White magic, Black magic in the European Renaissance / by Paola Zambelli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zambelli, Paola.

Series:

Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions ; v. 125.

Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions, 1573-4188 ; v. 125

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Magic.

Renaissance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (292 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Introduction : must we really re-appropriate magic?

White magic, black magic. Continuity in the definition of natural magic from Pico to Della Porta : astrology and magic in Italy and north of the Alps ; Scholastic and humanist views of Hermetism : witchcraft, "natural magic", Trithemius' magic and Agrippa's critical turn of mind (Medieval Hermetic antecedents ; Ficino and Pico ; Hermetists in Germany) ; Magic, pseudepigraphy, prophecies and forgeries in Trithemius' manuscripts : from Cusanus to Bovelles? (To publish or not to publish? ; Trithemius' passion for magic ; Trithemius as a prophet or prognosticator ; Magical authorities and forgeries ; Blessings and exorcisms ; Trithemius and his German contemporaries ; Ancient and medieval occult sources ; Denunciations and self-defences ; Socratism and Cusanian ignorance or simplicity) ; Appendix I : Trithemius' bibliography for necromancers

Agrippa as an author of prohibited books. Agrippa of Nettesheim as a critical Magus ; Magic and radical Reformation in Agrippa of Nettesheim ; Appendix II : recent studies on Agrippa

Bruno as a reader of prohibited books. The initiates and the idiot : conjectures on some Brunian sources (Bruno as a reader of the necromancers' 'theoricae' ; Bruno and the Paracelsian revival ; Bruno as a reader of Lullian and pseudo-Lullian works) ; Hermetism and magic in Giordano Bruno : some interpretations from Tocco to Corsano, from Yates to Ciliberto (F.A. Yates, D.P. Walker and other scholars in the Warburg Institute ; Renaissance magic as seen by Yates and Walker ; Magic tricks of Professor Ciliberto) ; Appendix III : a Nolan before Bruno : Momus and Socratism in the Renaissance.

Notes:

Subtitle from cover.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-281-93623-5

9786611936235

90-474-2138-8

OCLC:

303637152

Publisher Number:

10.1163/ej.9789004160989.i-282 DOI