Magus
The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A revelatory account of the magus - the learned magician - and his place in the world of Renaissance Europe
At the heart of the extraordinary ferment of the High Renaissance stood a distinctive, strange and beguiling figure: the magus. An unstable mix of scientist, bibliophile, engineer, fabulist and fraud, the magus ushered in modern physics and chemistry while also working on everything from secret codes to siege engines to magic tricks.
Anthony Grafton's wonderfully original book discusses the careers of men who somehow managed to be both figures of startling genius and - by some measures - credulous or worse. The historical Faust, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Trithemius and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa are all fascinating characters, closely linked to monarchs, artists and soldiers and sitting at the heart of any definition of why the Renaissance was a time of such restless innovation. The study of the stars, architecture, warfare, even medicine: all of these and more were revolutionized in some way by the experiments and tricks of these extraordinary individuals.
No book does a better job of allowing us to understand the ways that magic, religion and science were once so intertwined and often so hard to tell apart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Grafton (Inky Fingers) offers a superb account of the astrologers, alchemists, and sorcerers who practiced "natural magic" in Europe from the Middle Ages through early modernity. Grafton demonstrates that, while magical practice was already ubiquitous, what was innovative about these self-styled Learned Magicians was their belief that sorcery worked because of, and not despite, the rational laws of nature. Subjects include the historical Doctor Faustus, a "necromancer" whose exploits would become fodder for Marlowe and Goethe; the Renaissance humanist and reviver of Neoplatonist philosophy Marsilio Ficino; and the occultist and soldier Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. According to Grafton, these practitioners were united by their boosterism and a messianic regard for their vocation; understanding themselves to possess unprecedented technological control over the natural world, they believed they were contributing to an imminent scientific revolution that promised even greater control. Some of the magicians' pursuits were indeed precursors to modern science, such as Faustus's use of his "expert knowledge of optics, light and shadow" to conjure figures before a crowd. Grafton combines extensive research with a flair for the idiosyncrasies of biography, spinning charmingly digressive character portraits. (When a critic denounced Faustus at dinner, he threatened to disappear all the man's household pots and pans.) The result will delight readers interested in the historical intersection of art, science, and religion.
