The Black Duchess been kept at the New York Hispanic Society, operated by the Hispanic Society of America. The "Portrait of the Duchess of Alba" was painted in 1797 by Spanish painter Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. The work is kept at the New York Hispanic Society, owned and operated by the Hispanic Society of America. In the painting, the duchess (María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba) is thirty-five years old, and her husband had died the year before, so she is dressed in mourning clothes (attire). In the painting, she is pointing to the ground, where the words "solo
Witches' Sabbath accounts viewed them as a kind of Witches' Sabbath, but they are not. Some African communities believe in witchcraft, but as in the European witch trials, people they believe to be "witches" are condemned rather than embraced. Other historians, including Carlo Ginzburg, Éva Pócs, Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen hold that these testimonies can give insights into the belief systems of the accused. Ginzburg famously discovered records of a group of individuals in northern Italy, calling themselves "benandanti", who believed that they went out of their bodies in spirit and fought amongst the clouds against evil spirits to secure prosperity