Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Astrology
and
magic
267
GIOVANNI
PICO
AND
THE
SECULAR
ARISTOTELIANS
Given
his own
dispositions
and
those
of
his age,
it is not
surprising
that
Jacob
Burckhardt
saw the
question
of
occultism differently.
He
relegated magic
and astrology
to the
last pages
of Die
Cultur der Renaissance in Italien,
where,
in
his
final chapter
on
morality
and
religion,
he
claimed
that
the
revival
of
antiquity affected Renaissance belief'most powerfully
. . . not
through
any
doctrines
or
philosophical system
but
through
a
general tendency'
to
admire classical culture above
all
others. Among
the
weapons
of the
'army
of
superstition' against which
'the
clear Italian spirit' fought
the
good fight
of
reason were magic, astrology
and
other delusions which, according
to
Burckhardt, appealed
to the
uncultured popular mind
but
also found
support
in the
seductive dogmas
of
antiquity. Even Ficino,
the
'distin-
guished' Platonist,
fell
prey
to
these errors.
By
contrast, Giovanni Pico's
attack
on
astrological determinism 'made
an
epoch
in the
subject',
and
Burckhardt believed
that
its
'first result.
. . was
that
the
astrologers ceased
to publish their doctrines'. This gross underestimate
of the
volume
of
astrological
publication
in
early modern Italy
can be
attributed
partially
to
the
state
of
historical scholarship
in
i860
and
partially
to
Burckhardt's
mentality, which permitted
him to fit the
evidence
to his
hermeneutic
strategies. Admiring
the
catholic syncretism
of
Giovanni
Pico,
'the
only
man
who . . .
defended
the
truth
... of all
ages against
the
one-sided
worship
of
classical antiquity', Burckhardt reported
the
celebration
of
human freedom
and
dignity
in
Pico's
Oratio
without mentioning
that
for
the young Count
of
Mirandola
the
supremely free
man was the magus.
9
Even
if
Burckhardt
had
given more weight
to
ancient philosophy
as the
vehicle
of
magical
belief
—
or as its
antidote
—
he
might
well
have discounted
the role
of
technical philosophical analysis
in the
aphoristic
and
rhetorical
enthusiasms
of
Pico's early work.
The Oratio and Conclusiones of
i486
present
a
manifesto
for
magic,
but
they
do not
provide
a
theory
of
magic;
even
the
more discursive
but
hastily written
Apologia of
1487 falls short
of
the extensive
and
coherent theoretical statement
that
finally emerged
in
1489
with
the
third
book
of
Marsilio Ficino's
De vita libri tres,
titled
De vita
coelitus
comparanda.
Although
the
Pico
of
the
Oratio and Conclusiones
knew
the Platonic, Neoplatonic
and
Hermetic sources revealed
by
Ficino since
1463,
he had no
occasion
to
apply
his
philosophical learning systematically
9
Burckhardt
i860, pp. 197, 354,
512-24;
Damned
Art 1977, pp. 32-3
(Burke);
Thorndike
1923-58,
v,
pp.
42,
104-11,
161-71,
182-8,
193-201,
204-6, 228-74,
571-3,
vi, pp.
99-101,
124-33,
137-40.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
268
Natural philosophy
to a specifically occultist problem before he began the
Disputationes
adversus
astrologiam divinatricem in
1493.
10
Pico
knew
that
pagan and Christian philosophers had conceded the
efficacy
and legitimacy of a
natural
magic distinct from the demonic magic
'in use among the moderns, which the church rightly banishes. . . because it
comes from the hand of the enemies of primal
truth'.
This licit
magia
naturalis
is the 'practical
part
of
natural
knowledge' and 'nothing other
than
.
. . the most perfect achievement of
natural
philosophy'. Its method of
operation is to join powers naturally disjoined in the cosmos: 'the wonders
of
the art of magic do not exist except by unifying and activating those
things sown and separated in
nature'.
