180033 SE Renaissance Magic: Theories and Concepts (2011S)

The course seeks to provide a comprehensible exposition of the Renaissance Neoplatoic mgic as refelcted in the influential and widely read texts of Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), Agrippa vn Nettesheim and some later authors such as Giordano Bruno and Giambattista della Porta. By means of guided close readings of selected and key primary texts the seminar will provide an advanced introduction to the philosophical aspects and problems of this intellectual current, and the concomitant socio-political and intellectual backdrop; the seminar will provide an outline of some pre-modern conceptualizations of new epistemologies that were going in tandem with a re-assessment of the human emotional life. The focus on the changing intellectual culture of Early modern Italy will also touch the changing conditions of research.