Hermes and the Sibyl: A Note on Ficino's Pimander

1977 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Purnell
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Saint Augustine ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Marsilio Ficino ◽  
The Status ◽  
Hermes Trismegistus ◽  
Corpus Hermeticum

In April of 1463 Marsilio Ficino put the final touches on what was to be one of his most important and influential writings, his Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum undertaken at the request of Cosimo de’ Medici. Revered as the work of the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, an authority mentioned with respect by Saint Augustine and Lactantius, the Hermetic texts came to occupy a position of preeminence in philosophical, literary, and artistic circles during the next one hundred and fifty years, principally in the form into which they were cast by Ficino. The status of Hermes as a philosophical source and as a link in the chain of ‘ancient theologians’ who foretold the truths of Christian revelation continued well into the seventeenth century.

Florence, 1492: The Reappearance of Plotinus*

1996 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 488-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri D. Saffrey
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Saint Augustine ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Western World ◽  
Marsilio Ficino ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the western world, Plotinus was only a name until 1492. None of his treatises had been translated during the Middle Ages, and the translations dating back to antiquity had been lost. He was not totally unknown, however, thanks to scholars like Firmicus Maternus, Saint Augustine, Macrobius, and to those parts of the works of Proclus translated in the thirteenth century by William of Moerbeke. But Plotinus's own writings remained completely unknown,and as Vespasiano da Bisticci observed in his Vite, “senza i libri non si poteva fare nulla” (“without the books, nothing can be done”). This fact was to change completely only with the publication by Marsilio Ficino of his Latin translation of the Enneads.

Mercantilism Revisited

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
The Status

The intention of this paper is to look at some of the problems which arise in attempts to provide ‘explanations’ of mercantilism and especially its English manifestations. By ‘explanations’ I mean the efforts which some writers have made causally to relate the historical appearance of sets of economic notions or general recommendations on economic policy or even acts of economic policy by the state to particular long-term phenomena of, or trends in, economic history. Historians of economic thought have not generally made such attempts. With a few exceptions they have normally concerned themselves with tracing and analysing the contributions to economic theory made by those labelled as mercantilists. The most extreme case of non-explanation is provided by Eli Heckscher's reiterated contention in his two massive volumes that mercantilism was not to be explained by reference to the economic circumstances of the time; mercantilist policy was not to be seen as ‘the outcome of the economic situation’; mercantilist writers did not construct their system ‘out of any knowledge of reality however derived’. So strongly held an antideterminist fortress, however congenial a haven for some historians of ideas, has given no comfort to other historians – economic or political, Marxist or non-Marxist – who obstinately exhibit empiricist tendencies. Some forays against the fortress have been made. Barry Supple's analysis of English commerce in the early seventeenth century and the resulting presentation of mercantilist thought and policy as ‘the economics of depression’ has passed into the textbooks and achieved the status of an orthodoxy.

Verse Miscellanies in the Eighteenth Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carly Watson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Distinct Kind

The eighteenth century was an age of miscellanies; thousands of miscellaneous collections containing verse appeared in print over the course of the century. This article considers miscellanies as a distinct kind of verse collection; whereas anthologies promote authorship as a category of literary definition, miscellanies invite readers to sample a variety of poetic forms and genres and often include poems without authorial attribution. The eighteenth-century tradition of miscellanies devoted exclusively to poetry has its roots in the late seventeenth century, and many aspects of seventeenth-century miscellany culture persisted well into the next century. This article looks at a number of ways in which verse miscellanies offer fresh perspectives on eighteenth-century literary culture. The popularity and reception of particular poems and poets, the formation of the English literary canon, and the status of authorship are all areas in which miscellanies make a significant contribution to critical understanding.

scholarly journals ʿIlm al-kalām in Mauretanien anhand maurischer Kommentare zur Iḍāʾat ad-duǧunna fī iʿtiqād ahl as-sunna von al-Maqqarī (st. 1041/1632)

