The aim of this work is to present a concise analysis of the iconographic evolution of the witch over an extensive period of European culture: from the days of Classical Greece to the Romantic age. Since the subject has always aroused wide cultural interest the study includes some of the most famous images in the history of European art.Many works depicting witches draw their references from major literary works such as earlier poems and treatises and these, in turn, reflect archetypal images in painting,sculpture and wood-carving, often of a strongly symbolic or allegorical significance.Indeed, this subject is open to many forms of interpretation, including those of a philosophical, iconological and psychoanalytic nature since it emerges that even in a study involving general questions of aesthetics and taste we discover that the historical background hinges on the differing forms of presentation which reflect the changing pattern of political and religious events.

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Introduction

The Origins of the Myth. The Classical Prototype

The Meeting of Opposites During the Middle Ages

Daughter of Venus. The Image of the Witch in

the Fifteenth Century

The Witch of the Renaissance:

One Image with Two Persona

The Modern Age: The Image of the Venus terribilis

The Nineteenth Century and the Return of Medusa

Bibliography

Index of names