/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20922181]

Has anybody here read Marsilio Ficino? Where should I begin with him if I'm interested in renaissance Neoplatonism and magic? I've read Plato and Plotinus.

[Anonymous No.20922187]

The veil of fantasy that existed in that time that allowed for such magic has been torn

[Anonymous No.20922197]

Also, this is mostly unrelated, but are there any renaissance works that are staunchly anti-humanist?
>>20922187
I want to know about it anyway.

[Anonymous No.20922308]

>>20922181
You need to read the Platonic Theology (6 volumes, I Tatti Renaissance Library edition) which is his magnum opus, and maybe the Three books on life. Another major work is The book on love, but it's in Italian and thus it has never been translated, afaik. English scholars ignore everything that is written in Italian. However you can still find the Commentary on Plato's Symposium, which is also a treatise on love.

>>20922197
>are there any renaissance works that are staunchly anti-humanist?
Nope, the only thing that opposes the humanist trend is the so-called "weird Renaissance", or "anticlassicist Renaissance", with antisystem writers such as Villon, Rabelais, Luigi Pulci, Merlin Coccai (Teofilo Folengo) and basically anyone who opposed Petrarch and Bembo. The most magical side of the non-fiction literature is also considered antihumanist: Bernardino Telesio, Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, Giulio Camillo, partially Nicholas of Cusa and fundamentally all the alchemists.

[Anonymous No.20922322]

>>20922308
/thread

[Anonymous No.20922352]

>>20922181
He was the first modern occult LARPer

[Anonymous No.20922425]

>>20922352
>was nothing else but Plato's doctrine as interpreted by Plotinus
Unjustly put, if not wrong at all. Ficino adds a lot of Christian elements to the Platonic doctrine, which, in its essence, never changes, even today. That sentence, which smells of anglo bias from a mile away, is the same as saying that C.G. Jung is nothing else but Plato's doctrine as interpreted by Plotinus as mediated by Ficino as transformed by Freud. Bullshit-tier reasoning.

[Anonymous No.20922481]

Here or Yates

[Anonymous No.20922500]

In Italian there is even a rare edition of his writings on astrology. Obscure shit fr fr

[Anonymous No.20922527]

>>20922308
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.
>>20922308
>Nope, the only thing that opposes the humanist trend is the so-called "weird Renaissance"
Why do you think this is?
>>20922481
I'm already reading Yates, that's what got me interested actually.
>>20922500
I don't know any Italian but I'm interested in and have an elementary grasp of Latin already. Would any of his works be worth attempting in Latin or are they too much for a beginner? Does the English reduce anything from the text?

[Anonymous No.20922546]

>>20922187
Oh shut the fuck up you insufferable American cunt.
>>20922181
OP you can do the magic ficino did, you've just gotta be really good at astrology and understand how things work. Study for a few years and it will click.

[Anonymous No.20922620]

>>20922546
>you've just gotta be really good at astrology and understand how things work. Study for a few years and it will click.
Do you have any resources you'd recommend for this?

[Anonymous No.20922695]

>>20922308
>Pico della Mirandola
>antihumanist
>no Pomponazzi

Dude...

[Anonymous No.20922701]

>>20922500
Dio se odio l'editoria italiana, non stampano più un cazzo di nulla

[Anonymous No.20922787]

>>20922546
>>20922620
Magic isn't real, you faggots. You've fallen for the promise of secret knowledge given to you by those who want to lead you away from the truth. All occultism is a trap by jews abd freemasons.

[Anonymous No.20922805]

>>20922620
Three books of occult philosophy by Agrippa
Guido bonattis book of astronomy
Hellenistic astrology a study of fate and fortune (beginner shit)
Vettius Valens anthology
Rhetorius the Egyptian
Dorotheus of Sidon
Christian astrology William Lilly
Mystical astrology of ibn Arabi (very complex)

[Anonymous No.20922868]

>>20922805
Thank you, posters like you make /lit/ worth browsing.

[Anonymous No.20923395]

>>20922805
Thoughts on natural astral magic based on sympatheia?

