Tea with Pier Isa and the Witches of Montecchio

Tea with Pier Isa and the Witches of Montecchio Part 2

Several years ago I received a curious phone call from an Italian author seeking a translator for her  novel about the witches of Montecchio – based on a true story, she insisted, for which historical documents exist.  Montecchio  is a sort of plateau in the highlands above  Bagnaia near Viterbo (Bagnaia is the site of the famous Villa Lante) – an isolated wooded area, unfrequented, except , probably, by boar and mushroom hunters. Like many wild spots in Tuscia, it is the site of several prehistoric stone monuments , left to molder  amid scrub and brambles.   I don’t remember the name of that author: she never called back again, but she had put a buzz in my ear – the witches of Montecchio – who might they have been?   Now and again over the years, fleeting bits of information about them came my way.   Last year, around Halloween, I posted what I knew about them in a blog, posted in the Red Room, and also on my website, http://www.lindalappin.net/

The  Irish poet  John Montague has written:  All around, shards of a lost tradition/ Scattered over the hills, tribal-And placenames, uncultivated pearls/ The whole landscape a manuscript/We had lost the skill to read/A part of our past disinherited/But fumbled, like a blind man/Along the fingertips of instinct.  That’s how I feel about the area of Tuscia. The whole territory of Viterbo is riddled with ruins – not only  the Etruscan tombs explored by Harriet in my novel  The Etruscan, but Pre- Etruscan altars – like the  step pyramids near Vitorchiano,  the prehistoric cave dwellings near Corviano,  the megaliths and other  eerie monuments  scattered all throughout the  Selva di Malano,  and many Neolithic sites.   Many sites are hidden,  disguised by overgrowths of vegetation, half buried in earth, entangled by the roots of trees, even sunk at the bottom of volcanic lakes.   

My first novel, The Etruscan, was an attempt to transmit the fascination I experienced myself in these places, and my more recent novels, including  Signatures in Stone, set in Bomarzo, and The Brotherhood of Miguel, also make use of this material.    What is most amazing to me about these places is that they are totally abandoned and forgotten, except by a few local historians, enthusiasts, and  occasional hikers.  There even seems to be a taboo connected to them. They inspire fear in the local population.  Researching some of the areas I describe in The Etruscan, I was astonished to learn that the old Roman bath located within the archaeological park of Barbarano Romano  had previously been regarded by the locals as the entryway to hell, and an extremely dangerous place to visit simply because the only access to this sunny thermal bath site carved on a ledge along a canyon wall, was through a dark, mossy  staircase cut in stone leading  down into the earth.

The stories told about Montecchio are similar – Local legend  claims that  snakes there do not hibernate, so that even in winter one is at risk.  Moreover,    it is home to a special snake with a huge head – as large as human head, or so the legend goes – absolutely terrifying if you run into one.   Such legends make you wonder about their origins---  were they merely a pretense to keep people away from areas where secret rites, frowned upon by the church,  were practiced, or do they represent the  performers of those rites who have been transformed by legend into snakes?  Throughout  the world’s mythologies, snakes represent  cosmic  energy and transformation.  Perhaps the legend means that in Montecchio those energies may be perceived and tapped? There is no doubt that the witches of Montecchio were related to some ancient fertility rite sacred to the Great Mother, for among the prehistoric monuments located in the area are a birthing trough and a  rounded menhir similar to  fertility monuments in India.

Last Sunday in Vitorchiano, I had an interesting guest at tea time, Pier Isa della Rupe,  a local writer,  painter, storyteller and researcher  who has spent years studying the witches and the area of Montecchio and who occasionally organizes special esoteric excursions to visit the place.   Among the things she unearthed  in her research was the documented evidence regarding the existence  of a female “confraternity”  -- which owned property on Montecchio in the middle ages, and operated in the area with an authority and power ( indeed they owned property)  unthinkable for women at the time.   What was the origin of that authority  and power? Was it connected in any way to the high regard Etruscan culture had once held women?  Could such a cultural attitude towards women have survived and been passed down through so many centuries from Etruscan times to the middle ages in that small corner of Italy?   

Whatever those women did up in  the woods of Montecchio – they were part of a secret tradition scattered throughout central Italy. Mont’ Amiata – another mysterious place on the border between Tuscia and Tuscany, also has a rich tradition of witches frequenting wooded areas where prehistoric monuments are located.  It is to this tradition that Charles Leland refers in his book  Etruscan Roman Remains. What Leland reveals was that  pagan, specifically, Etruscan religious beliefs and customs, which he describes as the Old religion,  continued to thrive in Italy into the nineteenth century, especially in the area of Tuscany,  passed down and disguised in many ways:  in stories, nursery rhymes, decoration, plant-lore, superstitions connected to animals, places, plants, healing, dowsing   etc. And so it is today – some of those beliefs still live on –slightly transformed , for example,  the belief that certain places  possess special powers that may be transmitted to people who visit them for this purpose.  In any case, as Pier della Rupe informs me – not anyone can visit Montecchio–for people  with negative  feelings or influences will be rooted to the spot, unable to go further,  legs so heavy they cannot  move.  So if by any chance you think you might want to visit the witches of Montecchio -  don’t go alone, and keep an eye out for snakes.