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Astrology, Alchemy, Magic (Renaissance and Reformation)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Scientific developments in the early modern period have traditionally been called the “scientific revolution,” emphasizing the idea that modern rational attitudes toward the physical world replaced the premodern nonrationalist outlook, often called the occult. As scholars in the mid- to late 20th century looked more deeply into the matter, they saw that the situation was much more murky. Humanists, who supposedly rejected medieval thought in favor of a more progressive revival of ancient thought, continued studies in all fields that would today be considered occult; Marsilio Ficino added Hermetism and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola added Kabbalah to magic. Figures like Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, the reputed paragons of the new science, did not reject all prior streams of thought; both pursued alchemy. Nor were all forms of premodern pursuits dead ends in scientific inquiry; the pursuit of astrology, alchemy, and magic encouraged astronomical observation, scientific experiment, and new theories of nature. Thus, recent scholarship shows a much more nuanced view of early modern science; rather than a scientific revolution there was, perhaps, a broadening of inquiry in all areas that might have been seen at the time as related to understanding the natural world.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. In these works we encounter the ubiquity of the occult in the Renaissance. Thorndike 1923–1958 and Shumaker 1972 principally describe thinkers and their texts. Yates 2002 tries to attribute the rise of the new science to the occult, whereas Thomas 1997 suggests that the occult declined with the rise of the mechanical philosophy. Webster 2002 gives a more social-historical view but also asserts the importance of alchemy and experiment.
  8.  
  9. Shumaker, Wayne. The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance: A Study in Intellectual Patterns. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
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  11. Looks at astrology, witchcraft, magic, alchemy, and Hermetism. Mostly descriptive. Close look at Renaissance writings for and against various subjects starting with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s attack on astrology. Deals with both readily available and obscure works and authors.
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  13. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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  15. Classic work on the occult in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. Attributes its decline to the rise of the mechanical philosophy. Originally published in 1971.
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  17. Thorndike, Lynn. History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–1958.
  18. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.35115Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19. Pioneering discussion of natural thought from early Christian times through the 17th century detailing both readily available and obscure works and authors. Although written in part to debunk the Burckhardtian view of the Renaissance, it shows how endemic astrology, alchemy, and magic were to Renaissance thought even in the period known as the “scientific revolution.”
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  21. Webster, Charles. The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626–1660. 2d ed. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2002.
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  23. Important revision of the traditional view of English science as movement toward modernity from Francis Bacon to Isaac Newton. Focuses on the social and religious background. Explores the pursuit of science among Puritans in the 17th century and shows that they concentrated on Paracelsian medicine, alchemy, and natural history in the Baconian tradition. Originally published in 1976.
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  25. Yates, Frances. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London: Routledge, 2002.
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  27. Building on the author’s work on Hermetism, this volume presents all early modern science as an outgrowth of a European-wide 17th-century occult movement. Originally published 1972.
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  29. Primary Texts
  30.  
  31. Linden 2003 on alchemy and Maxwell-Stuart 1999 on Renaissance occult present selections of primary sources for classroom use.
  32.  
  33. Linden, Stanton J., ed. The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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  35. Substantial excerpts in English from works dealing with alchemy. There is a general introduction as well as introductions to each excerpt, illustrations from the original editions, and a glossary and bibliography. Good for classroom use.
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  37. Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., ed. and trans. The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.
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  39. Short excerpts on “signs and portents,” astrology, alchemy, and magic, some appearing in English for the first time. Includes a brief general introduction and an introduction to each section. Comprehensive in scope. Good for classroom use.
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  41. Encyclopedias
  42.  
  43. While only Applebaum 2000 deals specifically with the Renaissance period, the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (Gillispie 1970–1980, with a 2007 supplement) is a classic reference work and very useful.
  44.  
  45. Applebaum, Wilbur, ed. Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: From Copernicus to Newton. New York: Garland, 2000.
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  47. Contains articles ranging from several hundred to several thousand words on figures and concepts, including astrology, alchemy, magic, and related subjects.
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  49. Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 16 vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1970–1980.
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  51. One of the most important reference works in the history of science. Substantial articles on scientists from Antiquity to modern times. Supplemented by Scribner’s New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 2007), edited by Noretta Koertge. The new volumes also contain supplements to articles in the original work. Both are available in electronic format as well as book form.
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  53. Bibliographies
  54.  
  55. The best bibliography on the history of science is found in Isis, which includes works on astrology, alchemy, and magic prior to the 18th century and that is maintained by the History of Science Society. While Isis continues to provide an annual bibliography as part of each volume, the most usable form is at the society’s website, but it is available by subscription only. Cantamessa 2007 only covers astrology, but it includes original printed editions as well.
  56.  
  57. Cantamessa, Leandro. Astrologia: Opere a stampa, 1472–1900. 2 vols. Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2007.
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  59. Lists 5,045 volumes on astrology with full titles, collations, and descriptions and library locations for rare works. Commentary in Italian.
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  61. Isis.
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  63. Journal of the History of Science Society. Covers all periods and disciplines in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, which includes astrology, alchemy, and magic before 1700. The last issue of each volume is a bibliography of recent publications, including articles, monographs, collections, editions, and reference works. The most usable form, however, is on the society’s website, but it is available by subscription only.
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  65. Anthologies
  66.  
  67. Earlier scholarship often dismissed the value of Renaissance occult. Vickers 1984 tries to separate the occult from the scientific tradition. Later works reject this approach. Newman and Grafton 2001 depicts astrology and alchemy as part of Renaissance science; Principe 2007 shows alchemy as an experimental science. Zambelli 1986 focuses on astrology at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Osler 2000 questions whether early modern science was revolutionary. Scholz Williams and Gunnoe 2002 contains various studies of the appearance of occult ideas. Dooley 2014 looks at various facets of astrological theory and practice; Oestmann, et al. 2005 suggests the benefits of studying horoscopes.
  68.  
  69. Dooley, Brendan. A Companion to Astrology in the Renaissance. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014.
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  71. Contains articles on the culture of astrology, reading the astrological chart, Ptolemy in the Renaissance, the theological debate, society, politics, astrology as science, medicine, astrology in literature and art, and European astrology in Peru.
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  73. Newman, William R., and Anthony Grafton, eds. Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2001.
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  75. Shows how much astrology and alchemy were intertwined with the natural philosophy and medicine of the early modern period. Articles on Girolamo Cardano, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, Johannes Trithemius, the Rosicrucians, Simon Forman, and the historiography of alchemy.
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  77. Oestmann, Günther, H. Darrel Rutkin, and Kocku von Stuckrad, eds. Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005.
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  79. Considers horoscopes as historical sources, as astronomical sources, as rhetorical devices, and as biographical sources. Four of the essays deal with the Renaissance period—two essays on Girolamo Cardano, one on medical astrology, and one on astrological practice.
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  81. Osler, Margaret J., ed. Rethinking the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  82. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511529276Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  83. Reprints B. J. T. Dobbs’s essay on Isaac Newton’s alchemy that challenges the concept of a “scientific revolution” and response in favor of the traditional view by Richard Westfall. Other essays on astrology, alchemy, and magic support Dobbs’s view.
