Formicarius

Formicarius (Eng. The Anthill ) is the most famous work of the Dominican and theologian Johannes Nider.

Meant as a preacher and devotional book, this dialogical constructed Latin treatise, which also represents a Exempelsammlung, at the same time a reflection of the times in which the anthill is a metaphor for the ideal state. Each of the five chapters is preceded by a property of the ants. The last section of the work also deals with magic and sorcery, and reports in detail on the witch hunts of the Bernese bailiff Peter von Greyerz in Swiss Simmental.

1437/38 the work was present at the Council of Basel, where especially the fifth part is likely to have attracted particular attention on the new sect of witches.

Some fifty years later, the multiple printed as incunabula Formicarius served as one of the main sources cited in the Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Institoris. But later proponents of the persecution of witches as Martin Del Rio were related to him, though, for example, the real witches flight is doubted in him.