White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions)

293 Pages·2007·3.99 MB·English

by  Paola Zambelli

White Magic, Black Magic in the
European Renaissance
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Studies in
Medieval and Reformation
Traditions
General Editor
Andrew Colin Gow
Edmonton, Alberta
In cooperation with
Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Berkeley, California
Sylvia Brown, Edmonton, Alberta
Berndt Hamm, Erlangen
Johannes Heil, Heidelberg
Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Tucson, Arizona
Martin Kaufhold, Augsburg
Jürgen Miethke, Heidelberg
M.E.H. Nicolette Mout, Leiden
Founding Editor
Heiko A. Oberman†
VOLUME CXXV
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White Magic, Black Magic in
the European Renaissance
By
Paola Zambelli
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2007
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN: 1573-4188
ISBN: 978-90-04-16098-9
© Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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printed in the netherlands
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This book is dedicated to two historians, Lauro Martines and Donald
Weinstein, very old friends of mine since the time when they were doing
research in the Archivio di Stato at Florence, where I used to work in
my youth as a keeper. Both of them were already outstanding writers
who opposed “political power [which] is irresponsible [. . . and] passes
into the hands of ruthless élites” (cf. RQ, LIX/4, 2006, p. 1184).
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ....................................................................... ix
Introduction: Must We Really Re-Appropriate Magic? ............ 1
PART I
WHITE MAGIC, BLACK MAGIC
1. Continuity in the De(cid:2) nition of Natural Magic from Pico
to Della Porta. Astrology and Magic in Italy and North
of the Alps ............................................................................. 13
2. Scholastic and Humanist Views of Hermetism. Witchcraft,
“Natural Magic”, Trithemius’ Magic and Agrippa’s Critical
Turn of Mind ........................................................................ 35
2.1. Medieval Hermetic Antecedents ................................... 35
2.2. Ficino and Pico .............................................................. 42
2.3. Hermetists in Germany ................................................. 43
3. Magic, Pseudepigraphy, Prophecies and Forgeries in
Trithemius’ Manuscripts. From Cusanus to Bovelles? .......... 73
3.1. To Publish or Not to Publish? ....................................... 73
3.2. Trithemius’ Passion for Magic ....................................... 75
3.3. Trithemius as a Prophet or Prognosticator ................... 78
3.4. Magical Authorities and Forgeries ................................. 80
3.5. Blessings and Exorcisms ................................................. 83
3.6. Trithemius and His German Contemporaries .............. 85
3.7. Ancient and Medieval Occult Sources .......................... 87
3.8. Denunciations and Self-Defences .................................. 92
3.9. Socratism and Cusanian Ignorance or Simplicity ........ 97
Appendix I Trithemius’ Bibliography for Necromancers ....... 101
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viii contents
PART II
AGRIPPA AS AN AUTHOR OF PROHIBITED BOOKS
4. Agrippa of Nettesheim as a Critical Magus ......................... 115
5. Magic and Radical Reformation in Agrippa of
Nettesheim .............................................................................. 138
Appendix II Recent Studies on Agrippa ................................. 183
PART III
BRUNO AS A READER OF PROHIBITED BOOKS
6. The Initiates and the Idiot. Conjectures on Some
Brunian Sources ..................................................................... 191
6.1. Bruno as a Reader of the Necromancers’ ‘theoricae’ ... 193
6.2. Bruno and the Paracelsian Revival ................................ 206
6.3. Bruno as a Reader of Lullian and Pseudo-Lullian
Works .............................................................................. 210
7. Hermetism and Magic in Giordano Bruno. Some
Interpretations from Tocco to Corsano, from Yates to
Ciliberto .................................................................................. 218
7.1. F. A. Yates, D. P. Walker and Other Scholars in the
Warburg Institute ........................................................... 219
7.2. Renaissance Magic as Seen by Yates and Walker ........ 227
7.3. Magic Tricks of Professor Ciliberto .............................. 232
Appendix III A Nolan before Bruno: Momus and Socratism
in the Renaissance ...................................................................... 254
Indexes
Index Nominum ..................................................................... 265
Index Rerum ........................................................................... 279
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Some of the present chapters (the Introduction, the (cid:2) rst chapter and the
Appendix to Part Three) were (cid:2) rst published in the Italian edition of
this book—Magia bianca, magia nera nel Rinascimento (Ravenna, A. Longo,
2004); others were originally published in periodicals or miscellanies and
I would like to thank the publishers of these for allowing me to reprint
them: the (cid:2) rst chapter appeared as ‘Astrology and Magic in Italy and
North of the Alps. Continuity in the De(cid:2) nition of Natural Magic from
Pico to Della Porta’, in Die Welt im Augenspiegel. Johannes Reuchlin und seine
Zeit, Akten des IV Reuchlin Kongresses (held in Pforzheim, Juni 1998), eds.
D. Hacke and B. Roeck, Stuttgart, Thorbecke, 2002, pp. 51–66; a few
pages in Italian have been published in Geogra(cid:2) a dei saperi. Scritti in
memoria di D. Pastine, a c. di D. Ferraro e G. Gigliotti (Firenze, Le Lettere,
1999), pp. 24–41. A shortened version of chapter 2 was published as
‘Scholastiker und Humanisten. Agrippa und Trithemius zur Hexerei.
Die natürliche Magie und die Entstehung kritischen Denkens’ in Archiv
für Kulturgeschichte, 67, 1985, pp. 41–79; a complete version appeared
under the title ’Scholastic and Humanist Views of Hermeticism and
Witchcraft’, in Hermeticism and the Renaissance, eds. A. G. Debus and
I. Merkel (Washington, Associated University Presses, 1988), pp. 321–350.
Chapter three uses and rewrites two notes published in miscellanies
printed in Belgium and in Poland: ‘Pseudepigra(cid:2) a e magia secondo
l’abate Tritemio’, in Ratio et superstitio. Études . . . Vescovini (Turnhout,
Brepols, 2003), pp. 347–368; ‘Dal Cusano al Bovelles? Nota sulle idee
e le fonti di J. Trithemius’, Archiwum Historii Filozo(cid:2) i, XLVII, 2002 (=
Festschrift Szczucki ), pp. 199–211. ‘Magic and Radical Reformation in
Agrippa of Nettesheim’ (2), Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute,
XXXIX, 1976, pp. 69–103.
Unfortunately I cannot thank anyone for the chapter 7 on ‘Hermetism
and Magic in Giordano Bruno. Some Interpretations from Tocco to
Corsano, from Yates to Ciliberto’, of which a preprint was produced and
printed in July 2003 for the proceedings of a conference on ‘Giordano
Bruno nella cultura del suo tempo’, organized by Alfonso Ingegno for
the University of Urbino and for the Institute of Philosophical Studies.
This off-print was published in Naples, Città del Sole, 2004; some time
after the preprint had been published in 150 copies, Avvocato Gerardo
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