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  85. Principe, Lawrence M., ed. Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History, 2007.
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  87. Twenty-two papers from the International Conference on the History of Alchemy and Chymistry, held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, July 2006, on alchemy and early modern chemistry, which the editor calls chymistry, that consider the topic as the foundation of theories of matter and chemical change.
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  89. Scholz Williams, Gerhild, and Charles D. Gunnoe Jr., eds. Paracelsian Moments: Science, Medicine, and Astrology in Early Modern Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002.
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  91. More than half the articles are devoted to Paracelsus, but there are also articles on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, François Rabelais, Robert Boyle, Johannes Praetorius, and vision.
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  93. Vickers, Brian, ed. Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
  94. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511572999Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  95. Articles on John Dee, Marin Mersenne, Johannes Kepler, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, universities, and witchcraft and demonology, most of which question the extent to which the occult contributed to the development of modern science. The longest article by far is by Vickers, who suggests that occult knowledge operates by analogy while science operates by “identity” and that this led to a rejection of the occult.
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  97. Zambelli, Paola, ed. “Astrologi Hallucinati”: Stars and the End of the World in Luther’s Time. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.
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  99. Proceedings of conference at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, May 1984, on 16th-century astrology. All articles are in English, but the article on Martin Luther is a summary of the author’s German work.
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  101. Journals
  102.  
  103. Articles and book reviews on astrology, alchemy, and magic in the Renaissance period can be found in journals that deal with the science of the period. Early Science and Medicine covers only the premodern period, while Isis covers all periods of science. Renaissance Quarterly is period specific but covers all disciplines. Culture and Cosmos is one of the few refereed journals that specialize in one of the disciplines under discussion.
  104.  
  105. Culture and Cosmos. 1997–.
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  107. Covers the history of astrology and cultural astronomy for all periods and geographical locations. Appearance of issues is erratic.
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  109. Early Science and Medicine. 1996–.
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  111. Covers all disciplines in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, including astrology, alchemy, and magic, from ancient times to about 1700.
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  113. Isis. 1912–.
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  115. Journal of the History of Science Society. Covers all periods and disciplines in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, which includes astrology, alchemy, and magic before 1700.
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  117. Renaissance Quarterly. 1948–.
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  119. Journal of the Renaissance Society of America. Covers the period from 1300 to 1700. Includes articles and book reviews that cover astrology, alchemy, and magic at that time.
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  121. Astrology
  122.  
  123. The oldest of the occult sciences, astrology was part of the science of the stars along with astronomy; premodern authors often used the terms “astrology” and “astronomy” interchangeably. Astrology was taught in the universities, and most astronomers were practicing astrologers until the middle of the 17th century. Rutkin 2006 gives a general overview of astrology in the period. Westman 2011 shows the importance of astrology in the astronomical advances of the period. Garin 1983 and Ernst 1991 concentrate on Italian humanist writings on astrology; Brosseder 2004 and Barnes 2016 examine astrology in relation to the Protestant Reformation in the German lands. Other works focus on England: Allen 1966 provides a general discussion in its Continental background; Curry 1989 studies the relationship between astrology and politics; Schechner Genuth 1997 looks at one facet of popular belief and its effect on astronomy; Capp 1979 examines almanacs and their influence. Quinlan-McGrath 2001 and Quinlan-McGrath 2013 show the influence of astrology in art, and Wuidar 2008 shows its influence in music.
  124.  
  125. Allen, Don Cameron. The Star-Crossed Renaissance: The Quarrel about Astrology and Its Influence in England. New York: Octagon, 1966.
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  127. Study of the controversy about the validity of astrology starting with Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and moving to other Continental writers but concentrating on England. Mostly descriptive. Originally published in 1941.
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  129. Barnes, Robin B. Astrology and Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
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  131. Places astrology at the center of the Protestant Reformation, both in helping to create the atmosphere that brought it about and in formulating Lutheran theology, especially concepts of the place of the divine in history and the universe, in the 1st century of the Reformation.
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  133. Brosseder, Claudia. Im Bann der Sterne: Caspar Peucer, Philipp Melanchthon und andere Wittenberger Astrologen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004.
  134. DOI: 10.1524/9783050082172Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  135. Mostly concentrating on Peucer, shows the place of astrology in the German scholarly world in the period of the Protestant Reformation.
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  137. Capp, Bernard. English Almanacs, 1500–1800: Astrology and the Popular Press. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979.
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  139. Study of the contents and context of English almanacs. Shows their effects in nurturing printing and in spreading new ideas in science.
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  141. Curry, Patrick. Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
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  143. Argues that astrology was marginalized by the dominant culture in England during the Restoration because of its association with radical politics and religion during the Interregnum but its acceptance continued in folk culture.
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  145. Ernst, Germana. Religione, ragione e natura: Ricerche su Tommaso Campanella e il tardo Rinascimento. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1991.
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  147. A compilation of articles by the author. The first part is about Campanella, but the second part, with chapters on Della Porta, Cardano, Vanini, and Galileo, gives it a wider context.
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  149. Garin, Eugenio. Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life. Translated by Carolyn Jackson and June Allen and revised in conjunction with the author by Clare Robertson. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983.
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  151. Translation of author’s lectures on astrology in the Italian Renaissance. Concentrates on humanists’ attitudes, particularly Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Sees humanist critique as a major cause for the decline of astrology. There are problems with the translation, and scholars are advised to use the original Italian: Lo zodiaco della vita (Bari, Italy: Editori Laterza, 1976).
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  153. Quinlan-McGrath, Mary. “The Foundation Horoscopes for St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, 1506: Choosing a Time, Changing the Storia.” Isis 92.4 (2001): 716–741.
  154. DOI: 10.1086/385356Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  155. An in-depth look at the role astrology played in the building of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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  157. Quinlan-McGrath, Mary. Influences: Art, Optics, and Astrology in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
  158. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226922850.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  159. Combines discussion of astrology, optics, theology, and Neoplatonism to show how astrological vaults were intended to capture the celestial rays and bestow their gifts.
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  161. Rutkin, H. Darrel. “Astrology.” In The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3, Early Modern Science. Edited by Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston, 541–561. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  163. General overview of astrology that shows its centrality in learned thought during this period.
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  165. Schechner Genuth, Sara. Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
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  167. Examines popular and learned ideas about comets from Antiquity to the 17th century. Suggests that as the view of comets in the early modern period switched from seeing them as omens to events with natural causes, learned opinion repudiated popular understandings; nevertheless, popular views were absorbed into the ideas of Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley.
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  169. Westman, Robert S. The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.
  170. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520254817.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171. While the authors suggestion that Copernicus developed the heliocentric system as a reaction against Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s attack on astrology is controversial, this volume looks at major and minor characters in astronomy and establishes the centrality of astrology in fostering astronomical advances from the end of the 15th century through the early 16th century.
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  173. Wuidar, Laurence. Musique et astrologie après le concile de Trente. Brussels: Institut Historique Belge de Rome, 2008.
