Gli inquisitori di fronte alla follia: nuove testimonianze documentarie (XVI-XVII secolo)

Inquisition is very important for historical studies on dealing with mental illness, not only for the debate over witchcraft and demonology, but for every data concerning mental illness and its interpretation. In the 16th and 17th Century, an important debate over witches and witch-hunt engages European intellectuals, and this research applies to documents of this period. In particular, Sardinia seems to be foreign to intellectuals’ debate over witches: this paper aims to assess whether Sardinian Inquisition trials were influenced from this debate, and what kind of ‘Sardinian’ approach to mental illness emerges from Inquisition’s Archives.