Nel nome di Asclepio il tarantismo oltre la lettura di Ernesto De Martino

The anthropological study developed by Ernesto De Martino in The land of remorse comes to an essentially sociological interpretation of the phenomenon of Salento Tarantism neglecting its most archaic origins. Rossetti proposes a new hypothesis of investigation by finding an implicit thesis but not outlined in the De Martino’s researches and, perhaps, unconsciously neglected. Tarantism, as a form of choral/musical exorcism, would be rooted in the early history of Magna Graecia, as related to pre-Hippocratic medical practices related to the cult of Asclepius. It would have occured, therefore, a process of merging and overlapping between the two religions as evidenced by some similarities between them, such as the common reference to some animal-symbols (snake, scorpion, spider), the iconographic overlap between Asclepius and St. Paul, the mirror image organization of sacred places, the importance of the rite of "sleep therapy" and the bite/punishment as a sign of the over-human.