VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF RENAISSANCE MAGIC THE POWER OF IMAGES AS A DELEGITIMIZING DEVICE

The objective of this work is to investigate, based on the analysis of a series of Renaissance pictorial representations, the power of images to legitimize certain magical thinking-we will focus on its astrological drift-, as well as to delegitimize the so-called popular or << low >> magic, by producing the stereotype of the lustful, demonic and heretical witch. For this, we will problematize the effectiveness of images as devices capable of influencing the actions of the viewer, and to strengthen and reproduce certain power relationships. We will investigate the complex relationships that occurred between the visual construction of the image of the witch, its conceptual conception -as it appears in a classic Renaissance text for witch hunts: the Malleus Maleficarum-, the context of production and circulation of the analyzed works.