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: A brilliantly vivid exercise in intellectual history, as told through the biographies of the early modern magi, which will stir the thoughts of everyone who reads it.--John Gray "New Statesman" (1/10/2024 12:00:00 AM)