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  175. Focuses on the importance of astrology in the theoretical writings and musical compositions of composers.
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  177. Medical Astrology
  178.  
  179. Most physicians believed that the dispositions of the heavenly bodies affected both public health and that of the individual; the heavenly bodies were viewed as a natural as opposed to a spiritual cause of disease. And so astrology was taught in the early modern schools of medicine. Siraisi 1990 discusses university medical practice and education, including astrology; French 1994 talks about astrology as part of medical practice in Salerno; Dell’Anna 1999 focuses on the issue of critical days in pathology.
  180.  
  181. Dell’Anna, Giuseppe. Dies critici: La teoria della ciclicità delle patologie nel XIV secolo. 2 vols. Galatina, Italy: M. Congedo, 1999.
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  183. The first volume starts with a historical look at the issue of “critical days” in medicine, the idea that certain days could present a turning point in the pathology of a disease, which was affected by the heavenly bodies and particularly the moon, and then concentrates on the 14th century. The second volume contains relevant Latin texts.
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  185. French, Roger. “Astrology in Medical Practice.” In Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death. Edited by Luis García-Ballester, Roger French, Jon Arrizabalaga, and Andrew Cunningham, 30–59. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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  187. Discussion of the transmission of the use of astrology in medicine from Arabic sources. Sees a relationship between astrology and medicine in prediction as well as natural causation.
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  189. Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
  190. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226761312.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191. General outline of medical education and practice. Shows astrology as an important part of both. Good for classroom use.
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  193. Politics and Astrology
  194.  
  195. Astrologers were often consulted by political figures. The recent tendency to stress astrological practice rather than just theory has led Azzolini 2013 and Hayton 2015 to look at the roles of astrologers in politics. On the other hand, Parel 1992 shows the significance of astrological belief in Machiavelli’s political thought.
  196.  
  197. Azzolini, Monica. The Duke and the Stars: Astrology and Politics in Renaissance Milan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
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  199. Looks at the Sforza court in Milan in the late 15th century and how dukes made important decisions regarding alliances, including marriage alliances, war, and health, as well as mundane issues in daily life based on predictions of their court astrologers.
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  201. Hayton, Darin. The Crown and the Cosmos: Astrology and the Politics of Maximilian I. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015.
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  203. Shows how the Habsburg monarch used astrologers to make political decisions and to build his position and that of the Habsburg dynasty as the rightful Holy Roman Emperors.
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  205. Parel, Anthony. The Machiavellian Cosmos. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.
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  207. Puts Machiavelli, the generally recognized progenitor of modern political theory, in the context of Renaissance thought and sees the influence of astrological theory, particularly that of Ptolemy and Abu Ma’shar, on his political theory.
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  209. Alchemy
  210.  
  211. Traditionally, the aims of alchemy were to turn base metals into valuable metals and to prolong life. But Newman and Principe 2002, Moran 2005, Newman 2006a, and Newman 2006b show that in the early modern period, it included experiment and was important in the development of early modern matter theory. Smith 1994 and Nummedal 2007 put alchemy into a social context, which is in keeping with contemporary trends in looking at the sciences. Janacek 2011 looks at the relationship between alchemical theory and religious belief in England. Ray 2015 considers the role of women in alchemy.
  212.  
  213. Janacek, Bruce. Alchemical Belief: Occultism in the Religious Culture of Early Modern England. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.
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  215. Shows how ideas about alchemy supported religious and political ideas in the period leading up to and during the English Civil War.
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  217. Moran, Bruce T. Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
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  219. Good overview of alchemy 1400–1700. For general audiences and classroom use.
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  221. Newman, William R. Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006a.
  222. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226577036.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. This overview concentrates on matter theory and shows that alchemy gave corpuscularists the tools with which to overthrow scholastic matter theory.
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  225. Newman, William R. “From Alchemy to ‘Chymistry.’” In The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3, Early Modern Science. Edited by Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston, 497–517. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006b.
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  227. Discusses the development of alchemy as a mainstream science between 1500 and 1800, when it furnished a theory of matter and changes in medicine, but maintains that its fundamental Hermetic underpinnings remained throughout the period.
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  229. Newman, William R., and Lawrence M. Principe. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
  230. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226577050.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. Using the laboratory notebooks of the American physician George Starkey (b. 1627–d. 1665), the authors re-create the alchemical experiments and show that they tested theory and employed quantitative methods. The authors establish Starkey’s influence on the later development of chemistry.
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  233. Nummedal, Tara. Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
  234. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226608570.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. Attempt to reconstruct the social context of the practice of alchemy using criminal court records, laboratory inventories, contracts, and building designs. Shows how alchemy affected the language regarding fraud, artifice, and nature.
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  237. Ray, Meredith K. Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
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  239. Looks at works by five Italian women and discusses their contributions to experiment and to the discourse on women’s roles in the scientific community.
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  241. Smith, Pamela H. The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
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  243. Follows the career of the 17th-century alchemist Johann Joachim Becher to explore the relationships among scientific pursuit, court culture, and economics.
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  245. Paracelsus and Alchemical Medicine
  246.  
  247. The German physician Theophrastus Philippus Aureous Bombastus von Hohenheim (b. 1493–d. 1541) called himself Paracelsus to assert his superiority to the Roman encyclopedist Celsus who had written on medicine. He rejected academic Galenic medicine and advocated alchemical medicine based on a balance of chemicals within the body and astrological affinities, and he called for the use of mineral-based medicines to treat diseases. Pagel 1982 and Debus 2002 explain Paracelsus’s thought and medicine, and Allen G. Debus treats it as a movement as well. Webster 2008 situates Paracelsus within the Renaissance occult, while Weeks 1997 presents his innovations as part of a wider crisis of belief. Grell 1998 discusses contemporary views of Paracelsus. Shackelford 2004 focuses on the dissemination of Paracelsian medicine, while Moran 2007 concentrates on alternative chemical medicine critical of Paracelsianism.
  248.  
  249. Debus, Allen G. The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Rev. ed. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002.
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  251. Important study of the medical and alchemical ideas of Paracelsus and his followers. Originally published in 1977.
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  253. Grell, Ole Peter, ed. Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas, and Their Transformation. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
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  255. Collection of articles that looks at the historiography of Paracelsus and examines his ideas and their diffusion.
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  257. Moran, Bruce T. Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History, 2007.
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  259. Nuanced examination of the writings of a German physician whom the author describes as an anti-Paracelsian defender of chymistry between orthodox Galenic-Arabic and Hermetic medicine.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Pagel, Walter. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. 2d ed. Basel, Switzerland: Karger, 1982.
  262. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  263. General depiction of Paracelsus and his ideas that sees him as an important figure in the history of medicine. Important attempt to explain his medical neologisms to modern readers. Considers Paracelsus a reformer and founder of modern chemical medicine. Originally published in 1958.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Shackelford, Jole. A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus, 1540/2–1602. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004.
