Visiting a Witch: The Florence Home of Maddalena

 “Yesterday, I went with Roma Lister to visit Maddalena, the witch…” 

– Charles Godfrey Leland

In the ten or so years leading up to the publication of Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899), Charles Godfrey Leland associated with a number of self-professed witches in Florence and the wider Tuscan countryside. “I have,” he wrote in 1889, “been living here in Florence in an atmosphere of witchcraft and sorcery.” Of all Leland’s witchy acquaintances, the one with whom he and Roma Lister developed the longest and most consequential relationship was a fortune teller whom Leland referred to as “Maddalena” in both his books and private correspondence.

Passionate about folklore, Maddalena became one of Leland’s primary informants, gathering scraps of  songs, spells, and other miscellanies from locals Leland believed still held pre-Christian beliefs. In 1897, she also mailed Leland a strange manuscript, portions of which he later published as Aradia. In my book, Aradia’s Hidden Hand: The Untold Life of Roma Lister, I explore the origins of this text and suggest new ideas about its ultimate sources.

In this post, I’d like to take a look at a minor but interesting facet of Maddalena’s little-known personal life. While it’s generally accepted that she was raised in what is now Emilia-Romagna (probably in the Apennine Mountains, near Rocca San Casciano), no one — as far as I’m aware — has tracked down her genealogical records. This is probably because, by Leland’s own admission, Maddalena lived a “wandering life” and had very limited financial resources. I have, however, done a little detective work and identified what may very well have been Maddalena’s Florence home.

According to Lister, who lived in Florence between 1893 and 1899, “Margherita” (as Lister called her) lived “in a tower near the Ponte Vecchio”. When she peered through Maddalena’s “window over the Arno,” Lister could see the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte. From Lister’s geographical observations, we can conclude that Maddalena’s residence was situated on the northern side of the Arno river, across from the church. If, as Lister suggested, the window of Maddalena’s home was directly above the Arno, Maddalena probably lived metres away from the Ponte Vecchio on Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli or Lungarno degli Archibusieri. 

Leland rarely discussed Maddalena’s living situation, but in his book Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition (1892), he did mention that in 1891 his “chief authority in ancient lore”  — presumably Maddalena — was living in a barely furnished apartment that had once been part of a medieval palace. “Everything was in keeping with the lore which I had come to collect — very old, rubbed-down, and degraded from its high estate,” he wrote. Florence had many towers at the time, but the Torre dei Consorti (also known as the Torre del Leone) on Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli seems to fit both Leland’s and Lister’s descriptions.

Not only is it located next to the Ponte Vecchio, but it also has a history that goes back to the early Middle Ages. Moreover, during the Renaissance, the tower was subsumed into a larger riverside property, the Palazzo Carducci. It’s possible that, by the nineteenth century, the building had been split into apartments. Maddalena may have rented a room in the tower, or even squatted there for a time. Interestingly, if she were living there in the 1870s and 80s, one of her neighbours would have been Seymour “Baron” Kirkup, then one of Florence’s most famous occultists.

Today, the Torre dei Consorti, which was restored after retreating Nazi forces bombed Florence in 1944, is part of the Hotel Continentale and features a rooftop bar as well as various top-floor guest rooms. These spaces offer panoramic views over the Arno and San Miniato basilica, the same kind of vistas Lister recalled in her memoirs. 

While I can easily envision Maddalena meeting her clients and recounting magical tales from her lofty flat above the romantic, Florentine cityscape, it’s worth acknowledging that all of this still remains in the realm of speculation. To me, the Torre dei Consorti seems the most likely candidate for Maddalena’s residence on account of its close proximity to the Ponte Vecchio and its position opposite the San Miniato basilica. Yet in Maddalena’s time multiple towers — some on the northern side of the Arno — occupied the Florence skyline. Given Maddalena’s itinerant tendencies, there’s also a possibility that she lived in different buildings at different periods.

Those wanting to dive deeper into Maddalena’s backstory, however, shouldn’t let the lack of certainty stop them from having a drink at the tower’s bar. Though ages have swirled past, the Florentine panorama as seen from its terrace remains more or less the same as what Lister and Leland would have seen 130 years ago when they sat in Maddalena’s flat and traded tales of witchcraft, adventure, and intrigue.

For more on Lister and Aradia, watch this space!

Keep an eye as well on hexen.fr for news on the book’s release.