Alexander ab Alexandro

A Neapolitan lawyer, who published a dissertation on the marvelous entitled De Rebus Admirabilibus, in which he recounts miracles that happened in Italy, dreams that were verified, and the circumstances connected with many apparitions and phantoms, which he claims to have witnessed. He followed this dissertation with his celebrated work Genialium Dierum, which contains many fantastic accounts.

For instance, one evening he set out to join a party of several friends at a house in Rome said to have been haunted for a long time by specters and demons. In the middle of the night, when all of them were assembled in one room, a frightening specter appeared who called to them in a loud voice and threw about the ornaments in the room. One of the friends approached the specter bearing a light, whereupon it disappeared. Several times afterward the same apparition reentered through the door. Alexander found that the demon had slid underneath the couch he was lying on, and on rising from it, he saw a black arm appear on a table in front of him. By this time several of the company had retired, and the lights were out, but torches were brought in answer to their cries of alarm when the specter opened the door, slid past the advancing domestics, and disappeared.