  266. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  267. Sees that the treatise Idea medicinae by the Danish physician Petrus Severinus was a major source for the dissemination of Paracelsian medicine.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Webster, Charles. Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic, and Mission at the End of Time. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
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  271. Detailed overview of Paracelsus’s life and thought, especially his advocacy of reform in medicine, religion, and law.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Weeks, Andrew. Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Reformation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
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  275. Sees the origin of Paracelsian theories in the context of intellectual ferment and “crisis of authority” of the 1520s and Paracelsian writings as mystical contemplation.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Magic
  278.  
  279. While today magic is seen primarily as entertainment through legerdemain, magic in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was also viewed as a way to manipulate nature. As Kieckhefer 2000 and Walker 2000 show, it had two sides: natural magic worked with nature and was usually considered acceptable, while demonic magic called upon demons for aid and was condemned. Copenhaver 2006 gives an overview of magic during the Renaissance period. Shumaker 1989 and Zambelli 2007 focus on particular theorists and practitioners. Marsilio Ficino (b. 1433–d. 1499) translated the Corpus Hermeticum, which added intellectual respectability to magic. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola introduced Kabbalah, which attempted to give magic religious respectability.
  280.  
  281. Copenhaver, Brian P. “Magic.” In The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3, Early Modern Science. Edited by Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston, 518–540. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  283. Discusses the flowering of Renaissance magic from Ficino’s revival of Hermetism and its use as an explanation of hidden phenomena to its decline because of the mechanical philosophy and new instruments.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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  287. Overview of medieval magic to about 1500. Good for classroom use.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Shumaker, Wayne. Natural Magic and Modern Science: Four Treatises, 1590–1657. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. Binghamton: State University of New York at Binghamton, 1989.
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  291. An in-depth look at treatises on magic by Giordano Bruno, Martin Delrio, Tommaso Campanella, and Gaspar Schott. Controversial conclusion that only natural magic contributed to the development of early modern science by shedding the mystical elements. Includes useful annotated bibliography.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella. Rev. ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. Pioneering work on the relationship between Renaissance Neoplatonism and magic. Latest edition has an introduction by Brian P. Copenhaver. Originally published in 1958.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Zambelli, Paola. White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance: From Ficino, Pico, Della Porta to Trithemius, Agrippa, Bruno. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  298. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004160989.i-282Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. Translations into English of articles by a leading scholar on theoreticians of Renaissance magic.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Hermetism
  302.  
  303. Also called Hermeticism, this was believed to be an ancient Egyptian theology that predated Plato. Following Marsilio Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin, the first edition of which appeared in 1469, Hermetism became popular in humanist writings. In addition, there was a practical Hermetic tradition that was incorporated into the practice of magic. Interest declined after the philologist Isaac Casaubon (b. 1599–d. 1614) showed that the Hermetic works were much more recent. Yates 1991 attributes the “new science” to Hermetism, and Merkel and Debus 1988 mostly follows Frances A. Yates, but Westman and Maguire 1977 questions aspects of that attribution. Ebeling 2007 presents a general history of Hermetism.
  304.  
  305. Ebeling, Florian. The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermeticism from Ancient to Modern Times. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Description of Hermetic texts from ancient Egypt to modern times. Two chapters on the Renaissance. Suggests that Marsilio Ficino’s Hermetism was based on the Corpus Hermeticum, but alchemical Hermetism was based on the Emerald Table, and they were two entirely different traditions of which the alchemical tradition continued medieval Hermetism, while Ficino revived the ancient tradition.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Merkel, Ingrid, and Allen G. Debus, eds. Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1988.
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  311. Papers from the 1982 symposium on Renaissance Hermetism at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Most papers reflect the influence of Frances A. Yates in agreeing that Hermetism was an important force in the later Renaissance, but not all authors grant the extent of its influence. Also includes papers on ancient and post-Renaissance Hermetism.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Westman, Robert S., and J. E. Maguire. Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution. Los Angeles: University of California, 1977.
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  315. Two papers that question the influence of Hermetism as propounded by Frances A. Yates. Westman suggests that Hermetic ideas about the centrality of the sun did not compel Hermetists to adopt the heliocentric theory; Maguire denies that Isaac Newton’s light theories were influenced by Hermetism.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
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  319. Extensive background on the history of Hermetism, Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, and science in addition to Bruno. Criticized for overstating the influence of Hermetism and for not understanding Bruno in relationship to how Renaissance thinkers understood natural philosophy; nevertheless, it is credited with encouraging the study of Renaissance Hermetism and the relationship of the occult to science. Originally published in 1964.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Kabbalah
  322.  
  323. Also spelled Cabala. The adherents of this Jewish mystical tradition believed it was handed down orally along with the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai as a way of reading Torah. Its earliest texts were also believed to be very old but in fact date from the Middle Ages. Adherents believed that Kabbalistic principles could magically affect the world and even the divine. Scholem 1974 and Idel 1988 describe various trends in Kabbalah. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola introduced a Christian Kabbalah, which became very popular, as the bibliography in Beitchman 1988 attests. Blau 1944 is an early study of Christian Kabbalah. Coudert 1999 shows a more lasting influence of Kabbalah on European thought.
  324.  
  325. Beitchman, Philip. Alchemy of the Word: Cabala of the Renaissance. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
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  327. While the author’s understanding of Renaissance mysticism often seems to be based on 19th-century mystics, the book includes an impressive ninety-two-page annotated bibliography of Kabbalist and Kabbalist-influenced works in the Renaissance.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Blau, Joseph Leon. The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1944.
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  331. General overview of Christian Kabbalah in the period, with chapters on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Reuchlin, Cornelius Agrippa, and Paolo Ricci. Sees it as a fleeting fad overturned by “legitimate” natural science. Useful bibliography includes Hebrew sources and nine pages of Renaissance manuscript and printed works.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Coudert, Allison P. The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont, 1614–1698. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999.
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  335. Intellectual biography of the son of the Paracelsian physician Jan Baptista van Helmont, who was a Christian Kabbalist and coauthor (with Christian Knorr von Rosenroth) of Kabbala denudata (The Kabbalah unveiled). Argues that Helmont had a major influence on the philosophers Wilhelm Leibniz and Anne Conway and suggests that such influence shows the incorporation of Kabbalah into European thought.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.
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  339. Thematic approach to the study of Kabbalah that discusses the devotional and magical practices of Kabbalists as well as the writings.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Scholem, Gershom. Kabbalah. New York: Quadrangle, 1974.
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  343. Valuable overview of the historical development, basic concepts, and leading Jewish theoreticians of Kabbalah by the founder of the study of Kabbalah as a scholarly discipline. Puts Christian Kabbalah of the Renaissance in the context of the history of Kabbalah.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Selected Practitioners and Theoreticians
  346.  
  347. A huge number of individuals wrote about and practiced astrology, alchemy, and magic in the Renaissance, and it would be impossible to list them all. This section is a small number chosen because they were either very well known in their own time or illustrate recent historiographical trends.
  348.  
  349. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim
  350.  
