Essay Review: Reappraisals in Renaissance Science: Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution

Kristeller P. O. , “Marsilio Ficino e Lodovico Lazzarelli: Contributo alla diffusione delle idee ermetiche nel Rinascimento”, Annali della R. Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Lettere, storia e filosofia, ser. 2, viii (1938), 237–62; idem, “Ancora per Giovanni Mercurio da Correggio”, La bibliofilia, xliii (1941), 23–28. Both are reprinted in Kristeller's Studies in Renaissance thought and letters (Rome, 1956), 221–57. Among Kristeller's other pieces also relevant is “Lodovico Lazzarelli e Giovanni da Correggio, due ermetici del Quattrocento e il manoscritto II.D.I.4 della Biblioteca Comunale degli Ardenti di Viterbo”, Biblioteca degli Ardenti della città di Viterbo: Studi e ricerche nel 150° della fondazione (Viterbo, 1961), 13–37.

See the article cited below in ref. 7. Cf. Scott W. Ferguson A. S. , Hermetica (Oxford, 1924–36), iv, pp. xlvi–xlix, and Corpus Hermeticum, ed. Nock A. D. Festugière A. J. (Paris, 1945–54), ii, 273–5.

See Dionisotti C. , “Ermolao Barbara e la fortuna di Suiseth”, in Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence, 1955), 219–53, and Garin E. , L'Età nuova (Naples, 1969), 139–77 (“La cultura fiorentina nella seconda meta del Trecento e i ‘Barbari britanni’”), and 449–75 (“Gli umanisti e la scienza”).

Garin E. , “Una fonte ermetica poco nota”, La Rinascita, iii (1940), 202–32; idem, “Magia e astrologia nella cultura del Rinascimento”, Belfagor, v (1950), 657–67; and idem, “Note sull'ermetismo del Rinascimento”, in Castelli E. (ed.), Testi umanistici su l'ermetismo (Rome, 1955), 7–19, among others. The second of these has been particularly important in the current re-evaluation of the role of magic in Renaissance culture. It is reprinted in the collection of Garin's papers entitled Medioevo e Rinascimento (Bari, 1954, and later editions).

Festugière A. J. , La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste (Paris, 1945–54).

Walker D. P. , Spiritual and demonic magic from Ficino to Campanella (London, 1958), and The ancient theology (London, 1972), incorporating material first published in the early 1950s.

Dannenfeldt K. H. , “Hermetica philosophica”, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, i (1960), 137–56 [with additional material by d'Alverny M. T. Silverstein T. ], which cites earlier literature.

Cf. especially Rossi P. , Francesco Bacone: Dalla magia alla scienza (Bari, 1957; English trans., 1968; rev. edition, Turin, 1974). See now also his “Hermeticism, rationality and the Scientific Revolution”, in Bonelli M. L. Righini Shea W. R. (eds), Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the Scientific Revolution (New York, 1975), 247–73, which is relevant to a number of questions raised in the present review.

For Vasoli, see Castelli (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 4), 79–104 and many other papers including those collected in Profezia e ragione (Naples, 1974).

For Zambelli, see Castelli (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 4), 105–62. Among her later important articles are “Il problema della magia naturale nel Rinascimento”, Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, xxviii (1973), 271–96, and “Platone, Ficino e la magia”, in Studia humanitatis: Ernesto Grossi zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Hora E. Kessler E. (Munich, 1973), 121–42.

Yates Frances , Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition (Chicago-London, 1964) and several later reprints and translations. The book was given a sympathetic review by Debus A. G. in Isis, Iv (1964), 389–91.

I reviewed Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition in International philosophical quarterly, iv (1964), 626–8, and Singleton C. (ed.), Art, science, and history in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1967), which contains Yates's essay, in The British journal for the history of science, v (1970), 98–99. Also relevant is Yates's article on Bruno in Dictionary of scientific biography, ii (1970), 539–44.

Rattansi P. M. , “Some evaluations of reason in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century natural philosophy”, in Teich M. Young R. (eds), Changing perspectives in the history of science. Essays in honour of Joseph Needham (London, 1973), 148–66, and Hesse M. B. , “Hermeticism and historiography: An apology for the internal history of science”, in Stuewer R. H. (ed.), Historical and philosophical perspectives of science (Minneapolis, 1970: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. v), 134–60, and “Reason and evaluation in the history of science”, in Changing perspectives …, 127–47.