[Anonymous No.20923542]

>>20922527
>Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.
You're welcome, here you can find a better quality version of the chart (shitty 4chin allows 4 MB maximum):
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/4chanlit/images/6/63/Italian-Renaissance-Literature-small4.png/revision/latest?cb=20210323080902

>Why do you think this is?
Problem is that I don't fully understand your question. Do you mean "staunchly anti-humanist" in the way Cioran or Land or Ligotti are? Or anti-humanist in the way contemporary science, or even Medieval Christianity are? Because all the Renaissance is intrinsically humanist. Even the occult doctrines are ultimately centred on Man. The only difference you get is between the regular Renaissance, on which school textbooks are focused, and the counter-Renaissance that deals with the occult, the irrational, the weird, the divine. Antisystem Renaissance authors are more interesting in my opinion because they were also often experimenters of literary forms. Francesco Colonna, for example, defies any classification, and for this very reason he's left out of all literary histories, but the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is better than the vast majority of humanistic literature.

>Would any of his works be worth attempting in Latin or are they too much for a beginner?
Renaissance Latin is a bit more difficult than Medieval Latin, but still much less difficult than classical Latin. I would give it a try.

[Anonymous No.20923555]

>>20923542
>Even the occult doctrines are ultimately centred on Man
That's the problem. Magic is nothing but attempting to subvert nature through supernatual means, rather than understand God's created order. It's the poison of Babylon through the Talmud (most Renaissance philosophy was based on Jewish occult works) that created and allowed secret societies like the freemasons to fluorish and lead to the ruin of modernity.

[Anonymous No.20923563]

>>20923555
How is modernity a state of ruin?

[Anonymous No.20923608]

>>20923555
You're pointing out something very very interesting. What I dissociate myself from is the idea that "magic is nothing but attempting to subvert nature through supernatural means, rather than understanding God's created order". I would say it depends. Ficino's magic is deeply religious, deeply Christian, and deeply suspicious of supernatural means. Even in his astrological writings, he reflects on Zodiac symbols and affinities rather than doing predictions, something in which he didn't really believe. Magic can be used as a scheme to read and understand reality, and that's what the best, the most impartial occultists did. The ones who contributed to the creation of secret societies were not trying to describe reality, but to change it.

[Anonymous No.20923613]

>>20922546
>OP you can do the magic ficino did, you've just gotta be really good at astrology and understand how things work. Study for a few years and it will click.
Based.

>>20922805
Even more based.

[Anonymous No.20923642]

>>20923563
Economic collapse, constant racial strife, sexual degeneration.
>>20923613
The elites have been trying to do magic and it's only lead to disaster. Occultism is a pit.

[Anonymous No.20923661]

>>20923542
I mean anti-humanist in the sense that it’s literature of the time that runs counter-culture to the academic zeitgeist. I suppose the “counter-Renaissance” you’re describing comes close. Who are your favourites from that strand of thinkers?

[Anonymous No.20923690]

>>20922197
>that are staunchly anti-humanist

This is only peripherally related, but might you be thinking of what contemporary people refer to as "humanism"? Because if that's the thing you have a problem with have no fear, the OG humanists are nothing like the bourgeois nonsense that people nowadays call humanism.

[00330100 No.20923729]

https://opensea.io/collection/people-are-wanted

[Anonymous No.20923734]

>>20923661
>I suppose the “counter-Renaissance” you’re describing comes close.
Yep. It's the definition of scholars such as Hiram Haydn and Eugenio Battisti. They wrote two absolute masterpieces on the topic.

>Who are your favourites from that strand of thinkers?
Francesco Colonna (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, The strife of Love in a dream, an experimental illustrated novel, weird as fuck), Giulio Camillo (The Idea of the Theatre, a classic of mnemotechnical esotericism, in the style of Bruno), Francesco Zorzi (L'armonia del mondo, The harmony of the world, Christian Neoplatonism that blends multiple traditions with Jewish occultism), Matteo Tafuri (author of an unlikely but brilliant commentary on Orphic hymns) and, out of Italy, the complexity of Nicholas of Cusa.

[Anonymous No.20923771]

>>20922481
I've read some of this and found it very underwhelming. The little chapter on the biography of Plato was cool though.

[Anonymous No.20923802]

>>20923734
>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Looks alluring on first glance, reminds me of William Blake for some reason.
>Giulio Camillo
>Francesco Zorzi
Also look very very based
>>20923690
>might you be thinking of what contemporary people refer to as "humanism"?
Possibly, my knowledge of the period is quite weak compared to antiquity for example. Although this has been a fruitful thread because I now have a lot more to read than I had anticipated.
How would you describe the difference in the humanism of the time?

[Anonymous No.20923883]

>>20923802
>Looks alluring on first glance
Yeah, you can find it in English somewhere online, if you search attentively. There's even a website with the complete book with all the drawings on one page, a single HTML document. And it's also a great translation.

[Anonymous No.20924845]

>>20922187
fpbp