  351. Originally from Cologne, Agrippa (b. 1486–d. 1535) was a practicing physician who claimed to have an academic degree in the liberal arts, doctorates in law and medicine, and an extensive background in theology. He was a committed student of astrology, alchemy, magic, and Kabbalah. His most influential work was De occulta philosophia (The occult philosophy), the first complete version of which was published in 1533 and which incorporated Neoplatonism, Hermetism, and Kabbalah and became virtually a textbook of magic and the occult. Lehrich 2003 provides a close reading of De occulta philosophia. At the same time the first book was published, in 1531, Agrippa published De incertitudine et vanitate scientarium et atrium (On the uncertainty and vanity of the sciences and arts), which seemed to repudiate many of the ideas in De occulta philosophia, but Nauert 1965 analyzes both works and suggests that there was continuity. Van der Poel 1997 studies the controversies surrounding Agrippa’s occult writings in the context of his intellectual background.
  352.  
  353. Lehrich, Christopher I. The Language of Demons and Angels: Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
  354. DOI: 10.1163/9789047403364Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. Close reading of Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia using interdisciplinary approaches.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Nauert, Charles G., Jr. Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965.
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  359. This intellectual biography follows Agrippa’s career and closely analyzes his De occulta philosophia and De incertitudine et vanitate scientarum et atrium. Suggests that the skepticism of the latter was not new to it.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. van der Poel, Marc. Cornelius Agrippa: The Humanist Theologian and His Declamations. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1997.
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  363. A study of Agrippa’s ideas in the context of his biography, humanist studies, occult pursuits, and attitude toward scholastic theology. Includes a close reading of Agrippa’s treatises on women, original sin, and marriage.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Francis Bacon
  366.  
  367. Bacon (b. 1561–d. 1626) has traditionally been considered one of the pillars of the scientific revolution. He believed that natural philosophy could improve the human condition. His unfinished Great Instauration included the New Organon (1620), which railed against “idols” that hindered the progress of knowledge and recommended what has come to be known as inductive reasoning to combat those idols. His New Atlantis (1624) envisioned an enlightened society, Bensalem, with a scientific research center, Salomon’s House, which has been considered the prototype of the research university and the impetus for scientific societies. Rossi 1968 shows that Bacon was not free of occult influences, while Harkness 2007 suggests that Bacon was not as original as is generally assumed.
  368.  
  369. Harkness, Deborah E. The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. Shows how scientific pursuits in London, including alchemical and other experimentation, cut across different social groups and different sites. Suggests that the city provided a model for scientific experimentation, interaction, and sharing of knowledge and that Hugh Plat was a forerunner of the kind of scientific endeavor that Bacon usually gets credit for initiating.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Rossi, Paolo. Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science. Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968.
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  375. Pioneering look at Bacon in the context of the history of magic and alchemy, particularly in the continuation of technological achievements on the one hand and the rejection of secrecy on the other.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Robert Boyle
  378.  
  379. Another pillar of the traditional view of the scientific revolution who has been considered a founder of empirical science, Boyle (b. 1627–d. 1691) also believed that natural philosophy was the key to improving the human condition. He experimented with the air pump and created a vacuum. Chemists still cite Boyle’s Law about the inverse relationship between the pressure and volume of a gas. His Sceptical Chymist (1661) has traditionally been seen as the work that separated chemistry from alchemy, but as Hunter 1994 and Principe 1998 show, Boyle did not reject alchemy. Sargent 1995 highlights the influence of religion and legal theory on his scientific thought.
  380.  
  381. Hunter, Michael, ed. Robert Boyle Reconsidered. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  382. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511622427Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. Symposium held near Stalbridge in Dorset, United Kingdom, 14–16 December 1991, to commemorate the tercentenary of Boyle’s death; essays by Antonio Clericuzio, Lawrence M. Principe, and William R. Newman deal with Boyle’s pursuit of alchemy.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Principe, Lawrence M. The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest: Including Boyle’s “Lost” Dialogue on the Transmutation of Metals. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
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  387. Shows that Boyle had a continuing interest in alchemy and The Sceptical Chymist was not a rejection of alchemy. Appendixes includes a reconstruction of Boyle’s Dialogue on Transmutation and various other fragments that attest to Boyle’s alchemical interests.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Sargent, Rose-Mary. The Diffident Naturalist: Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of Experiment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  390. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226735627.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. Tries to give a more nuanced view of the sources of Boyle’s thought, including biblical interpretation and legal theory, and suggests that he was not a modern empiricist.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Tycho Brahe
  394.  
  395. Tycho (b. 1546–d. 1601) was a Danish nobleman who convinced King Frederick II to patronize the establishment of astronomical observatories and alchemical laboratories on the island of Hven. Tycho’s observations, the most consistent and accurate before the use of the telescope, challenged Aristotelian ideas about the immutability of the heavens, but Tycho rejected the Copernican system in favor of a geoheliocentric system in which the sun and the moon orbit the earth and the other planets orbit the sun. Tycho hoped his improved planetary calculations would improve astrology as well. There are no monographs specifically devoted to Tycho’s pursuit of astrology and astronomy, but Thoren 1990, Christianson 2003, and Mosley 2007 all incorporate those pursuits into their discussions of Tycho’s endeavors.
  396.  
  397. Christianson, John Robert. On Tycho’s Island: Tycho Brahe, Science, and Culture in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. Shows how Tycho used social networking and the patronage system to establish the research center he called Uraniborg on the island of Hven.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Mosley, Adam. Bearing the Heavens: Tycho Brahe and the Astronomical Community of the Late Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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  403. Looks at the ways in which Tycho engaged an international scientific community using letters, print, and instruments to promote his reputation and disseminate his findings.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Thoren, Victor E. The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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  407. This biography by a leading Tycho scholar, published posthumously, gives a comprehensive picture of Tycho’s political and social world and shows Tycho as an astronomical observer, astrologer, and alchemist. Appendixes give a glossary of technical terms, an account of Tycho’s lunar theory, his places of residence in Bohemia, and English translations by John R. Christianson of letters concerning Tycho’s relocation to Prague.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Giordano Bruno
  410.  
  411. Bruno (b. 1548–d. 1600) was a Dominican friar from Nola who began to question many orthodox ideas of the Catholic Church, most notably the Trinity. He was executed by the Catholic Church for heresy. He was a promoter of Copernican cosmology, and a popular assumption has been that his heresy was his Copernicanism; thus, he has been considered a martyr to science. Yates 1991 makes him not a scientist but an occultist, while Gatti 1999 and Rowland 2008 see many of his ideas about natural philosophy as tending toward the scientific. De León-Jones 1997 looks at the influence of Kabbalah, and Saiber 2005 focuses on his language.
  412.  
  413. De León-Jones, Karen Silvia. Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. Explores Bruno’s use of both Jewish and Christian Kabbalah in his attempt to explain the universe. Reprinted Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Gatti, Hilary. Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
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  419. Emphasizes Bruno as scientific thinker in a 16th-century context but also sees Bruno as contributing to 20th-century philosophy of science. Critical of Frances A. Yates’s view.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Rowland, Ingrid D. Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008.
