María Josefa Pimentel, Duchess of Osuna who became patrons of the painter Francisco de Goya. The Duchess not only purchased one of the first editions of "Los Caprichos", but also commissioned a series of cabinet paintings on the subject of witchcraft from Goya, amongst them "El aquelarre" ("Witches' Sabbath"). In the famous portrait Goya painted of her, she is shown standing with noble reserve, and dressed according to the fashion initiated by Queen Marie Antoinette in Paris at that time. In another famous painting, Goya portrayed the ducal family. The Duchess was interested in landscape gardening and from the 1780s she developed a garden at El
Witches' Sabbath Inquistors' manual of witch-hunting, the "Malleus Maleficarum" (1486). Nevertheless, it was during the Renaissance when Sabbath folklore was most popular, more books on them were published, and more people lost their lives when accused of participating. "Commentarius de Maleficiis" (1622), by Peter Binsfeld, cites accusation of participation in Sabbaths as a proof of guiltiness in an accusation for the practice of witchcraft. Bristol University's Ronald Hutton has encapsulated the witches' sabbath as an essentially modern construction, saying: The book "Compendium Maleficarum" (1608) by Francesco Maria Guazzo illustrates a typical witch-phobic view of gathering of witches as "the attendants riding flying