Witches' Sabbath (Goya, 1798) Witches' Sabbath (Goya, 1798) Witches' Sabbath () is a 1798 oil on canvas by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Today it is held in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid. It was purchased in 1798 along with five other paintings related to witchcraft by the Duke and Duchess of Osuna. The acquisition of the witchcraft paintings is attributed to the duchess rather than her husband, but it is not known whether they were commissioned or bought after completion. In the twentieth century the painting was purchased by the financier José Lázaro Galdiano and donated to the Spanish state on his death.
Witches' Sabbath century. The "Canon Episcopi" forwards the Christian doctrine that things of this nature were false delusions and did not occur in reality. "Errores Gazariorum" later evoked the Sabbat, in 1452. Helping to publicize belief in and the threat of the Witches' Sabbath was the extensive preaching of the popular Franciscan reformer, Saint Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), whose widely circulating sermons contain various references to the sabbath as it was then conceived and hence represent valuable early sources into the history of this phenomenon. Some allusions to meetings of more than one witch and possibly other demons are made in the