Performing Witchcraft, Exorcism, and Abortion on the Italian Renaissance State: The Witch and the Possessed Girl by Antonfrancesco Grazzini

Antonfrancesco Grazzini’s plays, La Spiritata (The Possessed Girl) and La Strega (The Witch), are available in English for the first time, with notes and an ＂Introduction＂. These plays deal with witchcraft, superstition, sexuality, and abortion. The context for such themes is analyzed in the ＂Introduction＂. Grazzini enhanced literary drama with elements from popular performances. He influenced other playwrights, including in England, where The Possessed Girl was adapted as the Elizabethan comedy, The Bugbears. Writer and linguist John Florio used Grazzini’s plays in his lexicon of Italian for English learners. Grazzini celebrated artistic and popular traditions of Renaissance Florence; he is significant for writing and preserving many literary genres, especially the burlesque and carnivalesque. He participated in Florentine spectacle and theater, as a writer of plays, a composer of interludes, and a chronicler of festive events. His importance to the development of the Italian language is evident in his plays.

Mary Gallucci received a Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Connecticut and holds degrees in Comparative Literature and Romance Languages from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Albertus Magnus College. She researches race and violence in the Early Modern period; Italian intertexts in English drama; and eros, identity, and classical culture in Renaissance literary and visual arts. At the University of Connecticut, Gallucci has taught courses in English and World Literature, Shakespeare, and the Art of the Italian Renaissance, incorporating themes of gender and sexuality; race, heritage, and memory; and literature and the environment. She has taught Italian Language and Culture and plans additional translations from Italian.