Ludovico Fatinelli, exposed!

I've noticed that I score a few hits to my blog, based on searches for this guy. Some readers might recognise him from the FVZA website, which should be setting off alarm bells.

According to the FVZA, Fatinelli was a Florentine scholar, who studied under Galileo Gallilei, and was tried by the Inquisition for refusing to retract the findings in his 1616 work, Treatise on vampires, in which he claimed that 'microscopic entities, not moral failures, that were the real source of vampirism.' That same year, he was burned at the stake on April 23rd in Florence's Piazza Signoria. Here's their picture of the unfortunate gentleman:


Or is it? Thanks to the assistance of TinEye, a 'reverse image search engine', I can tell that no, that ain't Ludovico. That's 'Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer', Giordano Bruno.* Here's his picture:


Bruno would've had great difficulty publishing his findings in 1616—and being burned, for that matter—considering he was dead at the time (d. 17 February 1600). Bruno was was burned at the stake for heretical views, however, it had nothing to do with examinations of vampire physiology.

Ok, so maybe the FVZA made a mistake. Maybe they got their pictures mixed up. Sure, that's obviously Bruno, but what about the other pictures they used? Like the painting of his trial, for instance?


Pretty hard to make out any faces in that pic, considering how small it is. But that's probably because if you did see a larger image, you'd find that it actually depicts the trial of Fatinelli's 'mentor', Galileo Galilei.


Maybe Fatinelli was in the docks, giving moral support? Nope. The trial took place in 1633, seventeen years after Fatinelli's 'death'. Unlike Bruno, Galilei was spared the stake. He died on 8 January 1642 of heart complications.

There's one more picture from Fatinelli's FVZA page. It depicts his execution, and true to Fatinelli's fate, the person is being burned at a stake. Hell, it's even taking place at Florence's Piazza Signoria! I'd recognise it anywhere! Surely, that's gotta be him!


'Fraid not. Sure that's Florence's Piazza della Signoria, but the dude barbecuing on the stake isn't Fatinelli. It's Girolamo Savonarola, 'an Italian Dominican friar, Scholastic'.


He wasn't even Fatinelli's contemporary: Savonarola was executed on 23 May 1498. In case you still believe Fatinelli's backstory, despite the FVZA's recourse to falsely captioning pictures of him, here's a note on the cultural significance of Fatinelli's name from Ezechiele Toti: 'indeed, ludovico fatinelli doesn't exist , the italian form is lodovico and not ludovico that's spanish, fatinelli is a surname from Lucca, but not Florence'.

Need more proof? How about this from the site's homepage: 'Please note: This site is for entertainment purposes only. Some material is not suitable for children or young teenagers. See the Disclaimer below for more information.' What does the disclaimer say? This:

This site is fictional and is for entertainment purposes only. We are not affiliated with the U.S. Government in any way. Under no circumstances are you to harm anyone based on information from this site.

Not enough? Then cast your eyes down to the copyright notice on Fatinelli's page: '© 2001-2008 Dango Productions, Inc.' Dango Productions is a

private company categorized under Motion Picture Producers and Studios. Our records show it was established in 2001 and incorporated in New Mexico. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $99,000 and employs a staff of approximately 1.

What a coincidence! Founded in the same year the FVZA site went online! Dango's owner and president is Laurie Volkin, a freelance editor and writer, 'specializing in medical writing and communications.' Medical writing, like, say, the 'scientific' explanations for vampire physiology in the FVZA pages? The same person with a Bachelor's Degree in Communications/Liberal Arts? I'll let you do the math.

So, there's no need to try and find a copy of Fatinelli's treatise, as neither he, nor the book exists. If you're interested in tracking pre-20th century vampire works, I suggest using Melinda K. Haye's 'Vampiri Europeana: a chronological listing' as a springboard.

* To give credit where it's due, one of my readers, Ezechiele Toti, had previously noted that Fatinelli's portrait was actually Bruno's.

Let's get political

The vampire-as-political metaphor is nothing new. But did you know mainstream interest in vampires might say something about which type of government is in power?

Well, American political party, anyway. S Peter Davis wrote this compelling piece on '6 mind-blowing ways zombies and vampires explain America.' The article is based on data collated from Mr. Science Show, in which a comparison table is drawn up between Republican and Democratic presidencies and the popularity of vampire and zombie films during those interims.

The table kicks off with the presidency of Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1953. Davis's caption reads, 'And apparently all our apocalypses started with Eisenhower', as the article notes two zombie flicks released that year.

