Frances A. Yates - Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition-University Of Chicago Press (1964)

This book emphasises the primary
importance of Hermetism in Renaissance
thought. The Hermetic treatises were
believed to be by an ancient Egyptian,
prophet of Christianity; these associations
strengthened their enormous impact on
Ficino and the Neoplatonic movement.
Pico della Mirandola yoked Hermetism
with Cabalism and the Hermetic-
Cabalist tradition continued as an "occult
philosophy" both magical and mystical.
Giordano Bruno is here for the first
time placed within the context of this
tradition of which he represents an
original variation. He emerges as a
Hermetic philosopher and magician with
an unorthodox religious message. Even
his support of Copernican heliocentricity
is associated with Ficino's solar magic.
This revolutionary reinterpretation pro-
foundly affects our understanding of
Bruno and of his death at the stake.
The Hermetic tradition is followed
beyond the death of Bruno into the
seventeenth century, particularly in
Campanella. The correct dating in 1614
of the Hermetic treatises marked the end
of the dominance of Hermetism though
it continued to exert a hidden influence.
The controversies of Fludd with
Mersenne and Kepler arc seen as a
conflict between a late revival of the
Hermetic-Cabalist tradition and the
seventeenth-century scientific movement.
Renaissance Hermetism stimulated new
attitudes towards the cosmos and towards
operating with cosmic forces. It affected
the religious issues, making towards
toleration; Bruno's message on its
religious side was a variant of the
religious Hermetism widespread in the
sixteenth century. His use of magically-
significant imagery and language raises
the question of his influence on the poets
of the English Renaissance.
55s. net

GIORDANO BRUNO
AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION
Hermes Trismegistus, pavement, Siena Cathedral.

GIORDANO BRUNO
AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION
Hermes Trismegistus, pavement, Siena Cathedral.

GIORDANO BRUNO
AND THE
HERMETIC TRADITION
by
FRANCES A. YATES
Routledge and Kegan Paul
LONDON