Renaissance Magic

Author : Ioan P. Culianu
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 1987-11-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226123165

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Eros and Magic in the Renaissance by Ioan P. Culianu Pdf

It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that "magic" is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today. Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent. In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing. Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.

Author : Gary Tomlinson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : History
ISBN : 0226807924

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Music in Renaissance Magic by Gary Tomlinson Pdf

Magic enjoyed a vigorous revival in sixteenth-century Europe, attaining a prestige lost for over a millennium and becoming, for some, a kind of universal philosophy. Renaissance music also suggested a form of universal knowledge through renewed interest in two ancient themes: the Pythagorean and Platonic "harmony of the celestial spheres" and the legendary effects of the music of bards like Orpheus, Arion, and David. In this climate, Renaissance philosophers drew many new and provocative connections between music and the occult sciences. In Music in Renaissance Magic, Gary Tomlinson describes some of these connections and offers a fresh view of the development of early modern thought in Italy. Raising issues essential to postmodern historiography—issues of cultural distance and our relationship to the others who inhabit our constructions of the past —Tomlinson provides a rich store of ideas for students of early modern culture, for musicologists, and for historians of philosophy, science, and religion. "A scholarly step toward a goal that many composers have aimed for: to rescue the idea of New Age Music—that music can promote spiritual well-being—from the New Ageists who have reduced it to a level of sonic wallpaper."—Kyle Gann, Village Voice "An exemplary piece of musical and intellectual history, of interest to all students of the Renaissance as well as musicologists. . . . The author deserves congratulations for introducing this new approach to the study of Renaissance music."—Peter Burke, NOTES "Gary Tomlinson's Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others examines the 'otherness' of magical cosmology. . . . [A] passionate, eloquently melancholy, and important book."—Anne Lake Prescott, Studies in English Literature

Author : John S. Mebane
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1992-01-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 080328179X

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Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age by John S. Mebane Pdf

For all their pride in seeing this world clearly, the thinkers and artists of the English Renaissance were also fascinated by magic and the occult. The three greatest playwrights of the period devoted major plays (The Tempest, Doctor Faustus, The Alchemist) to magic, Francis Bacon often referred to it, and it was ever-present in the visual arts. In Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age John S. Mebane reevaluates the significance of occult philosophy in Renaissance thought and literature, constructing the most detailed historical context for his subject yet attempted.

Author : Brian P. Levack
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : History
ISBN : 081531034X

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Renaissance Magic by Brian P. Levack Pdf

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author : Frank Klaassen
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2015-06-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780271061757

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The Transformations of Magic by Frank Klaassen Pdf

In this original, provocative, well-reasoned, and thoroughly documented book, Frank Klaassen proposes that two principal genres of illicit learned magic occur in late medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic (in its extreme form, overt necromancy), which could not. Image magic tended to be recopied faithfully; ritual magic tended to be adapted and reworked. These two forms of magic did not usually become intermingled in the manuscripts, but were presented separately. While image magic was often copied in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Transformations of Magic demonstrates that interest in it as an independent genre declined precipitously around 1500. Instead, what persisted was the other, more problematic form of magic: ritual magic. Klaassen shows that texts of medieval ritual magic were cherished in the sixteenth century, and writers of new magical treatises, such as Agrippa von Nettesheim and John Dee, were far more deeply indebted to medieval tradition—and specifically to the medieval tradition of ritual magic—than previous scholars have thought them to be.

Author : Michael David Bailey
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : History
ISBN : 0742533875

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Magic and Superstition in Europe by Michael David Bailey Pdf

The only comprehensive, single-volume survey of magic available, this compelling book traces the history of magic and superstition in Europe from antiquity to the present. Focusing mainly on the medieval and early modern era, Michael Bailey also explores the ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and the spread of magical systems_particularly modern witchcraft or Wicca_from Europe to the United States. He explains how magic was understood, constructed, and frequently condemned and how magical beliefs and practices have changed over time yet also remain vital even today.

