Martin Delrio

Martin Delrio, a Spanish Jesuit born at Antwerp in 1551, is known mainly for his massive demonological treatise, Disquisitiones magicarum libri sex, which was published in three parts between 1599 and 1600 and reprinted as late as 1756. In this comprehensive study of Delrio’s scholarship, Jan Machielsen places Delrio’s demonology within the broader context of his humanist and theological scholarship. This large and diverse corpus includes a translation of Seneca’s tragedies, controversies with the Huguenot scholar Joseph Scaliger, a defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and an ambitious project of Catholic biblical exegesis. By relating Delrio’s demonology to humanism and the Counter-Reformation, Machielsen builds upon the achievement of Stuart Clark, who established the relevance of demonology to the main issues of early modern religious, historical, scientific and political thought. Machielsen’s contextualisation of Delrio, however, works in a different direction from Clark’s, showing how this one demonologist’s immersion in the cultural and religious movements of his day shaped his signature work on witchcraft

Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Demonology · Doctrine · Exegesis · Humanism · Literature · Political science · Scholarship · Theology · Classics · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices