Case file · High strangeness
Tarantism at Galatina
In June 1959 the anthropologist Ernesto de Martino studied women 'bitten by the tarantula' in the Salento, who danced to the pizzica for days and sought healing at the chapel of St Paul in Galatina each 29 June.
1959 CE · 40.17, 18.17 · status: explained
The sceptical view
De Martino read it as a ritual to release distress, not spider poisoning; the cult faded by the 1990s.