Real Magic (Part I)
Florence & The Medieval Apocalypse
"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
-Alfred North Whitehead
Few letters in history could have shocked their recipient more than the one Marsilio Ficino received on one fine day in 1462. The message arrived at his office in Florence to find him hunched over his desk, as usual. He had devoted himself to translating the lost works of Plato from Greek into Latin. When Christianity took over as the state religion of Imperial Rome, it replaced and violently suppressed the old Classical polytheistic traditions. The Eleusinian rites were outlawed, and the Library at Alexandria burned. For a thousand years, pagan literature was declared heretical and the proud trident of Poseidon became the pitchfork of The Devil. But then the end of the world happened.
After the plague sent half of European society to an early grave, rival popes from three different cities squandered the church’s credibility by shamelessly vying for temporal power. Pessimism settled over Christendom like a poisonous fog. The situation was even more grim for Greek Christians in the east, where the mighty walls of Constantinople fell to the cannons of the Turkish Sultan. The Orthodox church hadn’t been as quick as its Catholic counterpart to demonize its Classical heritage. And so the pagan Gemistus Pletho was among the Greek priests and scholars that made their way to Florence ahead of the advancing Turks. These were apocalyptic times for Christianity. But the seeds of the Renaissance were germinated by this cross-pollination of Latin and Greek minds. The arrival of the neoplatonist Pletho aroused the imagination of Cosimo de’ Medici, the patriarch of the great Medici banking house. It was he who, in turn, hired our friend Ficino to translate Plato.
That’s why Ficino couldn’t believe his eyes when he received a bizarre letter from his boss ordering him to abandon his work on that singular Athenian philosopher. His expertise in ancient Greek was urgently needed on a different project. Like medieval versions of Indiana Jones, Medici agents had laid their hands on a magical prize of such timeless wonder that even Plato took a backseat. What could they have uncovered that was of such monumental importance?
It was a collection of writings attributed to the mystical Hermes Trismegistus. Much like Moses, he was a god-like figure who was thought to have lived during the time of Pharaonic Egypt. Cosimo de’ Medici was an old man by the time the crumbling manuscripts were located in some ancient monastery in Syria. With only a short time to live and the church in a state of collapse, he wanted the chance to investigate for himself the whispers of pagan magic that had always persisted despite the persecutions and burnings. Nothing inspires curiosity like forbidden knowledge.
Come back later this week when, like Cosimo, we will get to explore the contents of these texts. Just as it was during the late Medieval period, the turning of the age is upon us again, and magic is on the cusp of making a big comeback...