Divine Fury (57 page)

16
. Gunnar Berefelt,
A Study on the Winged Angel: The Origin of a Motif
, trans. Patrick Hort (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1968), 7. The line is that of Pseudo-Dionysius, cited in Jean Daniélou,
The Angels and Their Missions: According to the Fathers of the Church
, trans. David Heimann (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1991), 16.

17
. On the persistence of belief in guardian angels, see Carlo Ossalo,
Gli angeli custodi: Storia e figure dell’ “Amico vero”
(Turin: Einaudi Editore, 2004); Jean-Patrice Boudet, Philippe Faure, and Christian Renoux, eds.,
De Socrate à Tintin: Anges gardiens et démons familiers de l’Antiquité à nos jours
(Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011). Marcellinus is cited in Brown,
Cult of the Saints
, 52–53. Gregory is cited in Brown,
Making of Late Antiquity
, 71–72.

18
. Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:36; Hebrews 2:7.

19
. David Keck,
Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 44, 144.

20
. Cited in Daniélou,
Angels and Their Mission
, 18.

21
. Tertullian,
Apology
, chap. 22, Augustine discusses the derivation of “demon” in a chapter of the
City of God
, 9.20, fittingly entitled “The meaning of the word ‘demon.’” Augustine may well have found this same derivation in Plato, who employs it in
Cratylus
, 398b. On Isidore and the broader medieval understanding of the connection between demons and knowledge, see Valerie J. Flint,
The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 107.

22
. A. L. Williams, “The Cult of Angels at Colossae,”
Journal of Theological Studies
10 (1909): 413–438; Council of Laodicea, Canon 35, cited in Glenn Peers,
Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 10. The fifth-century council is described in MacMullen,
Christianity & Paganism
, 126.

23
. On the distinction between natural and demonic magic, see the classic study by D. P. Walker,
Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), originally published in 1958 by the Warburg Institute in London. On attempts to contact angels, see Claire Fanger, ed.,
Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012).

24
. On the Neo-Platonist revival and the critical influence of Bernardus Silvestris and Alain de Lille, see the extensive scholarly introduction to Bernardus Silvestris,
Cosmographia
, trans. and ed. Winthrop Wetherbee (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), as well as Wetherbee’s
Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary Influence of the School of Chartres
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972). On the allegorical genius figure beginning with Alain de Lille’s
Plaint of Nature
and Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s
Romance of the Rose
, see Denis N. Baker, “The Priesthood of Genius: A Study of the Medieval Tradition,”
Speculum
51 (1976): 277–291; Donald G. Schueler, “Gower’s Characterization of Genius in the
Confession Amantis
,”
Modern Language Quarterly
33 (1972): 240–256; George D. Economou, “The Character Genius in Alan de Lille, Jean de Meun, and John Gower,”
Chaucer Review
4 (1970): 203–210; D. T. Starnes, “The Figure of Genius in the Renaissance,”
Studies in the Renaissance
11 (1964): 233–244.

25
. Noel L. Brann,
Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe
(Albany: State University of New York, 1999); Frank L. Borchardt, “The
Magus
as Renaissance Man,”
Sixteenth Century Journal
21, no. 1 (1990): 57–76. Agrippa writes most explicitly about the Genius in chapters 20–22 of Book Three of
De occulta philosophia
. I cite here from the Llewellyn’s Sourcebook Series’ annotated edition of the
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
, ed. Donald Tyson, trans. James Freake (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2006), 527–528, but I have consulted the Latin original and verified all passages using the fine critical edition
De occulta philosophia libri tres
, ed. V. Perroni Compagni (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

26
. Borchardt, “The
Magus
as Renaissance Man,” 69–72. On the curiosities of Dee and Bruno, among others, see Wayne Schumaker,
Renaissance Curiosa
(Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982).

27
. Jerome Cardano,
The Book of My Life (De vita propria liber
) (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), 240–247 (Cardano discusses his
genius
, which he also refers to as an angel and
spiritus
, in chap. 47, “Guardian Angels”); Agrippa,
Three Books
, 525 (Book 3, chap. 21, “Of Obeying a Proper Genius, and of the Searching Out the Nature Thereof”).

28
. Marsilio Ficino,
Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love
, trans. Sears Jayne (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985), 171–172 (Speech 7, chap. 15). “No man has ever been great” is cited in Noel L. Brann,
The Debate over the Origin of Genius During the Italian Renaissance: The Theories of Supernatural Frenzy and Natural Melancholy in Accord and in Conflict on the Threshhold of the Scientific Revolution
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), 89.

29
. Plotinus,
Enneads
, 3.4.5, in the Penguin Classics translation of Stephen MacKenna, intro. John Dillon (London: Penguin, 1991), 170–171.

