Description: Anthony Grafton explores the art and influence of an opaque historical figure: the magus, or learned magician. A distinctive intellectual type in Renaissance Europe, magi contributed to the humanistic currents of the time and had a transformative impact on public life, influencing advances in sculpture, painting, engineering, and other fields.
Brief description: Anthony Grafton is the author of The Footnote, Defenders of the Text, Forgers and Critics, and Inky Fingers, among other books. The Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Humanities at Princeton University, Emeritus, he writes regularly for the London Review of Books.
Review Quotes: Sheds light on the golden age of occult writing...Magic could be made all-encompassing because language, belonging to a shared world view, allowed it to be...Grafton suggests that the mathematical and mechanical magic that allowed Agrippa and Dee to send artificial birds or insects flying over a stage set would develop into the science that produced the machinery of the Industrial Revolution.--Christopher Howse "The Telegraph" (12/17/2023 12:00:00 AM)