Nihil (in)certius morte. A proposito di una percezione incerta della morte in età moderna

This article examines the long theological and homiletic tradition that challenged the idea of certainty of death, and hypothesized intermediate spaces and times for the soul and for the body. Such intermediate spaces and times presupposed a degree of uncertainty concerning bodily death and the place of the soul separated from the body. These ideas and beliefs about the survival of the dead body after death had at least partially resisted the effort of Christianization, despite the «birth of Purgatory». Among those non-human beings who were believed to be restless, disturbing, dangerous, the most aggressive were those who had died prematurely and violently, such as suicides, warriors fallen in battle, or children who had died without baptism. Ghosts and vampires populated these debates until the mid-eighteenth century, when discussions on the uncertainty of death and on the difficult definition of its status moved from the realm of theological hypotheses and popular beliefs to that of scientific inquiry.

Keywords: Death; Limbo; Baptism; Ghosts.