That's an interesting comment, because the following year, a novel was released which would have a significant impact on fictional vampire and zombie portrayals. The novel in question? Richard Matheson's I am legend (1954), which deals with an apocalyptic vampire plague. How significant was it? Put it this way: if it wasn't for that book, the marauding, flesh-eating zombies you know and love, would not exist.

As I've mentioned before, the modern zombie genre stems from George Romero's 1968 film, Night of the living dead, which is funny, because his creatures weren't intended to be zombies in the first place. Indeed, in the movie, they're called 'ghouls', a name derived from Arabic foklore, for a demon that feasts on the flesh of the dead. The reason they weren't called zombies, is because zombies, traditionally-speaking, aren't undead, flesh-eating, infecting corpses. They're undead slave labourers, controlled by a bokor; a sorcerer. Rather than shooting them in the head, feeding them salt will send 'em back to the grave.

That's why (actual) zombie flicks released before 1968 stick to the zombie-as-slave trope. Take Victor Halperin's White zombie (1932), Jacques Tourneur's I walked with a zombie (1943) and John Gilling's The plague of the zombies (1966). Occasionally, modern representations of the sorcerer (read: mad scientist) were used, as in Jerry Warren's Teenage zombies (1959). Even the cannibalistic overtones in Del Tenney's I eat your skin (1964) are a misnomer: no skin is eaten during the movie.

Somewhere along the line, the 'ghouls' of Romero's flick were morphed into 'zombies', extant Voodoo lore to the contrary. Zombies didn't infect others with their 'curse', a major trope associated with modern zombie flicks. That's a vampire trope, i.e. one featured in Romero's 'inspiration', I am legend. I use quotation marks for 'inspiration', because Romero, himself, admits that he did a little more than simply be 'inspired' by Matheson's novel: 'Then I read I Am Legend and adapted - well, actually ripped off! - the first half. And made it into Night Of The Living dead.'

Anyway, back to the political stuff. I was surprised to see the following image appear in Davis's article:


I wasn't surprised with the startling imagery of Obama as a vampire (not the first time I've seen that), but because the picture has been shamelessly 'vampirised' (heh heh) from Alex Ross's famous cover for The Village Voice:


Ross's image was used to illustrate Rick Perlstein's article, 'The end of democracy: losing America's birthright, the George Bush way.' What we have here is a political tool called zoomorphism. Its purpose is highlighted by Joël Kotek: 'To abuse one's adversaries, one dehumanizes them by turning them into animals.'* Funnily enough, this practice has been deployed against me, during my investigations in the Highgate vampire case.

* Kotek includes vampires in this category: 'The two other predominant anti-Semitic zoomorphic motifs are the blood-thirsty vampire and the octopus.'

Lindsay Lohan, Vampire

I don't know why I'm even bothering to share the following image. Maybe it's because I've been reading about her in the last coupla days. Nonetheless, it's certainly an indication of how mainstream vamps have become.


Yep, that's Lindsay Lohan straddling The vampire diaries' Michael Trevino. Even though she's wielding a stake, she's actually the vampire in the piece. But it does get weirder.

According to Radar Online, A. J. McLean of Backstreet Boys fame, 'paid between $30,000 and $40,000 for the large print'. For the picture's context and 'meaning', we turn to photographer Tyler Shields' blog. Here's the scoop: 'Lindsay and I had been wanting to do this vampire shoot for a while and it came together in perfect time for my gallery, Trevino just happened to be in town it was all meant to be!' Ok then.

Rare Vampire Book Cover

I've been engaged in trying to solve "The Fischer Mystery" (to be covered in an upcoming entry). One of my discarded leads caused me to stumble upon a rare image.

That's the cover of Wilhem Fischer's Dämonische Mittelwesen, Vampir und Werwolf (Stuttgart: Strecker and Schröder, 1906).

Early 20th century non-fiction vampire books are quite sparse. Off the top of my head, I can only add Stefan Hock's Die Vampyrsagen und ihre Verwertung in der deutschen Litteratur (1900) and A. Osborne Eaves' Modern Vampirism: Its Dangers, and How to Avoid Them (1904) to the list. Dudley Wright helped get the ball rolling in 1914, and even then, it was still slim pickings till Montague Summers hit the scene.

Croglin Vampire Picture Source Revealed!

You've probably seen the following picture floating about the 'net and maybe in a few books. You might've wondered who illustrated it and why. I'm here to tell you.

