You may enjoy Benevenuto Cellini's colourful account of his invocation of demons at the Coliseum (in 16th century Rome).
He tells of this story in his
Memoirs, and it is well worth the read !
I unfortunately haven't managed to locate a free online version of this story in English, but for those of you who read French, you'll find the account on google books here, starting from page 149 :
https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Mémoires_de_Benvenuto_Cellini/J3AOAAAAQAAJ?hl=fr&gbpv=1
*** edit ***
Below, a translation attempt :
"At that time, I fell in love with a beautiful young Sicilian, who seemed to pay my attentions back. Her mother noticed our flirtation and started to fear its consequences. I was planning to escape with the lady and to keep her with me for one year [note : it seems to imply a baby was under way], but her mother secretly took her to Naples through Ostia, instead of Civita Vecchia. I ran to Civita Vecchia and attempted a thousand pointless extravaganzas in order to find them, almost falling into madness and dying from despair. But soon, I diverted myself into other pleasures and pursued other loves in order to forget this one.
I took a certain Sicilian priest as a witness of my sickness, and he became my friend. He was a well learned man, knowing Greek and Latin, and full of wit. One day, as we were chatting, we came to speak of necromancy, and I told him that I had long hoped to learn some. He answered that, to practice that art, one had to have a heart full of strength and bravery. To what I replied that I wasn’t lacking any of these qualities. He concurred and we agreed to make an experiment. While he set everything ready, he told me to go fetch a companion or even better, two. I came back with my dear friend Vincento Romoli, who had brought with him a man form Pistoia with some knowledge of these arts. Thereafter, when the night came, we all travelled to the Coliseum.
There, the priest started to draw circles on the ground, in accordance with the rules of his art, and conforming to the required rite. He had told us to bring some Asa Foetida, some fire, and all kinds of perfumes. He thereafter drafted some doors to his circles. He took my hand and the Pistoia’s man’s hand and asked us to throw our perfumes in the fire. The remaining participant was tasked with taking care of the fire. The priest started conjuring. Immediately, legions of devils appeared and filled the Coliseum. When he saw that enough perfume had been spent, he asked me : “Benvenuto, ask them something" ! I asked them to show me the Sicilian Angelica. This evening, we did not get any answer, but I had the pleasure of seeing demons. Our necromancer concluded : “That’s not enough. We need to do it again, but this time, bring with you a virgin boy. I choose a 12 years’old apprentice I had, warned Romoli of our intended attempt, and took with me another friend called Agnolo Goddi.
Having once again arrived at the Coliseum, the priest did the same preparations again, but more carefully than before, and entered the circle he had drawn. He ordered Romoli and Goddi to take care of the fire and perfumes, and handed me a kind of flag inscribed with magical symbols, commanding me to point it towards where he would tell me. Under the flag I kept my 12 years’ old student.
He thereafter started chanting his fearsome incantations in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, naming the devils and conjuring them in the name of the Increated, Living and Eternal God. Then came a hundred more demons than during our last try. On the necromancer’s advice, I again asked them to show me Angelica, and he told me : “do you hear that they are saying that you will be with her before a month ? Hold fast, because, there came a hundred legions of devils more than I conjured. And these are the more dangerous. One should speak to them politely and send them away softly”. The boy, under the flag, started panicking, saying that he was seeing millions of soldiers threatening us, and that four giants were about to charge us with their weapons.
Meanwhile, the priest, who was by now shaking with fear, was trying to dismiss the devilish host with gentle words. Romoli could not stand it anymore, but kept taking care of the perfumes. And although I was neither more peaceful nor firm, I tried to look stern in order to inspire some courage to my companions. But in truth, I was mortified to see that the necromancer was as terrified as ourselves.
By now, the young boy had put his head between his knees and was shouting : “I want to die ! We are all dead !”. I did my best to comfort him saying that all these devils were serving us, that we were just shadows and smoke, but, raising his head, he shouted again : “Look ! The whole Coliseum is burning ! The fire is going to take us ! We are all dead …”.
The necromancer asked me to hold fast and burn some Asa Foetida. Goddi was half dead, his eyes popping out of his head. I asked him not to be afraid and to keep taking care of the fire and perfumes. Then, this man moved, and emitted a noise which had such a consequence that it stinked more than all the Asa Foetida [note : an uncontrolled fart, most probably]. The boy raised his head again to see me smiling and said that it seemed the devils were starting to leave. Everything finished when matins were sounded, and the boy told us that all the devils were gone.
When the necromancer finished his ritual, he left his sorcerer’s clothes, took his books of magic, and we left the coliseum, supporting each other. The young boy, who was walking in the middle of our group, assured us that he had seen two demons escaping, jumping over the roofs. The priest told us that he never had experimented with such a powerful enchantment, and that, if I agreed, he would consecrate a book from which we could make a fortune, because it would empower us over the demons, and force them to reveal where lost treasures were hidden. Instead, love requests were crazy and futile as they never led to any profit. I answered that had I spoken Latin well enough I would have consented to join him in this quest. To what he retorted that Latin was useless, and that it was easy to find Latin speakers [reminder : it’s a 16th century tale], but people with such firmness of the heart as mine were hard to find. Thus chatting, we came home to rest …. and dreamt only of devils, all the night through."
Interesting story, isn't it ?