I find this to be the case with Hesse's M. B. publications cited in the preceding note as well as with the derivative study, French P. J. , John Dee: The world of an Elizabethan magus (London, 1972), esp. 62–88 (“John Dee and the Hermetic philosophy”), and Burke J. G. , “Hermeticism as a Renaissance world view”, in Kinsman R. S. (ed.), The darker vision of the Renaissance (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1974), 95–117. There are many other examples which could be cited.

The tradition of writing general books on the Renaissance stemming from Burkhardt has usually followed a by now well-worn path. Platonism, poison, art history and pomp are given much emphasis, while topics such as science, Aristotelianism, and monasticism are woefully neglected. It is almost as though the topos of ‘Renaissance’ forbade the discussion of history of science other than a few clichés about Vesalius and Copernicus.

See below, ref. 28.

Westman is as unhappy as I am about the term ‘Hermeticism’ and selects the figures he does following Yates. I very much feel that we are in danger of seeing the term ‘Hermeticism’ adopted in the same way as ‘Paduan Averroism’ has been only to lead to an immense historiographical confusion. On this question see particularly Kristeller P. O. , “Paduan Averroism and Alexandrism in the light of recent studies”, in his Renaissance thought, ii (New York, 1965), 111–8; Gilbert N. W. , Renaissance concepts of method (New York, 1960), 52–3, and the papers by Lucchetta F. Schmitt C. B. forthcoming in the volume of Atti from the meeting on “L'Averroismo in Italia” held at Rome by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in April, 1977.

See, for example, the article by Firpo Luigi in Dizionario biografico degii Italiani, xvii (1974), 372–401, p. 374, based on the best sources.

See esp. Firpo L. , “Filosofia italiana e Controriforma: I. La condanna di F. Patrizi”, Rivista di filosofia, xl (1940), 139–75, and Gregory T. , “L'Apologia e le Declarationes di F. Patrizi”, in Medioevo e Rinascimento (ref. 3), 385–424. An important item of new information is found in Kristeller P. O. , “Francesco Patrizi da Cherso, Emendatio in libros suos novae philosophiae”, Rinascimento, xxi (1970), 215–18, which publishes the text of the retraction prepared by Patrizi for the publication of the Nova de universis philosophia at Ferrara in 1591. Among other things it contains texts touching on the motion of the earth.

See my “L'Introduction de la philosophie platonicienne dans l'enseignement des universités à la Renaissance”, in Platon et Aristote à la Renaissance (Paris, 1976: XVIe Colloque international de Tours), 93–104, esp. pp. 100–1, where further bibliography is given. Cf. Firpo , op. cit. (ref. 19), 53ff.

Besides the papers cited elsewhere see also his “Newton's alchemical studies”, in Science, medicine, and society in the Renaissance. Essays to honor Walter Pagel (New York, 1972), ii, 167–82.

See for example “Transmutation and immutability: Newton's doctrine of physical qualities”, Ambix, xiv (1967), 69–95; “Force, active principles, and Newton's invisible realm”, Ambix, xv (1968), 154–208; “Atoms and the ‘Analogy of Nature’: Newton's Third Rule of Philosophizing”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, i (1970), 3–58; and [with Heimann P. M. ] “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers: Concepts of matter in eighteenth century thought”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, ii (1971), 233–306.

Although the Stoics held that “no part of philosophy is separate from another part”, they divided the subject into the categories of logic, physics, and ethics (Diogenes Laertius, vii, 39–40). It is only recently that much serious attention has been given to the study of the first two branches by modern scholars. As yet the impact of this material on Renaissance and early modern thought has been little studied. The most detailed investigations of the Stoicism of the period, those of d'Angers J. Eymard (now collected in Récherches sur le stoicisme aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Hildesheim-New York, 1976)) deal almost exclusively with moral philosophy.

See McGuire , “Force, active principles …” (ref. 22), esp. 204f.

See ref. 14.