Thus, the manipulation of natural,
material objects becomes a magical technique, but on the basis of 'a more
secret philosophy' Pico was forced to admit
that
certain artificial objects,
'characters and figures, have more power in an act of magic
than
any
material quality'. Pico wished to enhance
natural
powers not only through
human artifice but also through the verbal and angelic magic
that
he
discovered in cabala. He asserted, in fact,
that
'there
can be no magical
activity
of
any
efficacy
unless... it includes an act
of
cabala'. And since Pico
understood cabala to be 'an exact metaphysics of intelligibles and angelic
forms' as
well
as 'a very solid philosophy of
natural
things', it seems clear
that
his audacious programme for
natural
magic had celestial ambitions.
The
Oratio
that
introduced the
Conclusiones
launched this bold project in the
full
flush of humanist oratory, with all its erudite
apparatus
amplified by a
syncretism
that
reached beyond Greek and Latin learning to the wisdom of
the Arabs, Hebrews and Chaldaeans.
11
So
young, so learned, so sure
of
his powers
—
no wonder Pico represented
even
for Burckhardt 'the lofty flight which Italian philosophy would have
10. G.
Pico
1942, pp.
18-27;
1946-52,1,
p. 3; 1973, pp. 4-8, 13-16;
Garin
1976c,
pp. 87-8; see n. 22
below.
11.
G.
Pico
1973, pp.
10—20,
78-80:
'Conclusiones Magice numéro XXVI secundum opinionem propriam. i.
Tota Magia, que in usu est
apud
modernos,
et
quem
merito
exterminât
ecclesia,
nullam
habet
firmitatem
. . .
quia
pendet
ex
manu
hostium
prime
veritatis.
. . 3. Magia est
pars
practica
sciencie
naturalis
... 11.
Mirabilia
artis
magice
non
sunt
nisi
per
unionem
et
actuacionem
eorum
que
seminaliter
et
separate
sunt
in
natura
. . .15.
Nulla
potest
esse
operatio
magica
alicuius
efficacie
nisi
annexu
habeat
opus
cabale
explicatum
vel
implicitum
... 24. Ex
secretioris
philosophie
principiis
necesse
est
confiteri
plus
posse
caractères
et
figuras
in
opère
magico
quam
possit
quecunque
qualitas
materialise
1942, p. 148:
'Proposuimus
et
magica
theoremata
in
quibus
duplicem
esse
magiam
significavimus,
quarum
altera
daemonum
tota
opere.
. .
constat.
. .
Altera
nihil
est
aliud.
. .
quam
naturalis
philosophiae
absoluta
consummatio';
ibid., p. 158: 'Hi
sunt
libri
scientiae
Cabalae, in his
libris
merito
Esdras
. . .
sapientiae
fontem,
idest
de
intelligibilibus angelicisque
formis
exactam
metaphysicam,
et
scientiae
flumen,
idest
de
rebus
naturalibus
firmissimam
philosophiam
esse,
clara
in
primis
voce
pronuntiavit';
Garin
1937a,
pp.
90-105;
Secret
1964, pp.
24-41;
Scholem
1974, PP-
196-201;
Yates
1964, pp.
87-91;
L'opéra e il pensiero 1965, 1, pp.
160-7,
172-3, 183-4
(Yates).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and
magic
269
taken
had not the
Counter-Reformation annihilated
the
higher spiritual
life
of
the people'. Burckhardt knew
that
Pico's conception
of
human freedom
in
the
cosmos empowered
man 'to
have what
he
chooses,
to be
what
he
wants',
but he
seems
not to
have realised
that one
dimension
of
this freedom
was
magical.
Licit
magic makes
man
'prince
and
master'
of
creation, even
of
the wicked spirits
who
tempt
him to
forbidden demonic magic.
12
Man is a
'lesser world':
the
structure
of his
being mirrors
the
greater world
of the
cosmos,
and his
understanding
gives
him
access
to the
'occult alliances
and
affinities
of all of
nature'.
Many
of the
occult bonds
that tie the
human
microcosm
to the
macrocosm
of
nature
lie
within
the
domain
of
astrology.
Pico's
astrology
did not
diminish
man by
determining
his
fate;
it
gave
cosmic dimensions
to
human freedom
by
showing
man 'the
links
of
concord
[by
which]
all
these worlds bestow their
natures
... on one
another
in
mutual liberality'.
God
the
craftsman blended
our
souls
in the
same mixing bowl with
the
celestial
souls
and
of
the same elements;
let us see that we do not
wish
to be the
slaves
of
those
whom
nature
wished
us to
have
as
brothers.
