Italian Magic World

Eramus+ program for all the magic schools around the world to encourage cultural contact and international cooperation. But without the Triwirads tournament, which, imho, was the poorest idea possible to encourage friendship. 

Literally “Let’s encourage cooperation making young wizards and witches compete in you-are-likely-to-die-here challenges!”

In Italy squibs are NOT discriminated. They can attend school because they can still learn theory. 

Italian Magic School (the Celata) uniforms in the 50s. Right now uniforms are obsolete and are seldom used, but then they still existed and they were like this.

Both trousers and skirt could also be black, dark grey or dark blue. For men, trousers could also be jeans for extracurricular activities outside class time.

The ribbon (it: coccarda) for girls and the tie for man indicated which faculty inside the school they are part of. 

@kattssenpai I promised you a Dipsa snake, so here you are!

Dipse (which is the correct plural form) are so small that even their bright colours pass unnoticed on the ground. They like sunny places and meadows full of flowers where they can hide and wait for something to bite. They can be told apart from other species of small snakes thank to the typical stripes on the head, from the nostril to the eye, whatever colour they have.

 You can find the first part here. I’m sorry to say tha the cats are over, but there are tons of interesting creatures you can come face to face to in Italy.

Unicorno: Unicorns can be found in Italy in those areas still not touched by civilization. They are said to have lion tail and cloven hooves, but not all unicorns are the same. Sometimes they are called Leocorno or Liocorno.

Dipsa: a small yet deadly little snake. It can be of any colour but its poison is so deadly that the victim can die even before realising they have been bitten. 

Tarantasio: a type of dragon typical of the area around Lodi. It doesn’t spit dire but its breath it’s equally deadly, since it sickness and in certain cases death.

Linchetto: small spirit who has fun in entering people’s houses at night, uncover them in their sleep, make them sneeze, and plays any kind of joke on the unfortunate owners.

Magical creatures are rare, sometimes elusives, but also nationally diverse. Some can be found in certain parts of the worls only (like the thunderbird according to Fantastic Beasts and where to find them). 

Italy has its own peculiarities when it comes to creatures, so here are some magic animals (good and bad ones together) you’ll meet in our peninsula if you happen to be a witch or a wizard. 

Be careful! And be ready for an astonishing quantity of Magic Cats.

Caradrio: magic white bird with the tail of a snake. He had the power to tell mortal sickness apart from non-mortal ones (thing that in Medieval times was indeed important). He sat on the bed of the patient and if it gazed in their eyes, he could absord the sickness, while, if he closed its eyes, the person would have died. After absorbind the sickness it would fly towards the sun to burn the germs/bad spirits.

Catoblepa: anyone familiar with the “Heroes of Olympus” series? Well, if you are you might recognise them. They are creatures described both as snakes and cows, imported from Africa to Italy via ship. They are herbivorous and they always look down.

Anfesibena: a weird two headed snake, which has one of the head instead of the tail. Its eyes burn like fire and it is carnivorous.

Badalischio: a type of stinky octopus that can be found in the mediterranean around Italy.

And then on with the cats...

Gata Carogna : A monstruous and gigantic alley cat which haunts the darkest alleys in big northern cities.

Gatto Mammone: huge, black and beast-like cat which roams around the fields and attacks lonely travellers and scares cattle.

Gigat: Literally giant cat, typical of Lombardy, is the biggest of them all and can be both good or evil, since every Gigat has its own personality.

Gatto Lupesco: cat-shaped witful spirit, so full of himself. It loves to argue, to flaunt and the outwit the travellers.

Gatto Serpato: big, jet black cat with bright eyes.

Wands are not made of the same materials around the world. I mean, there must be some place on Earth where there are no unicorns or no dragons. Maybe there are other magical creatures from which wands take their core.

Or maybe there are some places where wands exist in different sizes (like small wands or magic staffs) and where they are made in different ways.

That’s my headcanon:

In Italy there are three sizes of wands: regular ones, small ones (girls in the 50s loved them, and they are easier to hide) and staffs/sticks. It’s still popular near in the mountain to have magic staffs.

The cores are very different from region to region. In all of Italy hair of Gatto Mammone is common like the unicorn hair. In Sardinia, since they have a peculiar relation with ghosts and violent spirits, wand cores are made of iron, which is lethal against this type of creatures.

Certain wizards and witches around the world prefer to have their magic power conveyed through a magic gem rather than through a traditional core, this is why their wand have small fissures carved into their wands/staffs to house the magic gem. 

In Russia they use feather of Prophetic birds (since there are a lot in those regions) and in the Balkan region they have a strange variety of wands with raven’s feather cores. 

Let the Headcanon commence! So, to begin with:

Italian Magic has its root in the Etruscan and Latin one. Magic itself was particularly studied during the Roman Empire, before 313 a.C. (and the official conversion to Christianity).

Because of this, in Italy theory of Magic and Magic philosophy are two of the most popular topics of MphD and such.

Many spells are in Latin, and we know that, but in Italy there also are some which are in Vulgar Latin (the father of Italian) in their regional variants. In Italy, besides Standard Italian, many people also speak or at least understand one's region's dialect, and therefore is not unusual for witches and wizards from different zones to know the same spell with different names, or even to be familiar with charms, hexes and jinx completely unknown to others.

In Northern Italy there are charms to evoke fog and mist (since it's typical of that area) while in the South they are particularly prone to sunlight charms and plant-growing spells.

In the area of Mantua there is a special academy for seers. In fact, the city takes its name from the seer Manto and from the Etruscan deity of Occult forces and divination.