Note 35 — Front matter

His “Lamiarum sive strigarum opusculum,” printed in 1490. Quétif and Échard, who know it only in MS., give its title as “De lamiis et strigibus ad Franciscum Sfortiam Vicecomitem,” which would seem to prove it written before 1465, since Francesco Sforza died in that year. I hold in my hand a manuscript of what is perhaps the same, but is quite as possibly a different treatise by the same author. It is entitled: “Opusculum Magistri Hieronymi Vicecomitis [i.e., Visconti—the inquisitor is said to have been a member of the great Milanese family of that name] ordinis praedicatorum in quo probatur Lamias esse haereticas et non laborare humore melancholico.” It is apparently contemporary, and may be the autograph of its author, though the marginal corrections and annotations are in differing hands of the same period. It is directed mainly against the canon Episcopi, and shows no knowledge either of witch-bull or of “Witch-Hammer.” Date it has none. The White Library is indebted for it to Dr. Hennen, of Düsseldorf, to whom it came from the collection of the musician Tosi.