. . We
must beware
... of
yielding
more
to
heaven
. . . than is
necessary
. . . The
Chaldaeans warn about this,
saying,
'Do not
aggravate fate.'.
. Let us not
form images
of
the
stars
in
metal
but
...
an
image
of the
word
of God in our
souls.
These lines from
the
Heptaplus
of 1489, in
which Pico preserved
the
cosmological
fundamentals
of his
natural
magic, also foreshadow
his
forceful
and
detailed attack
on
astrological determinism
in the
Disputationes.
13
This
anti-determinist current
was
evident
in
Pico's thought from
the
beginning.
And
even
at the end of his
career,
the
enlargement
of
this
polemic
in the
Disputationes
entailed neither
a
complete disavowal
of
astrology
nor a
repudiation
of
natural
magic. Admitting
a
general celestial
12.
G. Pico 1942, p. 106: 'O summam Dei patris liberalitatem, summam et admirandam hominis
felicitatem! cui datum id habere quod optat, id
esse
quod velit';
ibid.,
p. 152: 'Ut enim ilia [magia
mala] obnoxium mancipatumque improbis potestatibus hominem reddit, ita haec [magia bona]
illarum principem et dominum'; Burckhardt
i860,
pp. 197, 354.
13.
G. Pico 1942, p. 192: 'Quoniam scilicet astricti vinculis concordiae uti naturas iam etiam
appellationes hi omnes mundi mutua sibi liberalitate condonant. . . Nec potuerunt antiqui patres
aliis alia figuris decenter repraesentare
nisi
occultas, ut ita dixerim, totius naturae et amicitias et
afFinitates edocti. . . Tritum in scholis verbum est,
esse
hominem minorem mundum . .
ibid.,
pp.
242-4: 'temperatos animos nostros ab opifice Deo in eodem cratere ex iisdem elementis cum
caelestibus animis, videamus ne nos illorum servos velimus quos nos fratres
esse
natura voluit. . .
Cavendum
igitur ne. . . plus caelo dantes, plus tribuentes quam sit necesse,. . . voluntati opificis et
ordini universi repugnemus. . . Hos admonent Chaldaei dicentes: "Ne augeas fatum." . . . Quare
neque stellarum imagines in metallis sed illius, idest
Verbi
Dei, imaginem in nostris animis
reformemus';
Garin
1937a,
pp. 169, 178; 1976c, pp.
87-91;
Cassirer 1927, p. 88.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
270
Natural philosophy
influence on terrestrial phenomena, Pico denied
that
it could be resolved
into discernible relations between particular heavenly causes and corre-
sponding earthly
effects;
no one could know enough to cast a horoscope or
tie a man's fate inexorably to one star or another. Pico limited astrological
influence to material objects, which included man's body but not his mind
or
will;
he also restricted the forms of celestial power to heat, light and
motion. The rigour of this latter restriction weakened, however, in his
description of
calor
and lux, which resemble Ficino's magical
spiritus
more
than
the heat or light
of
modern physics.
If
Pico's
effort to reform astrology
by
naturalising it was incomplete, the strength and scope of his reasoning
were
sufficient to establish the framework of the debate on astrology
through Kepler's time.
14
Pico's
warning in the
Heptaplus
against making 'images of the stars in
metal'
runs
contrary to advice on characters and figures
that
he had given
three years earlier in the
Conclusiones.
Innocent VIII's condemnation of his
theses in 1487 had taught Pico prudence by 1489. The most notorious thesis
claimed
that
'there is no department of knowledge
(scientia)
that
gives
us
more certainty of Christ's divinity
than
magic and cabala'. Since Pico
denied in another thesis
'that
Christ's deeds could have been done either by
the method of magic or by the method of cabala', it seems
likely
that
his
intention was pious: to use his understanding of the merely natural powers
of
magic to illuminate the genuinely miraculous acts
that
testify to
true
divinity.
To the church, however, Pico's brash thesis can only have seemed
an affront to orthodox theology, as Pedro Garcia's
Determinationes
magistrales
of 1489 made quite clear. Since Pico was never closer to
Savonarola
than
when he began the
Disputationes
in 1493, it may be
that
the
friar provoked him to the fuller expressions of piety
that
characterise this
last, monumental work of his
—
which was only
part
of a larger project left
unfinished at his death in
1494.
