Etruscan Roman Remains: Introduction

This is the preface to a late 19th-century folklore collection documenting the surviving magical practices, spirit beliefs, and folk religion of the Romagna Toscana, a mountain district in northern Italy — situated in the tradition of comparative mythology and ethnological antiquarianism. The author's central argument is that the peasants of this region have preserved, through Etruscan, Roman, and Christian rule, a continuous animist and shamanistic tradition stretching back to prehistoric times, with living witches still invoking deities by their Etruscan names (Tinia, Faflon, Teramo) and practicing spells traceable to classical sources. A striking specific claim is that roughly half of the hundred magical cures compiled by the Roman physician Marcellus Burdigalensis in the 4th century CE are still known or in use among these peasants, and that the collection can supply missing incantations that Marcellus himself left incomplete. The author also contends that this material sheds light on contested scholarly questions — for instance, that local spirits still called *Lasii* confirm the long-disputed identification of Lases with Lares in Etruscan religion. Methodologically, the preface emphasizes the difficulty and slowness of collection (sometimes spanning years per item) and the informants' genuine illiteracy as a guarantor of authenticity, since they could not have fabricated classical correspondences they did not know. The work will appeal most to readers interested in classical antiquity, Etruscan religion, and the survival of pre-Christian belief into the modern era.

Etruscan Roman Remains: Introduction

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