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 751-794
Author(s):  
Gunhild Graf
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Education Curriculum ◽  
Western Sahara ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Islamic Science ◽  
Characteristic Features

Abstract The present article intends to contribute to the research on the kalām (“theology”) in Mauritania. So far, this particular Islamic science has received little attention of Islamic studies outside Mauritania. Around a dozen Mauritanian and non-Mauritanian commentaries on the highly popular didactic poem Iḍāʾat ad-duǧunna of al-Maqqarī – until today part of the education curriculum in the cultural area of the Western Sahara – provide the basis of the present paper which is divided in two parts: Part one presents some characteristic features of Mauritanian literature and the status of ʿilm al-kalām in Mauritania. Part two deals with the Iḍāʾa and its (Mauritanian) commentaries. Some selected key verses of the Iḍāʾa and their interpretation by various commentators are discussed here. Particular attention is paid to autobiographical notes and the elaboration on some special terms (for example tauḥīd, ʿilm, auwal wāǧib). Further topics addressed include the dialogue between al-Ǧubbāʾī and al-Ašʿarī and the report on Ibn Barraǧān’s prediction of the conquest of Jerusalem from the crusaders by the Muslims in the year 583 H. Since many Mauritanian manuscripts about kalām have not been edited to the present day, even an approximate overview on the Mauritanian kalām literature is still out of sight. However, the investigation of the Mauritanian ʿilm al-kalām as a subbranch of studies on later kalām since the seventeenth century promises to provide highly relevant and intriguing insights.

scholarly journals Genrens tøven

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (103) ◽  
pp. 108-137
Author(s):  
Carsten Sestoft
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Book Market ◽  
English Novel ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Historical Semantics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Or History

Romanens status i det 17. århundredes Frankrig The hesitations of a genre: The status of the novel in seventeenth-century FranceIn answering the question: What was the novel in seventeenth-century France? – this article provides insight into some important points of the early history of the genre. The contradiction between its non-existence in official (Aristotelian) poetics and its existence as a popular commodity on the book market was, in the course of the seventeenth century, reconciled in the emergent category of belles lettres as a plurality of genres mainly defined by their public of honnêtes gens, while attempts at legitimizing the novel as belonging to such Aristotelian genres as epic or history generally failed; and at the end of the century a number of convergences – between epic and novel, between the designations roman and nouvelle, and between the ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of the novel – seem to point to the fact that the social existence of the genre had been strengthened, even if it was the English novel of the eighteenth century that could be said to reap the profits of this stronger position. Using historical semantics and cultural sociology to study the status of the novel in seventeenth-century France thus leads to a clearer understanding of the specificity of the novel as a literary and cultural genre.

scholarly journals Francesco Zorzi és Hannibal Rosseli a prisca theologiáról

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-114
Author(s):  
Endre Ádám Hamvas
Keyword(s):  
Marsilio Ficino ◽  
Corpus Hermeticum

1584-ben Krakkóban megjelent egy Pymander Mercurii Trismegisti, De Coelo című mű, amely formáját tekintve kommentár a Marsilio Ficino által latinra fordított hermetikus corpushoz. A több kötetes mű szerzője a ferences Hannibal Rosseli volt, aki művében nemcsak a skolasztikus módszert követte, hanem a reneszánsz hermetizmus hagyományához is kapcsolódott. A tanulmányban azt a kérdést vizsgálom, hogy Rosseli miként használta fel a Marsilio Ficino által vázolt prisca theologia fogalmát, és a pogány bölcsességnek a katolikus teológiával való ötvözése milyen lehetséges következményekkel járt.Következtetésem az, hogy Rosseli művére Ficino mellett komoly hatást gyakorolt a ferences spiritualitás is, mégpedig a velencei ferences Francesco Zorzi munkásságának köszönhetően. Azonban a szerző műve hangvételét a trienti zsinat utáni helyzethez igazította, ügyelve arra, hogy elkerülje annak látszatát, hogy a hermetikus filozófiával eretnek tanításokat keverne a katolikus teológiába.Függelékben közlöm Ficinónak a Corpus Hermeticum latin fordításához írott előszavát.

