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''Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches'' is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and folklorists have disputed the existence of such a group. In the 20th century, the book was very influential in the development of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca. 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 referred to as "Maddalena" and whom he called his "witch informant" in Italy. 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 Roman Catholic Church. 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. ==Origins== 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 Robins Pennell, referred 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.〔 quoted in 〕 Professor Robert Mathiesen, as a contributor to the Pazzaglini translation of Aradia, mentions a letter from Maddalena to Leland, which he states is signed "Maddalena Talenti" (the last name being a guess as the handwriting is difficult to decipher). However, pagan scholar Raven Grimassi presented a document at the Pantheacon convention on February 17, 2008, revealing that Maddalena's last name was actually Taluti. This document was reproduced from The International Folklore Congress: Papers and Transactions, 1892 - page 454. 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 () has perfectly learned... just what I want, and how to extract it from those of her kind." 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. Eleven years later, on 1 January 1897, Leland received the ''Vangelo'' by post. The manuscript was written in Maddalena's handwriting. Leland understood it to be an authentic document〔Mathiesen, p. 35.〕 of the "Old Religion" of the witches, but explains that he did not know if the text came from written or oral sources.〔 Maddalena's correspondence with Leland indicated that she intended to marry a man named Lorenzo Bruciatelli and emigrate to the United States, and the ''Vangelo'' was the last material Leland received from her. Author Raven Grimassi, at the Pantheacon convention on February 17, 2008, presented a copy of a letter written by Leland (housed in The Library of Congress). The letter states that Maddalena did not follow through with her plans, but instead left her husband and worked in Genoa for a period of time before returning to Florence. 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. Wiccan author Raymond Buckland claims to have been the first to reprint the book in 1968 through his "Buckland Museum of Witchcraft" press,〔Buckland, Raymond, quoted in Clifton, p. 75.〕 but a British reprint was made by "Wiccens" Charles "Rex Nemorensis" and Mary Cardell in the early 1960s. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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