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  423. Detailed life of Bruno. Follows Hilary Gatti on issues of natural philosophy.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Saiber, Arielle. Giordano Bruno and the Geometry of Language. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Examines how concepts of space, number, and form influenced figures of speech, particularly in Bruno’s works The Candle Bearer, Heroic Frenzies, and The Ash Wednesday Supper.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
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  431. Extremely influential but controversial work. Extensive look at the 15th-century background to Renaissance Hermetism; makes Bruno into a Renaissance magus. Originally published in 1964.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Girolamo Cardano
  434.  
  435. Cardano (b. 1501–d. 1576) was an Italian physician who wrote on medicine, mathematics and probability, astrology, and cosmology. He used astrology in medicine, as was typical at the time, but he also produced horoscopes of famous people, which he included as examples in his writings, though his prediction that England’s Edward VI would have a long life fed anti-astrological theorists. Grafton 1999 concentrates on Cardano as an astrologer, while Siraisi 1997 concentrates on his medical career and theories of medicine. Boriaud 2012 gives a general view of his thought and work.
  436.  
  437. Boriaud, Jean-Yves, ed. La pensée scientifique de Cardan. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. A collection of essays on various aspects of Cardano’s thought: magic, astrology, medicine, and religion. The essay by McClean gives a chronology of his late works. Includes a comprehensive bibliography.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Grafton, Anthony. Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. Analyzes Cardano’s writings on astrology and his successful career in producing horoscopes.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Siraisi, Nancy G. The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
  446. DOI: 10.1515/9781400832354Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. Focuses on Cardano as physician and medical theorist. Discusses his acceptance of Vesalian anatomy, his critiques of Galenic medicine and study of Hippocratic ideas, and his theories of nature and what he called “subtlety.”
  448. Find this resource:
  449. John Dee
  450.  
  451. The Englishman Dee (b. 1527–d. 1608) was a noted book collector and polymath who wrote on mathematics, navigation, calendar reform, and politics as well as on astrology, alchemy, and magic. He may have been Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer. French 1972 stresses Dee as an occultist and Hermetist, while Clulee 1988 shows him searching for an understanding of nature using all means possible. In that light, Harkness 1999 focuses on Dee’s angelic conversations, and Hakonsson 2001 looks at his use of language. Szőnyi 2004 concentrates on Dee’s mysticism. Sherman 1995 stresses Dee as a Renaissance thinker and book collector.
  452.  
  453. Clulee, Nicholas H. John Dee’s Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion. London: Routledge, 1988.
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  455. Pathbreaking work that shows Dee as a complex thinker who explored many avenues to understand nature and ultimate reality. Denies that Dee’s work was a systematic elaboration of a Neoplatonic or Hermetic tradition as elaborated by Frances A. Yates; rather, sees his adoption of that tradition through his personal development, which included a wide variety of medieval as well as Renaissance sources.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. French, Peter J. John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. Examines John Dee’s work using Hermetism as a unifying theme. Follows Frances A. Yates.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Hakonsson, Hakan. Seeing the Word: John Dee and Renaissance Occultism. Lund, Sweden: Lunds Universitet, 2001.
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  463. Concentrates on Dee’s use of language as a constant thread in acquiring knowledge of nature and the divine.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Harkness, Deborah E. John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  466. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781107340909Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. Examines Dee’s angelic conversations as part of the development of his natural philosophy.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Sherman, William H. John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.
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  471. Examines Dee as a Renaissance intellectual, focusing on his library and his estate at Mortlake as a “museum,” and shows how Dee’s knowledge and writing were intended as political advice.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Szőnyi, György Endre. John Dee’s Occultism: Magical Exaltation through Powerful Signs. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
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  475. Focuses on the theme of exaltatio, the mystical ascent to the divine, which the author sees as the unifying factor in Dee’s work.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Giambattista della Porta
  478.  
  479. Della Porta (b. c. 1535–d. 1615) founded the Academia Secretorum Naturae (Academy for the Secrets of Nature) for the purpose of explaining occult secrets of nature through experiments. His Magia naturalis (Natural magic) of 1558, a widely acclaimed work at the time, reported the results of the academy’s work and attempted to give a rational basis for magic. He was also well known for his work on optics, especially his work on the camera obscura and the telescope. Muraro 1978 writes about his work as a magician and experimentalist. He was also an acclaimed playwright, and Clubb 1965 shows the influence of his writings on magic in his plays.
  480.  
  481. Clubb, Louise George. Giambattista della Porta, Dramatist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
  482. DOI: 10.1515/9781400874927Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. This monograph on the plays of della Porta shows the relationship between his dramaturgy and his writing on magic.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Muraro, Luisa. Giambattista della Porta mago e scienziato. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1978.
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  487. This pathbreaking monograph on della Porta deals with his work on magic as well as optics. Shows that William Gilbert had an unacknowledged debt to della Porta’s work on magnetism.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Marsilio Ficino
  490.  
  491. Ficino (b. 1433–d. 1499), a physician and priest, was the leading Platonic philosopher of his day who incorporated Neoplatonism in his philosophy. His translations into Latin of Plato’s works and the Corpus Hermeticum made them accessible, although Allen 1990 maintains that the influence of Hermetism on his work was limited. On the other hand, Gentile and Gilly 1999 suggests the influence of Ficino’s translations of the Hermetica. Ficino wrote commentaries on the works of Plato, and Allen 1994 deals with the astrological implications in one of them. Bullard 1990 shows Ficino’s changing attitude toward astrology, while Ficino 1989 illustrates his use of astrology and magic in medicine.
  492.  
  493. Allen, Michael J. B. “Marsilio Ficino, Hermes Trismegistus, and the Corpus Hermeticum.” In New Perspectives on Renaissance Thought: Essays in the History of Science, Education, and Philosophy in Memory of Charles B. Schmitt. Edited by John Henry and Sarah Hutton, 38–47. London: Duckworth, 1990.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. Leading scholar of Ficino studies suggests that Ficino’s interest in Hermetism came from Saint Augustine and Lactantius, both of whom asserted its antiquity, and not from Neoplatonism. Claims that the influence of Hermetism on his thought was early and limited.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Allen, Michael J. B. Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato’s Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
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  499. This study of Ficino’s commentary on this enigma from Book 8 of the Republic includes four substantial essays, the last of which examines the astrological implications of Ficino’s commentary; Latin editions with facing English translations of three relevant texts (Ficino’s argument, his translation of Plato, and his commentary); and four appendixes (the Greek version Ficino probably used, earlier humanist versions, Ficino’s Timaeus commentary, and a table referencing this edition’s pagination with other editions).
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Bullard, Melissa Meriam. “The Inward Zodiac: A Development in Ficino’s Thought on Astrology.” Renaissance Quarterly 43.4 (1990): 687–708.
  502. DOI: 10.2307/2862785Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. Suggests that Ficino accepted a more divinatory astrology early in his career but modified it and that by the time he wrote Three Books on Life, his approach was more psychological.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Ficino, Marsilio. Three Books on Life. Edited and translated by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1989.
