Aradia?

I have known Aradia as the name of Goddess in Gardnerian traditional Wicca, however I have heard of an Italian Ethnic Coven that treats Aradia as a historical figure who brought and taught witchcraft to people under the oppression of the Catholic Church. Similar Italian mythology written about by Charles Leland (Which I have heard has been disputed over) claims Aradia was a Witch Queen who was born from Diana and the Sun God, who was referred to as Lucifer by Leland but due to the God's Latin origins he may have been Apollo. What I want to know is, who do you think Aradia is? Is she the Goddess? Is she the child of the God and Goddess? Or is she possibly a historical figure and even a witch hero? Or what do you think?

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I'm not sure what to think about that,also some people think of the black madonna as a dark goddess,she is a colored version of the virgin marry,i guess it depends on how you look at it.

Aradia is found in the Gospel of the Witches. She was like a female Jesus that taught Witchcraft to the Italians. You can find the full text at sacred-texts.com
From what I understand she is the daughter of the goddess Diana. It's very interesting.

I'd never really looked into Aradia before, but now I feel compeled to study her. If am not a believer in demigods or physical children of the gods, but if she was actually human it changes everything. This could be that in witch craft there actually was a "Jesus" or prophet like Character. Although her origin is a little bit sketchy, some say she is transcended from myths about the Christian Herodias who wanted to kill John the Baptist combimed with medievil legends of night riding women who were referred to as Herodiades and were associated with the moon and inevitably Diana and witchcraft. I'd like to see some historical evidence of Aradia's existence in Catholic oppressed Italy.

She is very facinating. I would love if historians actually took the time to try to prove her existence as they have with other incarnate mythological figures like King Arthur and Jesus. But from what I know, they haven't done much digging. I feel all myth has some truth to it, even if the truth is stretched to become a magnificent legend to awe the reader/listener. There is much to learn though from the Gospel of Witches. Even if the story of Aradia herself is false, the explainations and teachings within reflect the beliefs and practices of traditional Italian witchcraft and some of it has even been taken and transformed into what is now traditional Wiccan practice.

I'd love to learn more about her. She may have been the reason witchcraft madd it through the ages of the Catholic Church, and people don't acknowledge her very much. Is there any thing you think about the legend of Aradia that may be fact or at least part of the original mythology?

An Italian woman gave the author a handwritten book called the Vangel that is what he based the Gospel of the Witches on. That would be the most accurate form of the mythology, but I've never found a copy of this book, apparently it was never published and I don't know what the author did with it.

If you actually find it, please let me know.

Is there a link to "Gospel of the Witches", or do you know where I could find this? This is the first I have heard about it but would love to learn more about it after what I have read in the forum :)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/aradia/index.htm