Tenera balia da latte o essere demoniaco? Un itinerario tra la simbologia, la mitologia e l'iconografia della capra = Sweet nanny or demonic creature? An itinerary between the symbology, the mythology and the iconography of the goat

Goat symbolism and representations have been analysed through the history. In the Middle Ages, the devil was represented in the most varied forms, usually with bird features, and goats was matter of Christian art . The association between the devil and both he and she goat appears to be tightly connected to the hunting for witches. These materials lead to a flowering of folk tales in the late modern and contemporary age. Even the alleged contrast in the Bible between goats (the damned sinners) and sheep (the righteous caved) appears to be the result of bad interpretations. The demonization of the goat and the social stigma associated to both shepherds and goat products has been a consequence of modernity . These cultural processes, along with the new command and control apparatus and the supremacy of scientific and technocratic rationalism, facilitated the ban on goats in the nineteenth century. As a victim of modernity, the goat has taken its revenge with the decline of industrial social discipline, together with the fading of the myths and illusions of science and the surge of neovitalism and a new attitude toward nature. It looks like as far as goat is considered that a true circle linking neolithic to post modernity has been closed . Results stimulate interesting considerations on the relations between culture (ideology, beliefs), economy, and social ecology.