For two examples which I have discussed recently see my “John Case on Art and Nature”, Annals of science, xxxiii (1976), 543–59, and “Girolamo Borro's Multae sunt nostrarum ignorationum causae (Ms. Vat. Ross. 1009)”, Philosophy and Humanism: Renaissance essays in honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller (Leiden, 1976), 462–76, p. 471, n. 46. The same is also found, for example, in Lonicer Joannes , Librorum Aristotelis … compendium … (Marburg, 1540, fols 5r-7r [copy used: Freiburg-i.-Br. UB:D.1582]).

See, for example, the list of ten titles under Hermes (and variations) in Lipenius M. , Bibliotheca realis medica … (Frankfurt a. M., 1679), cols 205–6. Here, as in many other matters, Brucker was on the right track in calling the movement “Philosophia Pythagoreo-Platonico-Cabbalistica”. What he says is not without interest: “Ita vero novum philosophiae sectae genus prodiit, quod Pythagoreo-Platonico-Cabbalisti cum paradoxo quidem et syncretistico, at vero nomine recte appellamus. Hi enim philosophi cum in Italia a Graecis placita scholae Alexandrinae, syncretismo cuidam universali adaptata didicissent, et haec pro sinceris Pythagorae Platonisque sententiis habuissent, decepti venerandorum virorum, Abrahami, Mosis, Hermetis, Zoroastris, Orphei et similium nominibus, quae spurie philosophiae praetendebantur: Cabbalistica nonnulla incerta et adulterata ab impostoribus, et ex libris suppositis et corruptis hausta, iungentes novum illud sectae genus condiderunt, illique systema opinionum aliquod attemperarunt …” ( Brucker Jacob , Historia critica philosophiae … (Leipzig, 1742–67), iv, pt i, 354–5).

It is clearly brought out, however, in the important recent study, Tigerstedt E. N. , The decline and fall of the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato (Helsinki, 1974: Commentationes humanarum litterarum, vol. lii). See also Walton C. , “Ramus and Socrates”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxiv (1970), 119–39; Schmitt C. B. , Cicero Scepticus. A study of the influence of the Academica in the Renaissance (The Hague, 1972); and Jardine L. , “Lorenzo Valla and the intellectual origins of Humanist dialectic”, Journal of the history of philosophy, xv (1977), 143–64.

29 New material for the interpretation of the subject is to be found in Swogger J. H. , “Antonio degli Agli's Explanatio symbolorum Pythagore: An edition and study of the relationship to Marsilio Ficino” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1976).

See Purnell F. , “Jacopo Mazzoni and Galileo”, Physis, xiv (1972), 273–94, and Galluzzi P. , “Il ‘platonismo’ del tardo Cinquecento e la filosofia di Galileo”, in Zambelli P. (ed.), Ricerche sulla cultura dell'Italia moderna (Bari, 1973), 39–79.

A recent paper indicating some of the possibilities is Hutton S. , “Some Renaissance critiques of Aristotle's theory of time”, Annals of science, xxxiv (1977), 345–63.

Rosen E. , “Was Copernicus a Hermeticist?”, in Steuwer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 163–71, p. 171.

Recent work among these lines include the edition da Cherso Francesco Patrizi , Lettere ed opuscoli inediti, ed. Barbagli D. Aguzzi (Florence, 1975), to be used with the critical notes in Bolzoni L. , “A proposito di una recente edizione di inediti patriziani”, Rinascimento, xvi (1976), 133–56; Henry J. C. , “Francesco Patrizi and his concept of space: His contribution to the development of the concept of void and the infinite universe” (M.Phil. thesis. University of Leeds, 1977); and Maechling E. E. , “The metaphysics of light in the natural philosophy of Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529–1597)” (M.Phil. thesis, University of London, 1977).

Besides the work of Vasoli, Zambelli, and Purnell cited above in refs 9, 10 and 30, see also Purnell's “Francesco Patrizi and the critics of Hermes Trismegistus”, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance studies, vi (1976), 155–78, an important modification to Yates's work based on new research. An important new dimension to the subject is added by the recent study by Copenhaver B. P. , Symphorien Champier and the reception of the occultist tradition in Renaissance France (The Hague, 1978).

Note added in proof. A number of the points made in this review have been put forward in two notes by Garin Eugenio , Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, xxxi (1976), 462–6; xxxii (1977), 342–7. His acute remarks should be taken seriously into account by all interested in this subject.