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  507. Ficino’s treatise on maintaining the health of the scholar uses not only medicine but also psychology, astrology, and magic. This Latin edition with an en face translation includes a considerable introduction with commentary notes and an index of medical terms.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Gentile, Sebastiano, and Carlos Gilly. Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Ermete Trismegisto/Marsilio Ficino and the Return of Hermes Trismegistus. Florence: Central Di, 1999.
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  511. Catalogue of the 1999–2000 exhibition in the Laurenziana with Italian and English text.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Robert Fludd
  514.  
  515. Fludd (b. 1574–d. 1637) was an English physician and occult thinker who combined Platonic philosophy, Neoplatonism, Christian theology, and Kabbalah to form a hierarchy of being descending from the Trinity into increasing materiality. His writing aroused the opposition of Johannes Kepler and others. Kings James I and Charles I were his patrons. Huffman 1988 focuses on Fludd’s writings; Godwin 1979 presents illustrations from his work.
  516.  
  517. Godwin, Joscelyn. Robert Fludd: Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1979.
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  519. Visual material was very important in Fludd’s outlook. This work reproduces and explains 122 significant plates from Utriusque cosmia historia and other works. Includes an introductory biography.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Huffman, William H. Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance. London: Routledge, 1988.
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  523. Examines Fludd’s works in the context of the late Renaissance. Suggests, contrary to Frances A. Yates, that he was not a Rosicrucian.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Simon Forman
  526.  
  527. A practicing physician without a university medical education, Forman (b. 1552–d. 1611) was very controversial in his day. He survived the plague in 1592 and used his success in conquering the disease to fashion himself into a successful physician using chemical remedies and astrology. Rowse 1974 agrees with Forman’s contemporaries who called him a quack, but Traister 2001 and Kassell 2005 give a more nuanced reading of his practice.
  528.  
  529. Kassell, Lauren. Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman; Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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  531. Focuses on Forman’s practice as a medical practitioner; his studies and use of astrology, alchemy, and Hermetism; and his conflict with the College of Physicians. Includes a close reading of his casebooks.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Rowse, A. L. Simon Forman: Sex and Society in Shakespeare’s Age. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974.
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  535. Although this book may be best known for having suggested Emilia Lanier as Shakespeare’s dark lady, it is the first biography of Forman to make extensive use of his manuscripts. Emphasizes the titillating. Sees Forman’s successes as examples of Elizabethan folly and suggestibility.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Traister, Barbara Howard. The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
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  539. Nuanced biography based on careful reading of the Forman manuscripts. Shows Forman as a working physician, thinker, and observer of London in Elizabethan England and questions his reputation as notorious and a charlatan. Appendix lists contents of the Ashmole Forman manuscripts.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Galileo Galilei
  542.  
  543. The Tuscan physicist and astronomer Galileo (b. 1564–d. 1642) is known as one of the great founders of modern science because of his development of the science of mechanics. He was also a supporter of Copernican astronomy who was punished by the Catholic Church for his views. There are few, scattered documents about his attitude toward astrology, but as Campion and Kollerstrom 2003 and Albini 2008 show, it was a part of his worldview.
  544.  
  545. Albini, Andrea. Oroscopi e cannocchiali: Galileo, gli astrologi e la nuova scienza. Grottaferrata, Italy: Avverbi, 2008.
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  547. Overview of Galileo’s relationship to astrology. While the author shows Galileo’s increasing skepticism, Galileo repudiated prognostications and alchemy but not birth charts. Suggests that the Morandi prophecy about the imminent death of Urban VIII, which turned the pope against astrology, had affected Galileo’s trial because Galileo was also known as an astrologer. Appendixes include brief biographies of recurring names and a glossary of astrological and astronomical terms.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Campion, Nicholas, and Nick Kollerstrom, eds. Special Issue: Galileo’s Astrology. Culture and Cosmos 7.1 (2003).
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  551. This issue of the journal devoted to Galileo as both practicing and believing astrologer includes translations of statements about astrology by Galileo, reproductions of horoscopes and other astrological material, and reprints and translations of articles and excerpts as well as several original articles.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Johannes Kepler
  554.  
  555. Kepler (b. 1571–d. 1630) is best known as an astronomer who formulated three laws of planetary motion. He was also an astrologer and openly defended the practice of astrology. Kepler tried to reform astrology so that it focused on observable phenomena that resulted from the planetary orbits. He also tried to fit the universe into a harmonious whole using mathematics, music, astronomy, and astrology. Simon 1979 and Boner 2013 show Kepler’s astrology in relationship to his astronomy. Field 1984 offers general introductions to his astrology, and Field 1988 tries to see how the search for harmonies fit in with his overall thought. Stephenson 1994 focuses on the astronomical context of Kepler’s ideas about celestial harmonies.
  556.  
  557. Boner, Patrick J. Kepler’s Cosmological Synthesis: Astrology, Mechanism and the Soul. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013.
  558. DOI: 10.1163/9789004246096Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. Based principally on Kepler’s writings on the supernova of 1604 and on comets, argues that Kepler had a vitalistic, animistic view of these phenomena, which bridged his ideas on astronomy and astrology. Critiques the focus on mechanism.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Field, Judith V. “A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 31.3 (1984): 189–272.
  562. DOI: 10.1007/BF00327703Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. General overview of Kepler’s reform of astrology. Argues that his inability to reject astrology was related to his continuing belief in a finite universe. Includes a translation of De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Field, Judith V. Kepler’s Geometrical Cosmology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
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  567. Looks at Kepler’s ideas on astronomy, astrology, music, and mathematics in light of the classical works of Plato, Proclus, Euclid, and Ptolemy. Sees the harmonic theories as a revision of Ptolemy’s Harmonica and the result of Kepler’s Platonism; denies Pythagorean and Neoplatonic foundations.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Simon, Gérard. Kepler: Astronome, astrologue. Paris: Gallimard, 1979.
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  571. Shows how his astrological ideas fit in with his ideas about astronomy and celestial physics.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Stephenson, Bruce. The Music of the Heavens: Kepler’s Harmonic Astronomy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
  574. DOI: 10.1515/9781400863822Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. Casts Kepler as a successor to the Ptolemaic tradition of universal harmony in the Harmonice mundi. Shows the complexity of Keplerian concepts, which made the work difficult for contemporaries to understand. Denies that Kepler’s harmonic theories were mystical.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Athanasius Kircher
  578.  
  579. Kircher (b. 1602–d. 1680) was a German Jesuit who resided in Rome and was a prolific writer on a wide variety of subjects—magnetism, acoustics, astronomy, astrology, numerology, ciphers, geology, archaeology, philology, and, of course, theology. He established a museum at the Collegio Romano that was an important resource for study. He was long regarded as a curiosity of the baroque era, but recent scholarship regards him more favorably. Stolzenberg 2001 and Findlen 2004 take a broad look at Kircher’s accomplishments. Siebert 2006 examines his work on cosmology. Godwin 1979 focuses on illustrations from his books. Findlen 1994 represents him in the context of collecting and the study of natural history.