Author : Frank Klaassen
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2015-06-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780271069289

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The Transformations of Magic by Frank Klaassen Pdf

In this original, provocative, well-reasoned, and thoroughly documented book, Frank Klaassen proposes that two principal genres of illicit learned magic occur in late medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic (in its extreme form, overt necromancy), which could not. Image magic tended to be recopied faithfully; ritual magic tended to be adapted and reworked. These two forms of magic did not usually become intermingled in the manuscripts, but were presented separately. While image magic was often copied in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Transformations of Magic demonstrates that interest in it as an independent genre declined precipitously around 1500. Instead, what persisted was the other, more problematic form of magic: ritual magic. Klaassen shows that texts of medieval ritual magic were cherished in the sixteenth century, and writers of new magical treatises, such as Agrippa von Nettesheim and John Dee, were far more deeply indebted to medieval tradition—and specifically to the medieval tradition of ritual magic—than previous scholars have thought them to be.

Author : Paola Zambelli
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2007-07-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789047421382

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White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance by Paola Zambelli Pdf

The ideas of philosophers (Ficino, Pico, Della Porta, Bruno) on magic interfered with popular alternative and witchcraft rites. This book focuses on “wandering scholastics” (Trithemius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Bruno) and will be a stimulating read for all those interested in Renaissance mentality.

Author : Paola Zambelli
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004160989

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White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance by Paola Zambelli Pdf

The ideas of philosophers (Ficino, Pico, Della Porta, Bruno) on magic interfered with popular alternative and witchcraft rites. This book focuses on "wandering scholastics" (Trithemius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Bruno) and will be a stimulating read for all those interested in Renaissance mentality.

Author : Konrad Eisenbichler,Olga Zorzi Pugliese
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1986
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : STANFORD:36105040814704

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Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism by Konrad Eisenbichler,Olga Zorzi Pugliese Pdf

Author : Philip Ball
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 637 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2006-04-18
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781429921824

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The Devil's Doctor by Philip Ball Pdf

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, who called himself Paracelsus, stands at the cusp of medieval and modern times. A contemporary of Luther, an enemy of the medical establishment, a scourge of the universities, an alchemist, an army surgeon, and a radical theologian, he attracted myths even before he died. His fantastic journeys across Europe and beyond were said to be made on a magical white horse, and he was rumored to carry the elixir of life in the pommel of his great broadsword. His name was linked with Faust, who bargained with the devil. Who was the man behind these stories? Some have accused him of being a charlatan, a windbag who filled his books with wild speculations and invented words. Others claim him as the father of modern medicine. Philip Ball exposes a more complex truth in The Devil's Doctor—one that emerges only by entering into Paracelsus's time. He explores the intellectual, political, and religious undercurrents of the sixteenth century and looks at how doctors really practiced, at how people traveled, and at how wars were fought. For Paracelsus was a product of an age of change and strife, of renaissance and reformation. And yet by uniting the diverse disciplines of medicine, biology, and alchemy, he assisted, almost in spite of himself, in the birth of science and the emergence of the age of rationalism. "Ball produces a vibrant, original portrait of a man of contradictions:" - Publishers Weekly

Author : Richard Kieckhefer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2021-09-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108494717

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Magic in the Middle Ages by Richard Kieckhefer Pdf

A revised and expanded edition of this fascinating interdisciplinary study of magic in the Middle Ages.

Author : James Edward McClellan,Harold Dorn
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 504 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 0801883598

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Science and Technology in World History by James Edward McClellan,Harold Dorn Pdf

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Author : Charles Zika
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 630 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2021-10-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004475915

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Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe by Charles Zika Pdf

This collection of sixteen essays deals with the role of magic, religion and witchcraft in European culture, 1450-1650, and the critical role of the visual in that culture. It covers the relationship of humanism and magic; the intersection of religious ritual, orthodoxy and power; the discursive links between the visual language of witchcraft and contemporary anxieties about sexuality and savagery. The introductory chapter urges us to exorcise our tendency to reduce historical experiences of the demonic to forms of unreason created in a distant past. Only then can we understand the role of the demonic in our historical definition of the self and the other. Richly illustrated with 112 images, the book will interest historians and art historians.

Author : Brian P. Copenhaver
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 615 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2015-09-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107070523

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Magic in Western Culture by Brian P. Copenhaver Pdf

The story of the beliefs and practices called 'magic' starts in ancient Iran, Greece, and Rome, before entering its crucial Christian phase in the Middle Ages. Centering on the Renaissance and Marsilio Ficino, this richly illustrated and groundbreaking book treats magic as a classical tradition with foundations that were distinctly philosophical.