Marcello Barbato, ed., Incantamenta latina et romanica: Scongiuri e formule magiche dei secoli V–XV. (Testi e Documenti di Letteratura e di Lingua 31.) Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2019. Pp. cxliv, 148; many tables. €32. ISBN: 978-8-8697-3333-8.

The review enhances the achievement of the book, which, in addition to its philological insights, serves as an impressive memento for all historians studying the history of Western culture in the medieval period. The collection of incantamenta provides us with vivid and concrete windows into one of the central features of medieval Christianity as part of a complex web with pagan, rural, and ancestral roots as well as tribal and Germanic traditions that allowed the Christian religion to establish itself all over Europe and guaranteed its survival during the tumultuous centuries of the Middle Ages.