White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance

From Ficino, Pico, Della Porta to Trithemius, Agrippa, Bruno
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-16098-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 125, 282 Seiten, Format (B × H): 167 mm x 249 mm, Gewicht: 586 g

Reihe: Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions

This book explores philosophical theories which in the Renaissance provided an interpretation of nature, of its laws and exceptions and, lastly, of man’s capacity to dominate the cosmos by way of natural magic or by magical ceremonies. It does not concentrate on the Hermetic and Neoplatonic philosophers (Ficino, Pico, Della Porta), or on the relationship between magic and the scientific revolution, but rather upon the interference of the ideas and practices of learned magicians with popular rites and also with witchcraft, a most important question for social and religious history. New definitions of magic put forward by certain unorthodox and “wandering scholastics” (Trithemius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Bruno) will interest readers of Renaissance and Reformation texts and history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zambelli, Paola

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Alternative Glaubensformen Okkultismus und andere religiöse Praktiken
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations

Introduction: Must We Really Re-Appopriate Magic?

PART I.
I.1. Continuity in the Definition of Natural Magic from Pico to Della Porta. Astrology and Magic in Italy and North of the Alps
I.2. Scholastic and Humanist Views of Hermeticism. Witchcraft, “Natural Magic”, Trithemius’ Magic and the First Signs of a Critical Turn of Mind in Agrippa
I.3. Magic, Pseudepigraphy, Prophecies and Forgeries in Trithemius’ Manuscripts. From Cusanus to Bovelles?

Appendix I. Trithemius’ Bibliography for Necromancers

PART II. AGRIPPA AS AN AUTHOR OF PROHIBITED BOOKS
II.1. Agrippa of Nettesheim as a Critical Magus
II.2. Magic and Radical Reformation in Agrippa of Nettesheim

Appendix II. Recent Studies on Agrippa

PART III. BRUNO AS A READER OF PROHIBITED BOOKS
III.1. The Initiates and the Idiot. Conjectures on Some Brunian Sources
III.2. Hermetism and Magic in Giordano Bruno. Some Interpretations from Tocco to Corsano, from Yates to Ciliberto

Appendix III. A Nolan before Bruno, Momus and Socratism in the Renaissance

Indices
Index of Names
Subject Index
Index of Places

Über Autor(innen)

Paola Zambelli, Ph.D. (1966) in History of Philosophy, Rome, is Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Florence. She has published on the history of astrology and magic in the age of scholasticism and in the Renaissance. Publications include ‘Astrologi hallucinati’. Stars and the End of the World at Luther’s Time (De Gruyter, 1986) and The ‘Speculum astronomiae’ and its enigma (Kluwer, 1992).