I was googlin' info on the Croglin Vampire today, when I came across Darren Turpin's blog entry (click on the picture). I'd seen the image several times before, not giving much thought to its source. It actually appears on the front cover of Manuela Dunn-Mascetti's Chronicles of the Vampire (London: Bloomsbury, 1991).

Thanks to Turpin's lead, I can tell you that it was illustrated by Les Edwards in 1984. It's titled (and depicts) "The Croglin Vampire". You've probably heard of that case before, as it's a frequently-reproduced "true" vampire tale. If you're unfamiliar with it, this article gives a pretty good summation. As to the why of this superb illustration, here's the scoop from Edwards' website:

Originally commissioned by Wiedenfeld & Nicholson but not used. Later used as a bookcover for Best New Horror 1990, edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell and published by Robinson, and on Super-Monsters by Daniel Cohen, published by Archway. Also used on the CD cover Alive & Screaming by Krokus and a German Magazine.

T-Shirt Curiousity

I know it's a bit of a longshot, but I'm struck by the similarity the following t-shirt design and a certain book on vampires.

The inscription reads "On the Origin of Vampires by Means of Unnatural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Species in the Struggle for Immortality" by "Vlad Ţepeş III". We've got Darwin and a certain Wallachian voivode covered. Not the first time real-life works and personages have been attached to fake books.

As to the shirt's similarity to another actual book on vampires, let's start with a close-up of the shirt's design:


Is it just me, or does it look a little like someone's been inspired by Christopher Rondina's Vampires of New England, rev. ed. (2007):


Yeah, I know. A bit of a stretch. Harder to deny the similarities between these two, though. Still, I wonder...

Melton's Cover Revealed!

It's the best I can muster up for the time being, folks, but we finally get to see what the cover for J. Gordon Melton's The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead, 3rd ed., is gonna look like:

Kinda looks like a demonic Na'vi, doesn't it?

I should also point out that if you do "Click to LOOK INSIDE!", you're only gonna see content from the second edition. As of this writing, anyway.

If you wanna see what the covers for the previous editions looked like, click here.

Books of a Feather

Came across the Amazon entry for Robert Curran's upcoming The Werewolf Handbook: An Essential Guide to Werewolves and, More Importantly, How to Avoid Them (August 1, 2010).

It's the cover that got me:

Hmm...now where have I seen that motif before...

Oh, yes, of course! Alain Pozzuoli's Dracula : Le lexique du vampire (2004)!


Naughty, naughty!

Sneaky Props

Andrew's screencap (Fig. 1) of a prop in his review of Mystery and Imagination: Dracula (1968) drew my attention:

Fig. 1 Andrew's screencap.

It's a woodcut rendering of Denholm Elliott's Dracula character, which caught my eye for two reasons. Firstly, I've seen that image before. Well, not the version used in the film (more on that, shortly). Second, it tied in with Andrew's comments about the movie's emphasis on sexuality: "If Stoker hinted at a sexual aspect to vampirism then this production screamed it".

So, what's the link between the two?

The image this phony woodcut is based on, originally depicted an incubus. Don't know what an incubus is? Here's a definition: ". . . a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions."

Thanks to the magic of Google, I've been able to trace the original pic for your viewing pleasure. Here tis (Fig. 2):

Fig. 2 "Male devil embracing woman".

The page's source lists Ulrich Molitor's De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus ("Of Witches and Diviner Women"). According to Erika Mailmain, this book was first published in 1493 (despite her source listing 1489). She adds that the ". . . book went into several editions, illustrated by woodcuts that were updated so it is possible to find different versions of the same image." That certainly explains why I've seen variations of the same woodcut. Here's a minor variation (Fig. 3):

Fig. 3 "incisione da De lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus di Ulrich Molitor, Colonia, 1489".

And then there's others barely recognisable from the source, except for the same motifs. Like this one, from the c. 1498 Köln [Cologne] edition (Fig. 4):

Fig. 4 Illustration 4.

I highly doubt the production designers consulted the original editions (due to their scarcity) for inspiration, so my guess is they came across the image in a book on witchcraft. Say, for instance Rossell Hope Robbins' The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1959). On page 465, a reproduction of an image closely resembling Fig. 3 appears. The entry it's incorporated to? "Sexual Relations with Devils".

Vampire Picture Mystery

While I was having a look for the image in the previous post, I came across one I had saved from the 'net, six years ago.

Its one of the best vampire illustrations I've ever seen.

Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of the website I downloaded it from, except I do remember that it was Satanist-related. The image's filename was "DRACS".

If any reader out there could tell me who the artist is, or other places the picture appears, that'd be much appreciated.