Leverhulme Lecture
Cambridge Exaltation and Power: The Historiography of Renaissance

Gyorgy Szonyi - visiting Professor at Anglia Ruskin University for 2009 and honourary member of the Society, will be giving the following Leverhulme Lectures - all Cambridge Szeged Society members are welcome to attend

LEVERHULME LECTURES 6 May, 2009, 17:30,
David 016 Lecture Theatre,
Anglia Ruskin University,

Magic Since the birth of philological scholarship in the Renaissance, authors interested in the esoteric sciences felt compelled to write encyclopedic or introductory handbooks, presenting the occult arcana, essentially meant only for “the selected few”, to the general public. The first such writer was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) who published his vast De Occulta Philosophia (written about 1510, published in 1533).

Even until recently, long after the scientific revolution, many authors of such popularizing introductions into occult philosophy and magic were themselves believers and practitioners. From the late nineteenth century, however, the number of “histories of magic” written from the platforms of anthropology or cultural history have also increased. In English, much used and still solid compendia are Lynn Thorndike’s monumental History of Magic and Experimental Sciences (8 vols, 1923-58) or Kurt Seligman’s more concise Magic, Supernaturalism and Religion (1948). Nowadays, when the historical study of Western Esoterism has become a master’s degree programme at several European universities (Amsterdam, Exeter, Paris), it is no wonder that there is a need for more books of this type which take a fresh look at both well and less known facts and which make use of up-to-date methodologies. The lecture looks at some of the main features of early modern magical ideas and practices and their scholarly interpretations since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Reinventing the Renaissance Research Centre Programme PROFESSOR GYÖRGY E. SZONYI University of Szeged, Central European University, Budapest and Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.