Astrology and Magic from the Medieval Latin and Islamic World to Renaissance Europe

Theories and Approaches

Paola Zambelli

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781040247662
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

Astrology and Magic from the Medieval Latin and Islamic World to Renaissance Europe brings together ten of Paola Zambelli's papers on the subject, four of which are published in English for the first time. The papers in Part I of this volume deal with theories: the ideas of astrology and magic held by Renaissance thinkers; astrologers' ideas on universal history and its cycles; i.e. catastrophes and rebirths, theories; and myths regarding the spontaneous generation of man himself. Part II focuses on the role of astrologers in Renaissance society. As political counsellors, courtiers, and academics, their ideas were diffused and appreciated in both popular and high culture. Part III looks at the Great Conjunction of 1524 and on the long and extended debate surrounding it, which would not have been possible prior to Gutenberg, since astrologers printed numberless booklets (full of religious and political innuendo) predicting the catastrophe - flood, as well as earthquake or fire - foreseen for February 1524 (which, in the event, proved to be a month of extraordinary mild weather). Part IV reprints some review-articles of twentieth century scholars whose writing has contributed to our understanding of the historical problems concerning magic and other connected debates.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• I Theories on astrology and magic (1348–1586) in recent interpretations Rinascimento 27, 1987, pp. 95–119 (English Translation)
• II Imagination and its power: desire and transitive or psychosomatic imagination Miscellanea mediaevalia 17 (Köln-Thomas Institut, 1984). Berlin: De Gruyter, 1985, pp. 188–206 (English Translation)
• III Pietro Pomponazzi's De immortalitate and his clandestine De incantationibus: Aristotelianism, eclecticism or libertinism? Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 6, 2001
• IV ‘Creating worlds and then laying them waste’. The cyclical nature of history: notes on historians and on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Filosofia e cultura. Per Eugenio Garin, eds M. Ciliberto and C. Vasoli. Rome: Editori riuniti, 1991, pp. 372–394 (English Translation)
• V ‘The earth was like a sponge and men lived within it’: ideas on spontaneous generation of man among Islamic and Latin thinkers Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 87, 2008, pp. 30–58 (English Translation)
• VI Astrologers’ theory of history ‘Astrologi hallucinati’: Stars and the End of the World in Luther's time, ed. P. Zambelli. Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 1984
• VII Many ends for the world: Luca Gaurico instigator of the debate in Italy and in Germany ‘Astrologi hallucinati’: Stars and the End of the World in Luther's time, ed. P. Zambelli. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986
• VIII Alexandre Koyré and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl: from collective representations to paradigms of scientific thought Science in Context 8, 1995
• IX From Menocchio to Piero della Francesca: the work of Carlo Ginzburg The Historical Journal 28, 1985
• X From the quaestiones to the essais: on the autonomy and methods of the history of philosophy Science, Politics and Social Practice: Essays on Marxism and Science, Philosophy of Culture and the Social Sciences, in Honour of Robert S. Cohen, eds K. Gavroglu, J. Stachel and M. W. Wartofsky (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 164). Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994
• Bibliography of Paola Zambelli's writings
• Index nominum
• Index rerum