15
Although
Pico's learning was subtle and broad, the most consistent and
most original element in his approach to magic and astrology was his
abiding ethical interest: magic enlarges man's powers; astrology cannot
limit man's freedom. A greater emphasis on natural philosophy in the
14.
Garin 1937a, pp. 170-1,
175-80;
1976c,
pp. 91-8; G.
Pico
1942, pp.
270-2;
1946-52,1,
pp.
202-8,
216-18;
Cassirer
1927, pp. 122-3; L'operae ilpensiero 1965,11, pp.
322-5
(P.
Rossi);
Walker
1958, pp.
54-6; 1985, § x, pp.
12S-6.
15.
G.
Pico
1973, pp. 5—8, 79: '7. Non
potuerunt
opera
Cristi vel per
viam
magie
vel per
viam
Cabale
fieri
...
9.
Nulla
est
sciencia
que nos
magis
certificet
de
divinitate
Cristi
quam
magia
et
cabala';
Garcia 1489,
sigs.
h
iiii-o
iii; Garin 1937a, pp.
30-6,42-8;
Yates
1964, pp.
105-6;
Weinstein
1970, pp.
185-91, 212-16;
Crouzel
1977, pp. 30-4; Zika 1976, pp. 107, 116-17, 124-7, 131, 135-8.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and
magic
271
analysis
of
magic
and
astrology characterised
a
number
of
his contempo-
raries
and
near-contemporaries associated with
the
University
of
Padua
and
other
studia of
northern
Italy.
By the
early fifteenth century,
a
tradition
of
secular Aristotelianism stimulated more
by
medicine
than
theology
had
established
in
these universities
a
pattern
of
education
in
which astrology
was
a
prominent ingredient
in an
arts
curriculum strongly inclined towards
natural
philosophy. Graduates
of
these schools looked
to the
stars
and
planets
as
indices
of
regularity
in
physical causation. Their discussions
of
immutable astrological influence opened some
of the
same questions
that
were
to be
asked
in
Pico's
Disputationes: How is
human freedom preserved
in
a
universe
of
natural
causes?
How
does myth
or
revelation count
as
evidence
bearing
on
astrological theory? Despite
the
subsidiary role
of
theology
at
Padua,
the
characteristic
aporia in
these fifteenth-century
debates
— as
later
in
Pomponazzi's
day — was a
theological question
motivated (paradoxically)
by the
desire
to
read Aristotle's science without
extraneous theological commitments. Aristotelian cosmology allowed
for
intelligences
guiding
the
stellar
and
planetary spheres,
and to
this extent
a
mitigated Christian demonology might
be
reconciled with Peripatetic
natural
philosophy.
But a
fully
developed demonology, such
as had
become
normal
in
orthodox Christianity, offended
the
naturalist sentiments
of
important Italian Aristotelians.
Yet in
other
ways,
especially
in
their
attitudes toward astrology, Aristotelian thinkers
who
wished
to
rout
the
demons from philosophical discourse contributed
to the
growth
of
occultist
belief
in the
Renaissance.
16
In 1503, Alessandro Achillini
prepared
a
Quaestio de subiecto physionomiae
et chiromantiae
whose publishing history suggests
that
it was the
most
popular
of
his works. Achillini's
Quaestio was a
methodological introduc-
tion
to the
more practical
Chyromantiae et physionomiae anastasis
(1504)
of
Bartolomeo
Delia Rocca
or
Codes,
a
vagrant seer whose risky speciality
was
predicting misfortune
for
minor Italian princes
by
reading their faces
or
their palms. Until
a
client's relative
had him
murdered
in 1504,
Codes
enjoyed
Achillini's encouragement.
The
philosopher took
the
soothsayer
seriously,
establishing
in
Aristotelian terms
that
palmistry
and
physiogn-
omy
were valid forms
of
knowledge
(scientiae speculativae)
based, like medi-
cine
or
astronomy,
on
principles
of
natural
philosophy.
The
attribution
to Aristotle
of
nearly twenty treatises
on
chiromancy
and
physiognomy
16.
Garin
1937a,
pp.
177-8;
1976c,
pp. 87-8; G.
