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Das Ende des Hermetismus

Historische Kritik und Neue Naturphilosophie in der Spätrenaissance
Edited by Martin Mulsow
[The End of Hermeticism. Historical Criticism and the New Philosophy of Nature in the Late Renaissance. Edited by Martin Mulsow.]
2002. IX, 405 pages.
Published in German.
  • sewn paper
  • available
  • 978-3-16-147778-2
Summary
When did the Renaissance end? With provocative precision, Frances Yates said it ended in 1614, the year in which Isaac Casaubon exposed the allegedly ancient writings of Hermes Trismegistos as a forgery from late antiquity. However Casaubon was not the first person to produce arguments against the »Corpus Hermeticum«. During the 1580s in Venice and Padua there had already been an intense debate regarding the date, a debate which is documented in this volume. The essays, written by internationally renowned scholars of the Renaissance, place this in the context of recent developments in the philosophy of nature by Telesio and Patrizi and reveal the ideological interests of hermetists and anti-hermetists. Thus the 'end of the Renaissance' and the 'end of hermeticism' came considerably earlier than researchers had assumed up to now.

Religion und Aufklärung (RuA)