Leonarde S Ghost

For seven weeks in late spring and early summer of 1628, a ghost haunted the modest dwelling of Huguette Roy and her husband in the small city of Dole in the Holy Roman Empire near the French border. Before and after giving birth to her third child, Huguette received visits twice daily from a young woman clothed in white who cleaned her house, eased her pains, and tended her newborn son. Only Huguette could see this apparition, and the haunting aroused curiosity and fear throughout her community. Soon after the spirit departed, a young man from Dole prepared a manuscript in colloquial French to recount Huguette’s experiences, the ghost’s demands, and the event’s orthodoxy. Translators Edwards and Sutch present this primary source in English to allow modern readers to view the spirituality, piety, and daily lives of ordinary people in early modern Europe. Transcription of the original French of Leonarde’s Ghost with editor’s notes in English, supplemental material [download pdf]

Huguette Roy is a bedridden, pregnant woman living in early modern Franche-Comté when a mysterious apparition arrives at her bedside in 1628. Not only afflicted by her physical ailments but also a deathly fear of demonic influences, Huguette is faced with weeks of daily appearances from the ethereal chambermaid visible solely to her eyes. Surrounded by a barrage of non-believers and questioning religious orders, Huguette must conquer her own uncertainty and help the mystical being achieve her fate. Set during a time when visionaries were forcefully prosecuted, the account was stored away in a small, French library. Now translators Edwards and Sutch introduce this primary source and place it in its historical, geographical, political, and religious contexts.

Vitruvian Man is the world's most famous drawing, by one of the world's most famous artists. The image - named after a Roman architect and engineer, Vitruvius - has become visual shorthand for artistic genius and scientific inquiry, and yet nobody knows anything about it. In Da Vinci's Ghost, critically acclaimed historian Toby Lester examines the forces that converged in 1490 to turn an idea that had been around for centuries into this iconic image, bringing the ghost of an unknown Leonardo da Vinci back to life. Rooted in little-known episodes of the artist's colourful career, and taking in ideas including theories of the cosmos, Roman land-surveying and the relationship between anatomy and architecture, the book tells the story of his evolving, lifelong study of the human body, restoring in vivid detail the intellectual and cultural spheres of fifteenth-century Florence and Milan. Beautifully illustrated with da Vinci's drawings and those of his predecessors, Da Vinci's Ghost is both a personal story and a grand saga of intellectual discovery that brilliantly reconstructs the artistry and scholarship of one of the world's greatest creative minds.

An award-winning author takes on the genesis of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. In this modest drawing, da Vinci attempted nothing less than to calibrate the harmonies of the universe and understand the central role man played in the cosmos. Lester brings Vitruvian Man to life, resurrecting the ghost of an unknown da Vinci.

Superstition and Magic in Early Modern Europe brings together a rich selection of essays which represent the most important historical research on religion, magic and superstition in early modern Europe. Each essay makes a significant contribution to the history of magic and religion in its own right, while together they demonstrate how debates over the topic have evolved over time, providing invaluable intellectual, historical, and socio-political context for readers approaching the subject for the first time. The essays are organised around five key themes and areas of controversy. Part One tackles superstition; Part Two, the tension between miracles and magic; Part Three, ghosts and apparitions; Part Four, witchcraft and witch trials; and Part Five, the gradual disintegration of the 'magical universe' in the face of scientific, religious and practical opposition. Each part is prefaced by an introduction that provides an outline of the historiography and engages with recent scholarship and debate, setting the context for the essays that follow and providing a foundation for further study. This collection is an invaluable toolkit for students of early modern Europe, providing both a focused overview and a springboard for broader thinking about the underlying continuities and discontinuities that make the study of magic and superstition a perennially fascinating topic.

When, in October 1517, Martin Luther pinned his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg he shattered the foundations of western Christendom. The Reformation of doctrine and practice that followed Luther's seismic action, and protest against the sale of indulgences, fragmented the Church and overturned previously accepted certainties and priorities. But it did more, challenging the relationship between spiritual and secular authority, perceptions of the supernatural, the interpretation of the past, the role of women in society and church, and clerical attitudes towards marriage and sex. Drawing on the most recent historiography, Helen L Parish locates the Protestant Reformation in its many cultural, social and political contexts. She assesses the Reformers' impact on art and architecture; on notions of authority, scripture and tradition; and - reflecting on the extent to which the printing press helped spread Reformation ideas - on oral, print and written culture.

While pre-modern Europe is often seen as having an 'enchanted' or 'magical' worldview, the full implications of such labels remain inconsistently explored. Witchcraft, demonology, and debates over pious practices have provided the main avenues for treating those themes, but integrating them with other activities and ideas seen as forming an enchanted Europe has proven to be a much more difficult task. This collection offers one method of demystifying this world of everyday magic. Integrating case studies and more theoretical responses to the magical and preternatural, the authors here demonstrate that what we think of as extraordinary was often accepted as legitimate, if unusual, occurrences or practices. In their treatment of and attitudes towards spirit-assisted treasure-hunting, magical recipes, trials for sanctity, and visits by guardian angels, early modern Europeans showed more acceptance of and comfort with the extraordinary than modern scholars frequently acknowledge. Even witchcraft could be more pervasive and less threatening than many modern interpretations suggest. Magic was both mundane and mysterious in early modern Europe, and the witches who practiced it could in many ways be quite ordinary members of their communities. The vivid cases described in this volume should make the reader question how to distinguish the ordinary and extraordinary and the extent to which those terms need to be redefined for an early modern context. They should also make more immediate a world in which magic was an everyday occurrence.

"The Ghosts at Grantley" by Leonard Kip is a haunting tale that delves deep into the mysteries of the supernatural. Set against the backdrop of the enigmatic Grantley mansion, Kip's narrative captures the essence of a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead were blurred. This classic novel showcases Kip's ability to weave tales that are both chilling and thought-provoking.