Pico
1942, pp. 3-5;
Cassirer
1927, pp.
123-5;
Walker
1958,
p. 54;
Schmitt 1983a,
p. 100;
Kristeller 1964a,
p. 75;
Scienza
e
Jilosofia
1983, pp.
345-72
(Zanier);
Siraisi
1981, p. 179.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
272
Natural philosophy
(one of them published by
Achillini
in his
Opus
septisegmentatum
of
1501)
doubtless encouraged a Peripatetic analysis of divination.
Achillini
found a place for fortune-telling in his hierarchy
of
sciences,
but he balked at
demonology.
He could not reconcile Aristotelian and Averroist concep-
tions
of
form and matter, soul and body with Christian ideas about demons.
Although
faith required him to accept
that
demons existed,
Achillini
could
not justify his assent in rational terms, and on this point he admitted a
conflict
between philosophy and theology. Having excluded demons as
causes
of
events unexplainable in ordinary natural terms, he attributed them
either to trickery or to poorly understood natural agencies such as
imagination.
17
This latter strategy gave ample room for occult explanation,
i.e.,
the appeal to extraordinary phenomena (imagination,
spiritus,
various
occult
virtues and powers)
that
might be natural and non-demonic but were
'hidden' because they were less evident
than
the four elements and four
qualities. A magic based on such natural effects and directed towards health
or some other legitimate goal might be unobjectionable, but there is
evidence
that
members of the north Italian universities also used riskier
magical
means for more questionable ends. In 1503, Agostino
Nifo
wrote
that
he had 'seen an infinity of books about images, and they all claim
that
this art is inherently
true
though difficult to discover, and no doubt they
practise it to carry women away and to do many other things . . .
Moreover,
this is a subject
of
study in many universities; frightening things
happen there, and it is hard to save such phenomena on Peripatetic
principles.' Having witnessed the popularity
of
occultism
in the universities
and having weighed his own considerable experience with astrology and
the other secret arts,
Nifo
was less inclined
than
Achillini
to dismiss much of
the problem as trickery, and, since he had more reason to worry about
ecclesiastical
opposition, his conviction
that
demons were superfluous in
Aristotle's
universe did not prevent him from resorting to the Platonic and
Neoplatonic demonology
that
Ficino had made available. Nifo's sincerity is
hard to evaluate. Although he eventually denounced the argument
that
demons were invented to terrify the simple-minded, he had been educated
in the naturalist tradition
that
bred such cynicism. Shifts and inconsistencies
in his works make it difficult to distinguish opportunist evasion from
genuine compromise or to isolate his personal
views.
18
17.
Zambelli
1978, pp.
59-86;
Zanier
1975b, pp. 32-3;
Schmitt
and
Knox
1985, pp. 21-4,
45-50;
Thorndike
1923-58,
v, pp.
39-47.
18.
Nifo's
commentary
on the Destructio destructionum of
Averroes,
cited
in
Zambelli
1975, p. 142: 'Vidi
tot
libros
de
imaginibus
quot
sunt
infiniti,
et
omnes
testantur
istam
artem
esse
veram
in se,
licet
difficilis
inventionis,
et
sine
dubi[o]
faciunt
rapere
mulieres
et
multa
. . .
Praeterea
in
multis
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and magic
273
Much
clearer was Pietro Pomponazzi's position in his treatise De
naturalium effectuum causis sive de incantationibus
(1520),
the
culmination
of
the secular Aristotelian debate on occult phenomena. Pomponazzi felt
that
the philosopher must
give
a rational account of the many reports of
extraordinary effects
that
cannot be attributed to fraud; because demons are
excluded
from such explanations on epistemological (demons cannot know
singulars) and physical (demons are incapable of contact action) grounds,
only
astrological influences or other natural forms of occult causation
remain. The De
incantationibus,
along with the
Defato,
also written around
1520,
shows how Pomponazzi's desire to reduce all human experience to
strictly natural causes gave enormous scope to astrology. Going beyond the
condemned propositions of Siger of Brabant, Pomponazzi argued
that
the
stars rule not only
nature
but also history, even sacred history; a horoscope
can account for the rise of Christianity, as
of
any religion. In the third book
ofDefato,
Pomponazzi presented alternatives to the rigid determinism
that
governed
man as a merely natural being, but in the larger context of his
work
these attempts to repair the damage to free
will
ring hollow.
