priest of the island of Santorini (Thera), whose work was published at Paris in 1657; Paul Ricaut, sometime English Consul at Smyrna in his The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches Anno Christi, 1678, 8vo, London, 1679,[52] mentions the tradition with a very striking example, but he does not actually use the word vampire. In 1679 Philip[53] Rohr published at Leipzig his thesis De Masticatione Mortuorum, which in the eighteenth century was followed by a number of academic treatises, such as the Dissertatio de Hominibus post mortem Sanguisugis, uulgo dictis Vampyren, by John Christopher Rohl and John Hertel, Leipzig, 1732; the Dissertatio de cadaueribus sanguisugis of John Christian Stock, published at Jena in the same year; the Dissertatio de Uampyris Seruiensibus of John Heinrich Zopfius and Charles Francis van Halen which appeared in the following year; all of which in some sense paved the way for John Christian Harenberg’s Von Vampyren.[54]
In 1744 was published at Naples “presso i fratelli Raimondi” the famous Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri of Gioseppe Davanzati, Archbishop of Trani. This book had already widely circulated in manuscript—“la sua Dissertazione sopra i Vampiri s’era sparsa per tutta l’Italia benchè manoscritta,” says the anonymous biographer—and a copy had even been presented to the Holy Father, the learned Benedict XIV, who in a letter of 12th January, 1743, graciously thanked the author with generous compliment upon his work. “L’abbiamo subito letta con piacere, e nel medesimo Tempo ammirata si per la dottrina, che per la vasta erudizione, di cui ella è fomita”; wrote the Pope. It will not then be unfitting here to supply some brief notice—of the Dissertazione sopra I Vampiri, which although it ran into a second edition, “Napoli. M.DCC.LXXXIX. Presso Filippo Raimondi,” in England seems almost entirely unknown since strangely enough even the British Museum Library lacks a copy. We would premise that as the good Archbishop’s arguments and conclusions are philosophical it is quite allowable for us, whilst fully recognizing his scholarship and skill in handling his points, not to accept these but rather to maintain the contrary.
Gioseppe Davanzati was born at Bari on 29th August, 1665. After having commenced his studies at the Jesuit
