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

Paola Zambelli is Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Florence, Italy.

'Un certo tipo di storiografia anglo-americana ci ha negli ultimi anni messo in guardia dall’essere presentist in materia di storia; Zambelli ci convince del contrario e ci esorta invece ad un uso sapiente e accorto del senno di poi.' Bruniana and Campanelliana

• Contents: Preface; Part 1 Astrology and Magic as Theories: Theories on astrology and magic (1348-1586) in recent interpretations; Imagination and its power: desire and transitive or psychosomatic imagination; Pietro Pomponazzi's De immortalitate and his clandestine De incantionibus: Aristotelianism, eclecticism or libertinism? Part 2 Birth, Catastrophe, Cycles and Other Astrological Themes: 'Creating worlds and then laying them waste': the cyclical nature of history: notes on historians and on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; 'The earth was like a sponge and men lived within it': ideas on spontaneous generation of man among Islamic and Latin thinkers. Part 3 Astrologers and Magicians in their Historical Role: Astrologers' theory of history; Many ends for the World: Luca Gaurico, instigator of the debate in Italy and Germany. Part 4 Methodological Notes: Alexandre Koyré and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl: from collective representations to paradigms of scientific thought; From Menocchio to Piero della Francesca: the work of Carlo Ginzburg; From the quaestiones to the essais: on the autonomy and methods of the history of philosophy; Bibliography of Zambelli's writings; Indexes.