Paradoxes of Christian Solitude in the Seventeenth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Louis Quantin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Moral Dimension ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Status ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The One

AbstractIn seventeenth-century religious discourse, the status of solitude was deeply ambivalent: on the one hand, solitude was valued as a setting and preparation for self-knowledge and meditation; on the other hand, it had negative associations with singularity, pride and even schism. The ambiguity of solitude reflected a crucial tension between the temptation to withdraw from contemporary society, as hopelessly corrupt, and endeavours to reform it. Ecclesiastical movements which stood at the margins of confessional orthodoxies, such as Jansenism (especially in its moral dimension of Rigorism), Puritanism and Pietism, targeted individual conscience but also worked at controlling and disciplining popular behaviour. They may be understood as attempts to pursue simultaneously withdrawal and engagement.

Sublimity by fiat

2021 ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
Micha Lazarus
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Alternative Route ◽  
Literary Influence ◽  
The Sublime

Longinus’ On the Sublime is thought to have been ushered onto the English literary scene by Boileau’s Traité du Sublime (1674). The search for antecedents to Boileau has yielded scattered references in Rainolds, Chapman, Junius, Milton, and a few rhetorical textbooks, but not enough to indicate a school of thought or even particular enthusiasm. The reception of Langbaine’s Latin translation of 1636 hardly predicts the vast literary influence the treatise would wield by the end of the century. A more promising readership may, however, be suggested by a string of citations in seventeenth-century sermons. In Longinus’ quotation from Genesis and praise of Moses’s oratory, clergymen found literary and rhetorical roots for their explorations of divine sublimity. Developing alongside Longinus’ reception in Christian rhetorics, these citations offer an alternative route for the early association of On the Sublime with Milton’s Christian epic, and its eventual entry into the literary mainstream.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
John Owen Havard
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Disaffection ◽  
Opening Section

Disaffected Parties offers a prehistory for modern political disaffection that underscores literature’s importance as a means of thinking about a diverse array of relationships with politics, in this period and beyond. The Introduction lays out some of the historical frameworks and changing conceptions of politics—including the understandings of disaffection and the expanded conception of political parties—employed in the book, while also looking to the wider questions posed by the disaffected stance and its bearing on the status of the literary. The opening section explores the political valences of disaffection from the mid-seventeenth century down to the present, employing the term’s historical and conceptual proximity to terms including disinterest, dissent, and indifference to reflect on the prospect of a literature of disaffection (defined by its aspiration to absolute withdrawal and disinterest, but also animated by disavowed investments). The Introduction goes on to explain the historical rationale for the book and to outline the book’s approach to literary form.

Hamlet as Philosopher

2020 ◽  
pp. 238-303
Author(s):  
Rhodri Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
William Shakespeare ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Universe

This chapter assesses Hamlet's reason and his accomplishments as a philosopher. It outlines the rudiments of philosophy as the early moderns understood it, before establishing a dialogue between these models of philosophy and the text of Hamlet. In and through the figure of Hamlet, William Shakespeare exposes not only the limitations of humanist philosophy but the inadequacy of most attempts to supplant it at the cusp of the seventeenth century. The chapter then examines Hamlet's efforts to understand the nature of the universe to which he belongs, the status of humankind within it, and the nature of being. After probing Hamlet's deliberations on vengeance, it follows his turn towards questions of religion and of theology, and especially towards those of providence. One of the many remarkable features of Hamlet's attachment to providence is that he takes it not to be the harmonious but largely inscrutable force through which the universe was created and now operates, but as something to be invoked and appropriated in service of his moral deliberations.

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