How Hermetic was Renaissance Hermetism?

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" How Hermetic was Renaissance Hermetism? "
Wouter J. Hanegraaff

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1064701
Doc. No	:	LA108330
Call No	:	‭10.1163/15700593-01502001‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Title & Author	:	How Hermetic was Renaissance Hermetism? [Article]\ Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Aries
Date	:	2015
Volume/ Issue Number	:	15/2
Page No	:	179–209
Abstract	:	Based upon key publications by Paul Oskar Kristeller (1938) and especially Frances A. Yates (1964), it has been widely assumed that an important “Hermetic Tradition” emerged during the Renaissance and that Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (first ed. 1471) was at its origin. This article argues that these assumptions need to be revised. Close study of Ficino’s original translation (on the basis of Maurizio Campanelli’s recent reconstruction and critical edition, published in 2011) makes it questionable whether Ficino understood much of the Hermetic message at all; and the famous (unauthorized) first edition of the Pimander (1471) turns out to be corrupt in many crucial respects, leading to a long series of defective editions that obscured the actual contents of the Corpus Hermeticum for Renaissance readers. Hence we seem to be dealing with a Renaissance discourse about Hermes, but hardly with a Hermetic “tradition” in any meaningful sense of the word. Based upon key publications by Paul Oskar Kristeller (1938) and especially Frances A. Yates (1964), it has been widely assumed that an important “Hermetic Tradition” emerged during the Renaissance and that Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (first ed. 1471) was at its origin. This article argues that these assumptions need to be revised. Close study of Ficino’s original translation (on the basis of Maurizio Campanelli’s recent reconstruction and critical edition, published in 2011) makes it questionable whether Ficino understood much of the Hermetic message at all; and the famous (unauthorized) first edition of the Pimander (1471) turns out to be corrupt in many crucial respects, leading to a long series of defective editions that obscured the actual contents of the Corpus Hermeticum for Renaissance readers. Hence we seem to be dealing with a Renaissance discourse about Hermes, but hardly with a Hermetic “tradition” in any meaningful sense of the word.
Descriptor	:	Corpus Hermeticum
Descriptor	:	Ecstasy
Descriptor	:	Frances A. Yates
Descriptor	:	François Foix de Candale
Descriptor	:	Gabriel du Préau
Descriptor	:	Gnosis
Descriptor	:	Hermetic Tradition
Descriptor	:	Hermeticism
Descriptor	:	Hermetism
Descriptor	:	Lodovico Lazzarelli
Descriptor	:	Marsilio Ficino
Descriptor	:	Platonic Orientalism
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/15700593-01502001‬