Levi presents a reconstruction of the career of the seventeenth-century priest and exorcist, Giovan Battista Chiesa, including details on the economic and social life of the inhabitants of his tiny Italian village. Chiesa was reputed to have exorcised a variety of demons, including those considered responsible for blindness, paralysis, and mental illness. Far more than a mere biography, Levi's "microhistorical" view of the age deftly describes the classic power struggle among Chiesa's people. A path-breaking work recommended for history and religion collections.