Author: Sarah Laskow / Source: Atlas Obscura
Maybe it’s the black background, but the feathery ring above has an eerie vibe to it. A ghirlanda—Italian for garland—like this one would have smelled “extremely nasty,” at least at first, according to one report.
Woven among the feathers, there would be bone, hair, even old teeth, and it had a sinister purpose. Hidden in a person’s bed, it was supposed to cause them to fall ill and die. “Everyone believed I had bought the ghirlanda in order to get rid of my husband!” wrote an English historian living in Italy, in a letter to a friend who’d asked her to procure one—purely for research. (Or so the friend said.)The ghirlanda above is just one of the objects associated with magic and witchcraft featured in a new exhibit, called Spellbound, at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, which is dedicated to art and archaeology. The aim, according to the museum, is to “show how, even in this skeptical age, we still use magical thinking.” Astrology is such a booming trend right now that almost seems self-evident. The magic of the past, though, could be a bit more gruesome.
Below is a selection of the Ashmolean’s macabre magical items.
Prognosticator, circa 1500
In the 16th century, the line between magic and medicine was thin, and this gorgeous device was used to determine the best times to treat patients with purges, bleedings, and baths. It factored…
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