19
If
Pico's
efforts to naturalise astrology had tended to limit the astrologer's
pretensions, Pomponazzi's programme of naturalisation had the opposite
effect.
All terrestrial events had celestial causes; even God's effects on earthly
affairs
were mediated astrologically; consequent constraints on human
freedom were no great concern.
20
Tiberio Russiliano Sesto, a student of
Nifo's
who heard Pomponazzi lecture in Bologna in 1518, echoed these
extreme positions in his
Apologeticus
of
1519.
Like
Pomponazzi, he criticised
Pico's
Disputationes,
but in four hundred theses he tried to emulate the
younger
Pico of the
Conclusiones.
Tiberio's alteration of Pico's condemned
thesis on magic, cabala and divinity shows how the secular Aristotelian
embrace of a naturalised occultism could accommodate and transform
other occultist traditions: 'Through no department of knowledge
will
we
be able to gain more certainty
of
the
coming
of
Christ
than
through magic, by
which all things sublunar are recognised.' By
retaining
magia —
defined
as a
means of distinguishing the sublunary from the celestial — but omitting
cabala,
Tiberio proclaimed his naturalism, and by specifying Christ's
adventus
rather
than
his
divinitas,
he alluded to
that
feature of a determinist
universitatibus
legitur
et
ibidem
apparent
res
terribiles,
et
difficile
est
salvare
talia
per
fundamenta
peripatética';
ibid., pp. 129-71; Scienze, credenze 1982, pp.
300—5,
313-17,
352-68
(Zambelli);
Zanier
1975b, pp. 31-2;
Thorndike
1923-58,
v, pp.
75-84,
162-4,
182-8.
19.
Zanier
1975b, pp. 1-16;
Pine
1973, pp. 4-6, 12, 33; Graiff 1976, pp. 331-2, 335,
344~50,
356; Garin
1976c,
pp. 116-17;
Thorndike
1923-58,
v, p. 97;
Shumaker
1982, pp.
59-63.
20. Garin
1976c,
pp. 109—11;
Cassirer
1927, pp. 85-7, 110-12.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
274
Natural philosophy
naturalism
that
Pico most detested,
the
referring
of the
central events
of
sacred history
to the
agency
of
the stars. Since
the
uniqueness
of
Christianity
could
never
be
proved
by
horoscopic techniques
that
applied equally
to
other religions, astrological explanations
of the
facts
of
Christian history
were
cold comfort
for the
orthodox:
no
wonder
that
critics
of
Pomponazzi
and
his
followers preferred
the
demons
to the
stars.
21
FICINO'S
PHILOSOPHICAL
THEORY
OF
MAGIC
To
supplement their thorough knowledge
of
Peripatetic doctrine,
Nifo,
Pomponazzi,
Russiliano
and
other Aristotelian philosophers could look
not
only
to the
later Neoplatonic sources which Ficino
had
translated
and
published
in 1497 but
also
to
Ficino's elaboration
in 1489 of a
comprehen-
sive
and
philosophically grounded theory
of
magic
in De
vita
coelitus
comparanda.
This work
is the
fullest Renaissance exposition
of a
theory
of
magic
and the
most influential such statement written
in
post-classical
times.
In its
final chapter, Ficino explained
how
nature
is a
magician,
as
Plotinus
and
Synesius
say,
everywhere baiting
traps
with
particular foods
for
particular objects.
. . The
farmer prepares
his
field
and
seeds
for
gifts
from heaven
and
uses various grafts
to
prolong
life
in his
plant
and
change
it to
a
new and
better species.
The
physician,
the
scientist
and the
surgeon bring about
similar effects
in our
bodies.
. . The
philosopher,
who is
learned
in natural
science
and astronomy
and
whom
we are
wont rightly
to
call
a
magician, likewise implants
heavenly
things
in
earthly objects
by
means
of
certain alluring charms used
at the
right moment.
22
Ficino
took
natural
magic
to be as
much
the
province
of the natural
philosopher
as
cosmology, astronomy
or
matter-theory.
