Tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: il De mirabilibus mundi

Abstract

This article examines the attention given by Cornelius Agrippa and Giordano Bruno to De mirabilibus mundi, a late scholastic text, probably written in the thirteenth century. Its focus is Agrippa’s attitude, expressed in De occulta philosophia, toward the secrets of nature examined by De mirabilibus sources, such as Liber aneguemis. In addition, the article discusses how Giordano Bruno in the De magia mathematica attempts to explain the causal mechanisms of different types of extraordinary properties, first with a Hermetic book, Alexander De septem herbis, and then with a synthesis of the Avicennian thesis on the transitive imagination and Al-kindi’s astrological theories, expressed in De radiis. Finally, it shows how Agrippa and Bruno tried to resolve the problem of “quid sit magia” using De mirabilibus mundi sources.