authenticity as a religious revival.^[35] Valiente offers another explanation; that the identification of Lucifer as the God of the witches in Aradia was "too strong meat" for Wiccans who were used to the gentler, romantic Paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and Satanism.^[36] Leo Martello (1931-2000) was an author, lecturer, gay civil rights activist, and an early voice in the American Neopagan movement. ... Raven Grimassi (b. ... Ways of the Strega published in 1994, described Raven Grimassis view of Stregheria and popularized Italian-based religious witchcraft. ... Lucifer, as depicted in Collin de Plancys Dictionnaire Infernal (1863). ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Clifton writes that Aradia was especially influential for leaders of the Wiccan religious movement in the 1950s and 1960s, but that the book no longer appears on the "reading lists" given by members to newcomers, nor is it extensively cited in more recent Neopagan books.^[37] The new translation of the book released in 1998 was introduced by Wiccan author Stewart Farrar, who affirms the importance of Aradia, writing that "Leland's gifted research into a 'dying' tradition has made a significant contribution to a living and growing one."^[38] Stewart Farrar at home, 1999 Stewart Farrar (June 28, 1916 - February 7, 2000) was a well-known author of books on Alexandrian Wicca. ...

Notes and references

Florence in 1898. Briefly the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, Florence had begun to be modernised in the 1880s, but many Florentines faced poverty,^[39] and much of Tuscany remained isolated and rural. Painting by Oswald Achenbach.