A revelatory new account of the magus—the learned magician—and
his place in the intellectual, social, and cultural world of
Renaissance Europe. In literary legend, Faustus is the
quintessential occult personality of early modern Europe. The
historical Faustus, however, was something quite different: a
magus—a learned magician fully embedded in the scholarly currents
and public life of the Renaissance. And he was hardly the only one.
Anthony Grafton argues that the magus in sixteenth-century Europe
was a distinctive intellectual type, both different from and
indebted to medieval counterparts as well as contemporaries like
the engineer, the artist, the Christian humanist, and the religious
reformer. Alongside these better-known figures, the magus had a
transformative impact on his social world. Magus details the arts
and experiences of learned magicians including Marsilio Ficino,
Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Trithemius, and Heinrich Cornelius
Agrippa. Grafton explores their methods, the knowledge they
produced, the services they provided, and the overlapping political
and social milieus to which they aspired—often, the circles of
kings and princes. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, these erudite men anchored debates about licit and
illicit magic, the divine and the diabolical, and the nature of
“good” and “bad” magicians. Over time, they turned magic
into a complex art, which drew on contemporary engineering as well
as classical astrology, probed the limits of what was acceptable in
a changing society, and promised new ways to explore the self and
exploit the cosmos. Resituating the magus in the social, cultural,
and intellectual order of Renaissance Europe, Grafton sheds new
light on both the recesses of the learned magician’s mind and the
many worlds he inhabited.
General
| Imprint: |
The Belknap Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Release date: |
December 2023 |
| Authors: |
Anthony Grafton
|
| Dimensions: |
242 x 165 x 27mm (L x W x T) |
| Format: |
Hardcover
|
| Pages: |
289 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-674-65973-5 |
| Categories: |
Books
Promotions
|
| LSN: |
0-674-65973-2 |
| Barcode: |
9780674659735 |
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