Some histories were never written down. Giulia Costantini explores the living archive: ancestral knowledge carried through bodies, gestures, remedies, rituals, and practices passed quietly from one generation to the next.

Long before universities and licenses defined expertise, knowledge was carried through observation, memory, and care. In this fourth installment of her series, Giulia Costantini explores the women whose healing practices, herbal wisdom, and lived experience sustained communities—and how their authority was later recast as superstition or witchcraft.Photo by Issac Garcia