Agostino Veneziano : “The Carcass / Lo Stregozzo” (c. 1520)

An Italian engraving of the 16th century, The Carcass, or Lo Stregozzo, depicts a cruel hag leading a diabolical procession atop a bizarre skeletal wagon, towed by nude human figures. In one hand she holds a vessel of flaming fire, evocative of lust; in the other, she seizes a frightened baby by the head — to crush, perhaps, or to consume.

In Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe, historian Charles Zika suggests that Veneziano may have been alluding to the “wild hunt” or “furious horde” of German folklore; a procession of ghostly or supernatural figures who ravaged the countryside, presaging war or plague. Those who chanced upon them might be punished, slain or compelled to join their procession, but those who remained indoors might placate the evil spirits by setting out offerings of food and drink.

Its central figure was traditionally identified with any number of divinities and legendary figures, including Freya, Wodan, Odin, Diana/Artemis, Proserpina/Hecate, and, of course, the Devil. In The Carcass, however, she is more than likely a witch, cribbed from a contemporary engraving by Albrecht Dürer, Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat.

“The wild ride of witches,” writes Zika, “had become established as a fundamental feature in literary accounts of the witches’ repertoire of evil by the early sixteenth century. And some early visual images of witchcraft…would also represent witchcraft as a line of women riding on animals.” The Carcass thus exemplifies early modern Europe’s dread of “the destructive powers of witchcraft…linking it to the powers associated with the dead and fears of female sexuality.”