The
wisdom
of
the
magus
and the
learning
of the
philosophus
were distinguishable
but
interdependent
parts of the
same enterprise whose magical
and
philosophi-
cal
content Ficino derived from
the
same sources
in his
prisca
sapientia
—
including Plato himself,
as
comparison
of the
passage above with
the
21.
Tiberio's
Apologeticus,
cited in Zambelli 1977, p. 13: 'Per nullam scientiam de adventu Christi magis
certificari poterimus quam per magiam, per quam omnia sublunaria cognoscuntur';
ibid.,
pp. 9—21,
24-9, 48; Zanier
1975b,
pp. 33-7, 42-3, 48-9, 80-4; 1979, pp.
211-25;
see
also
n. 15 above.
22. Ficino
1576,1,
p. 570: 'Ubique igitur natura maga est, ut inquit Plotinus atque Synesius, videlicet
certa quaedam pabulis ubique certis inescans . . . agricultura praeparat agrum seminaque ad
coelestia dona et insitionibus quibusdam vitam plantae propagat et ad speciem alteram
melioremque perducit. Similia quaedam emcit et medicus, physicus et chirurgus in corpore nostro
.
. . Idem quoque philosophus, naturalium rerum astrorumque peritus, quern proprie magum
appellare solemus, certis quibusdam illecebris coelestia terrenis opportune quidem, nec aliter
inserens
quam . . . agricola'; Plotinus,
Enneads
iv.4.40,
43-4; Synesius, De
insomniis
132D; a fuller
bibliography
for this
section
on Ficino may be
seen
in Copenhaver 1984,1986, forthcoming a and b.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Astrology
and
magic
275
following
text from his commentary on the
Symposium
will
reveal. 'Why',
asks Ficino,
do we
think
that
Love
is a
magician?
Because
all the
power
of
magic
consists
in
love.
An act of
magic
is the
attraction
of one
thing
by
another
in
accordance
with
a
certain
natural
kinship.
The
parts
of
this
world,
... the
organs
of
this
enormous
living
being
. . .
borrow
and
loan
each
other's
natures.
Common
love
grows
out of
common
kinship,
and
common
attraction
is
born
of
love.
This
is
true
magic
. . .
Acts
of
magic,
therefore,
are
acts
of
nature,
and art is her
handmaid
. . . Out of
natural
love
all
nature
gets
the
name
magician.
Although
the idea of erotic magic as a cosmic force was already explicit in
Diotima's conversation with Socrates, Ficino's analysis of the
Symposium
strengthened and extended it under the influence of Plotinus, Synesius and
other Neoplatonists, whose contributions to Ficino's theory of magic are
fundamental.
23
De
vita
coelitus
comparanda
is an excursus from Ficino's commentary on
Plotinus; he attached it as book m to a medical treatise whose first two
sections were devoted to health and longevity. In the first chapter of De
vita
in, which deals with celestial means for improving human
life,
Ficino
wished to establish the basis of astrological causation — and thence of all
natural
magical action — in intermediation among terrestrial, celestial and
supercelestial entities. His starting-point was
Enneads
iv.3.11,
in which
Plotinus had briefly mentioned the magical animation of cult-statues as a
specific
instance of soul's ability to affect body, the latter issue being
Plotinus' subject in the ten preceding chapters of
Enneads
iv.3.
24
Ficino,
who
misdated the
Hermetica
and considered Hermes Trismegistus the
primeval source of Platonism, surely recalled the god-making passages of
the Hermetic
Asclepius
when he read what Plotinus said about the statues.
No
doubt he realised
that
an ensouled
statue
posed
threats
and promised
powers much as an astrological talisman, which for philosophical as
well
as
religious reasons was a crux in Ficino's argument, a limiting case
of
natural
magic.
Whatever his interest in the statues when he encountered them in
Plotinus, Ficino delayed mentioning their Hermetic avatars until the
23.
Ficino
1956, pp. 220-1
(VI.IO):
'Sed cur
magum
putamus
amorem?
Quia
tota
vis
magice
in
amore
consistit.
Magice
opus
est
attractio
rei
unius
ab
alia
ex
quadam
cognatione
nature.
Mundi
autem
huius
partes,
. . .
ingentis huius
animalis
membra
. . .
mutuant
invicem
naturas
et
mutuantur.
