Only in districts remote from civil life did witchcraft assume those anti-social and repulsive features which are familiar to Northern nations.

Elsewhere it penetrated, as a subtle poison, through society, lending its supposed assistance to passions already powerful enough to work their own accomplishment.

It existed, not as an endemic disease, a permanent delirium of maddened peasants, but as a weapon in the arsenal of malice on a par with poisons and provocatives to lust.
I might illustrate this position by the relation of a fantastic attempt made against the life of Pope Urban VIII.[244] [Footnote 243: Dandolo's _Streghe Tirolesi_, and Cantu's work on the Diocese of Como show how much Subalpine Italy had in common in Northern Europe in this matter.] [Footnote 244: See _Rassegna Settimanale_, September 18, 1881.] Giacomo Centini, the nephew of Cardinal d'Ascoli, fostered a fixed idea, the motive of his madness being the promotion of his uncle to S.Peter's Chair.

In 1633 he applied to a hermit, who professed profound science in the occult arts and close familiarity with demons.

The man, in answer to Giacomo's inquiries, said that Urban had still many years to live, that the Cardinal d'Ascoli would certainly succeed him, and that he held it in his power to shorten the Pope's days.