30
. Bruce Gordon, “The Renaissance Angel,” in
Angels in the Early Modern World
, eds. Peter Marshall and Alexandra Walsham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 51–52; Michael J. B. Allen, “The Absent Angel in Ficino’s Philosophy,”
Journal of the History of Ideas
36, no. 2 (1975): 219–240.

31
. Pico della Mirandola, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” trans. Charles Glenn Wallis, in
Oration on the Dignity of Man
, intro. Paul J. W. Miller (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998), 3–5.

32
. [Pseudo-Aristotle],
Problems
, 30.1, in
The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation
, 2 vols., ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2:1498. Charles B. Schmitt,
Aristotle and the Renaissance
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983); Dennis Des Chene,
Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).

33
. Already in the
Platonic Theology
, Ficino devoted a brief reflection to a possible benefit of melancholy. Noting that the bodies of men so afflicted were unusually “dense,” he speculated that this humoral configuration would allow them to become more excited when seized by divine force, burning more fervently. Citing directly from the
Problems
, he concurred with the view expressed there that Socrates had likely been a melancholic, and that this would have aided his prophetic communications with his
daimonion
. See Marsilio Ficino,
Theologica Platonica/Platonic Theology
, eds. James Hankins and William Bowen, trans. J. B. Allen and John Warden, 6 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001–2006), 4:163 (13.2.33).

34
. Marsilio Ficino,
Three Books on Life: A Critical Edition and Translation with Introduction and Notes
, eds. Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clarke (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1989), 117 (1.5), 121–129 (1.6–7).

35
. On the “vogue” of melancholy and the Aristotelian and Platonic responses to Ficino’s theory, see Brann,
Origin of Genius
, esp. chaps. 5 and 6, as well as Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, and Fritz Saxl,
Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art
(London: Thomas Nelson, 1964), 254–274. See also Winfried Schleiner,
Melancholy, Genius, and Utopia in the Renaissance
(Weisbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991); Lawrence Babb,
The Elizabethan Malady: A Study of Melancholia in English Literature from 1580 to 1642
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1965); Pompanazzi,
De naturalium effectuum admirandorum causis sive de incatationibus
, cited in Brann,
Origin of Genius
, 170–171. “How Black Bile Makes People Intelligent” is the chapter title of Book 1, chap. 6, of Ficino’s
Three Books on Life
. As one of the great pioneers in the study of magic long ago observed, “those who sought a natural explanation for what others regarded as possession by demons found it in an excess of melancholic humor.” Lynn Thorndike,
A History of Magic and Experimental Science
, 8 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1923–1958); 8:50. See also Stuart Clark,
Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 265.

36
. On the uses of
ingenium
, see Harald Weinrich, “Ingenium,” in
Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie
, ed. Joachim Ritter, 13 vols. (Basel: Schwabe, 1971–2007), 4:36–63; Edgar Zilsel,
Die Enstehung des Geniebegiffes: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Antike und des Frühkapitalismus
, intro. Heinz Maus (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms, 1972), esp. 265–296; and the discussion in the text and appendix of Patricia Emison’s
Creating the “Divine” Artist: From Dante to Michelangelo
(Leiden: Brill, 2004), which deals nicely with the concept in its application to the arts. Pompanazzi is cited in Brann,
Origin of Genius
, 171. Although Brann translates
ingenium
as “genius,” I have left it in the original in order to avoid anachronism.

37
. Carlos G. Noreña, “Juan Huarte’s Naturalistic Humanism,”
Journal of the History of Philosophy
10, no. 1 (1972): 71–76. On Huarte’s life and career, see Malcolm K. Reade,
Juan Huarte de San Juan
(Boston: Twayne, 1981); Juan Huarte de San Juan,
Examen de ingenios para las ciencias
, ed. Esteban Torre (Madrid: Editora National, 1976), 117.

38
. Huarte,
Examen de ingenios
, 370–374, 331. The discussion of Christ’s brain was subsequently censored by the Inquisition. On the prevailing Galenic and Aristotelian assumptions, see Londa Schiebinger’s masterful
The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 160–170.

39
. The rumination on the etymology of
ingenium
was included in a new first chapter added to the revised edition of 1594. I cite from the 1594 edition of Juan Huarte de San Juan,
Examen de ingenios
, ed. Guillermo Serés (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1989), 186–194.

40
. Vives is cited in Emilio Hidalgo-Serna, “
Ingenium
and Rhetoric in the Work of Vives,”
Philosophy and Rhetoric
16, no. 4 (1983): 230–231. See also Noreña, “Juan Huarte’s Naturalistic Humanism,” 75; Reade,
Juan Huarte
, 58; C. M. Hutchings, “The
Examen de ingenios
and the Doctrine of Original Genius,”
Hispania
19, no. 2 (1936): 273–282.