  580.  
  581. Findlen, Paula. Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
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  583. Important work that looks at the transformation of collections of natural curiosities into museums and centers of learning about natural life in Italy. Kircher plays a central role in the narrative.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Findlen, Paula, ed. Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything. New York: Routledge, 2004.
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  587. Articles about the context in which Kircher worked and his varied interests, including Kabbalah and natural philosophy.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Godwin, Joscelyn. Athanasius Kircher: A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979.
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  591. A collection of illustrations from Kircher’s books with explanatory captions and a short biographical essay.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Siebert, Harald. Die groβe kosmologische Kontroverse: Rekonstruktionsversuche anhand des Itinerarium exstaticum von Athanasius Kircher SJ, 1602–1680. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006.
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  595. A study of Kircher’s cosmological ideas, which were based on the Tychonic system, as expressed in his Ecstatic Journey. Shows the work as an important vehicle for Kircher’s ideas about magnetism.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Stolzenberg, Daniel, ed. The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries, 2001.
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  599. A volume brought out to celebrate the arrival of the collection of Kircher’s works at Stanford University, with articles that range over all his many interests and explore the audiences for his work.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. William Lilly
  602.  
  603. Lilly (b. 1602–d. 1681) was a popular astrologer who gained fame because he predicted the defeat of King Charles I of England in the battle of Naseby in 1643. He was also investigated for his prediction of the Great Fire of London of 1666. He wrote his principles of prediction in Christian Astrology, which was published in 1647 and has continued to be in print ever since. Parker 1975 presents a biography in the popular mode, while Geneva 1995 focuses on the relationship of astrology to politics.
  604.  
  605. Geneva, Ann. Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
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  607. A close reading of Lilly’s political prognostications, particularly the defeat of King Charles I, and methods of interpretation in the context of English astrological practice in the 16th and 17th centuries. Focuses on the language of astrological interpretation.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Parker, Derek. Familiar to All: William Lilly and Astrology in the Seventeenth Century. London: Jonathan Cape, 1975.
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  611. Biography intended for a popular audience. Has extensive quotations from Lilly but cites no sources.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Isaac Newton
  614.  
  615. Since the 18th century, Newton (b. 1642–d. 1727) has been regarded as the pinnacle of the early modern revolution in science. But when Newton’s papers were donated by John Maynard Keynes to King’s College, Cambridge, after his death in 1946, they showed that Newton was an alchemical adept. Westfall 1983 was one of the earliest works to utilize these papers, and Richard S. Westfall’s biography of Newton incorporates his alchemical research. Dobbs 1975 and Dobbs 1991 focus on Newton’s alchemy and how it may have influenced his physics.
  616.  
  617. Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy; or, “The Hunting of the Greene Lyon.” Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
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  619. Focuses on Newton’s early alchemical research in an attempt to understand how he tried to integrate alchemical ideas with the mechanical philosophy.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton’s Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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  623. Looks at eight of Newton’s alchemical manuscripts produced between the 1660s and the 1690s, five of which are printed in appendixes. Suggests that Newton’s alchemy was inspired by his attempt to understand divine activity in the world, and this affected his thinking on gravity.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Westfall, Richard S. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
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  627. This attempt at a comprehensive biography of Newton by a leading scholar utilizes the research into his unpublished material and correspondence to incorporate his theological and alchemical thought into the mechanical philosophy. Presents Newton as a lone genius. Originally published in 1980.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
  630.  
  631. In his short life, Pico (b. 1463–d. 1494) made a big impact on Renaissance thought. Today he is best known for his “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” which is generally interpreted as expressing a belief in the unlimited human capabilities. Pico studied widely and presented nine hundred theses on different aspects of knowledge from the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance periods, including forms of magic. Farmer 1998 presents the theses and discusses them. Wirszubski 1989 shows Pico’s command of Kabbalistic methods in the theses, while Copenhaver 1999 builds on Chaim Wirszubski’s work. Black 2006 examines Pico’s Heptaplus. At the end of his life, Pico repudiated astrology in his Disputations against Judicial Astrology. Vanden Broecke 2003 suggests the repudiation was not complete and shows its effects on writers in Louvain. Valcke 2005 and Dougherty 2008 present more general depictions of Pico’s thought.
  632.  
  633. Black, Crofton. Pico’s Heptaplus and Biblical Hermeneutics. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
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  635. This study of Pico’s allegorical interpretation of the creation story of Genesis focuses on his use of Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, and Scholastic epistemology.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Copenhaver, Brian. “Number, Shape, and Meaning in Pico’s Christian Cabala: The Upright Tsade, the Closed Mem, and the Gaping Jaws of Azazel.” In Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe. Edited by Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi, 25–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1999.
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  639. Focuses on two unusual characters in Hebrew to show the importance of Kabbalah and astrology in Pico’s Conclusions.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Dougherty, Michael V., ed. Pico della Mirandola: New Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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  643. Essays on various aspects of Pico’s life, works, and thought. While the essay by Sheila J. Rabin focuses on magic and astrology, all the essays contain relevant material.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Farmer, S. A. Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486); The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems. Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998.
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  647. Latin edition and facing translation of Pico’s Conclusions with considerable introduction discussing the theses, the context of the debate, syncretism, and the relationship to his treatise against astrology. Suggests that the editors of the Disputations tampered with the text.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Valcke, Louis. Pic de la Mirandole: Un itinéraire philosophique. Paris: Belles Lettres, 2005.
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  651. In-depth look at the ideas and writings of Pico that attempts to make sense of the author, who both incorporated Kabbalah into his philosophy and wrote against astrology. Sees Aristotelianism as more abiding than Neoplatonism in Pico’s thought.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. vanden Broecke, Steven. The Limits of Influence: Pico, Louvain, and the Crisis of Renaissance Astrology. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
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  655. Discussion of Pico’s Disputations against Astrology, which the author sees as primarily directed against popular astrology based on conjunction theories and not against all astrology. Describes its reception by astrologers in Louvain who used it in their attempts to reform astrology.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Wirszubski, Chaim. Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
  658. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674863149Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  659. Pathbreaking study of Pico’s use of Kabbalah that shows how much he absorbed the mystical techniques of Kabbalah and used them to create his own form of Christian mysticism.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Johannes Trithemius
  662.  
  663. Trithemius (b. 1462–d. 1516) was a Benedictine abbot who early on engaged in humanist studies, sought monastic reform, and pursued mystical theology. Toward the end of the 15th century, he turned to magic; his earliest work of magic, the Steganographia, was written about 1499. In addition to cryptography, it was grounded in astrology, numerology, alchemy, and Kabbalah. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (see Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim) was his student. Trithemius was accused of being engaged in black magic. Brann 1999 explores the context of Trithemius’s studies.
  664.  
  665. Brann, Noel L. Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.
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  667. An in-depth examination of Trimethius’s studies of magic in the context of Renaissance humanism, movements for religious reform, and witch hunts. Claims Trimethius believed his studies entirely orthodox—in fact, a handmaiden to theology.
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