Ex
communi
cognatione
communis
innascitur
amor,
ex
amore
communis
attractio.
Hec
autem
vera
magica
est . . .
Magice
igitur
opera
nature
opera
sunt;
ars
vero
ministra
. . . Et
natura
omnis
ex
amore
mutuo
maga
cognominatur';
Plato,
Symposium
202E-203D;
Zambelli
1973 a, pp.
128-30;
Magia, astrologia e religione 1974, pp. 60-1, 70
(Zambelli).
24.
Ficino
1576, 1, pp.
529-33,
573;
Plotinus,
Enneads iv.3.1-11;
Ficino
1937, 1, pp. xii,
lxxxiv;
Umanesimo e esoterismo
i960,
p. 18
(Garin); Walker
1958, p. 3, n. 2; see n. 36
below.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
276
Natural philosophy
midpoint of De
vita
m.
25
In the beginning of this book, he concentrated
instead on the metaphysics and psychology of Plotinus, particularly his
notion Of XoyOt
G7T€p[JLaTLKOL.
Plotinus claimed
that
these seminal reasons, associated with Soul as
intermediary between Mind and
Body,
linked species or forms in matter
with
ideas in Mind. Seminal reasons were the dynamic terms in a system of
causation and communication joining material objects to immaterial ideas
through the medium of Soul. 'The soul of the world', explained Ficino,
'possesses at least as many seminal reasons of things as
there
are ideas in the
divine mind, and with these reasons [Soul] makes the same number of
species
in
matter.
Thus, each and every species corresponds through its own
seminal reason to an idea, and often through this reason it can easily receive
something of value from on high.' Equipped with this metaphysical
information, the philosopher-magician had reason to manipulate species of
material objects to attract the higher immaterial powers with which they
are joined through Soul and its
Xoyot.
26
But because the Peripatetic concept
of
substantial form was the key to his theory
of
magic,
it was also important
to Ficino
that
the
magical
junction between matter and Mind should reach
the form of things as
well
as their species; it was convenient, then,
that
the
same word,
ei8o$\
served Plotinus for both 'form' and 'species'. Ficino
believed
with Thomas Aquinas
that
the substantial form
of
a material object
—
the principle
that
makes the object what it is, a member of its species
—
is
educed from the potency
of
its matter by the power
of
the heavenly bodies.
Although
the first eleven chapters of
Enneads
iv.3 established a connection
between lower forms in matter and higher immaterial forms, Ficino also
needed Neoplatonic support for his claim
that
these higher forms included
figurae
in the heavens, i.e., the zodiac, the decans, the planetary conjunctions
and oppositions.
27
Ficino
found the necessary evidence in the last
third
of
Enneads
iv.4. In
order to acquit the gods
of
complicity
in the base affairs
of
mortals, Plotinus
argued in these chapters (which contain a coherent theory
of
magic)
that
the
efficacy
of prayer and magic does not prove
that
the gods intend the effects
25.
Ficino
1576,1, pp. 548, 561, 571; Asclepius 23-4, 37-8;
Plotinus,
Enneads iv.3.11.1—6; Walker 1958,
p. 41, n. 2; 1972, pp. 1-2, 10-14, 18, 20-1.
26.
Ficino
1576,1, p. 531:
'anima
mundi
totidem
saltern
rationes
rerum
seminales
divinitus
habet
quot
ideae sunt
in
mente
divina,
quibus
ipsa
rationibus
totidem
fabricat
species
in
materia.
Unde
unaquaeque
species
per
propriam
rationem
seminalem
propriae
respondet
ideae,
facileque
potest
per
hanc
saepe
aliquid
illinc
accipere';
ibid., pp. 571-2; Umanesimo e esoterismo
i960,
pp. 19-23
(Garin).
27.
Ficino
1576,1, pp. 531-2,11, pp. 1737, 1746;
Plotinus,
Enneads iv.4.3 $.67.9;
Thomas
Aquinas, Summa
theologiae
1.65.4
resp.;
91.2 ad 3; 115.3 ad 2;
n-n.96.2
ad 2; De occultis operibus naturae 9-11;
Sleeman
and
Pollet
1980,
cols.
290-300;
Copenhaver
1984, pp.
535-8,
541-6.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008