Magus

“A brilliant reassessment of the magus and the role of magic in the philosophical and practical worlds of Renaissance Europe. Grafton’s eloquent study profoundly expands our understanding of the range and intellectual context of thinkers such as Marsilio Ficino, Johannes Trithemius, and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. In the process, it deepens our understanding of an entire era.”—Pamela O. Long, author of Engineering the Eternal City

“Magus is a thought-provoking study of ‘natural magic’ and its early modern practitioners, the wandering European scholars who were at once praised as divinely inspired and denounced as diabolical charlatans. Carefully presenting these complex, elusive personalities on their own terms, Anthony Grafton’s analysis of the magi is as closely woven as their schemes for calling down the powers that bind the universe.”—Ingrid D. Rowland, author of From Pompeii

“Grafton brings clarity and verve to the study of Renaissance magicians, placing them in the motley company not only of humanists and Kabbalists, astrologers and necromancers, but also of cryptographers, forgers, and ‘engineers.’ He surveys a world peopled by striking individuals whose magical adventures and speculations are inseparable from the personalities that animated them.”—Richard Kieckhefer, author of Magic in the Middle Ages

“A new understanding of the Renaissance—and a new understanding of magic—springs to life in this erudite, witty, and eminently readable book.”—Lauren Kassell, author of Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London