Frances A. Yates

This article analyzes new evidence from the marginalia to Ficino’s Plotinus manuscripts and offers a novel reading of Ficino’s “De Vita” 3. It settles scholarly disagreements concerning Paul O. Kristeller’s manuscript research and Frances Yates’s Hermetic thesis about “De Vita” 3, and reconsiders accepted conclusions regarding the centrality of Hermetic magic in Ficino’s philosophy. It demonstrates the origins and sources for “De Vita” 3 in Ficino’s reading of Plotinus’s explanations of prayer, and also reveals Iamblichus’s overlooked influence on Ficino: on the performative nature of philosophy in “De Vita” 3, and even on Ficino’s acknowledgment of the pseudonymity of the Hermetica.

Dieser Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der These von Frances Yates, dass Denker wie Giordano Bruno und Agrippa von Nettesheim angenommen haben, dass die Schriften des Hermes Trismegistos von dem Ägypter Thoth (Hermes) stammten. Es soll in diesem Aufsatz demonstriert werden, dass die Annahme von Yates sehr spekulativ war und zumindest nicht auf Agrippa zutrifft, da aus keiner seiner Schriften hervorgeht, dass er das Corpus Hermeticum für Texte des Ägypters Hermes selbst hielt. Er glaubte zwar an die Legende des Hermes, aber in dieser Abhandlung wird die Hypothese überprüft, dass Agrippa dem Neuplatoniker Jamblichus folgte, dass griechische Philosophen, die ungefähr in der Zeit von Jamblichus lebten, diese Schriften verfasst haben. Damit wäre die Hypothese von Frances Yates widerlegt, nach der Agrippa glaubte, das Corpus Hermeticum würde direkt vom Ägypter Thoth herrühren. Aus der "Occulta philosophia" geht hervor, dass Agrippa die Werke Jamblichus hervorragend kannte, doch Yates hielt es scheinbar für nicht relevant, dass Jamblichus darauf hingewiesen hatte, dass das Corpus Hermeticum von ägyptischen Priestern geschrieben wurden. Es war damit nicht Casaubon, der als Erster erkannt hat, dass das Corpus Hermeticum unmöglich auf eine ägyptische Legende mit dem Namen Hermes zurückgehen konnte. Casaubon dachte selbst nicht, dass er der Erste war, der den Irrtum aufdeckte, denn er berichtete ebenfalls von der Aussage von Jamblichus. Abstract This paper deals with the thesis of Frances Yates that philosophers as Giordano Bruno and Agrippa von Nettesheim thought that the Trismegistic books were directly written by the Egyptian Hermes (Thoth). This paper has the target to reveal that the speculative thesis of Yates was not correct at least for Agrippa von Nettesheim, because from nowhere in the publications of Agrippa follows that he thought that the Corpus Hermeticum came directly from Egyptian Hermes. Agrippa thought that the legend of Hermes is true, however, we want to review the hypothesis that it is more likely that Agrippa followed the neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus that Greek philosophers who lived during life time of Jamblichus authored the books. From that perspective the hypothesis of Yates would be contradicted that Agrippa assumed that the Corpus Hermeticum came directly from the Egyptian Hermes. From the Occulta philosophia results that Agrippa knew the works of Iamblichus very well. However, Yates did not think it is relevant that Iamblichus already said that the Corpus Hermeticum was authored by Egyptian priests. Casaubon was not the first author who suggested that the Corpus Hermeticum did not originate from the Egyptian legend Hermes. Casaubon also did not think that he was the first who revealed the error, because he also mentioned the utterance of Iamblichus.

Del (detenido) desaparecido se espera que aparezca, no que venga revestido de su desaparición. Todo lo que las técnicas (y las tecnologías) de reconstrucción de identidad puedan alcanzar en perfección y en exactitud, no acallarán la inquietud de un reencuentro que jamás podría tener lugar. No es irrelevante el hecho que para los familiares de los llamados “detenidos desaparecidos” el encuentro con un cadáver sea menos decisivo que el encuentro con tal o cual objeto que lo acompaña.  Todavía menos irrelevante es si el objeto que lo acompaña contribuye a ensanchar la fosa entre él y el cadáver que debía poder nombrar. En la misma medida en que el objeto es capaz de nombrar al que acompaña, pliega sobre sí el abismo de una fractura. Luego, si las técnicas y las tecnologías de identificación tienen alguna importancia, para que puedan aportar algo a la causa del desaparecido es necesario que se pongan al servicio de las condiciones del reconocimiento, las que nunca podrán dejar de incluir la confianza o el crédito dado a dichas tecnologías

In 1794, following his participation in a duel, Xavier de Maistre was placed under a period of house arrest which spanned forty-two days.  During this time he composed the work Voyage Around My Room, a model for undertaking introspected journeys within one’s own home.  This work associatively counterpoised the interior confines of the home with both imagination and memory. The ‘mental traveller’ was encouraged to conceive of journeys that drew from the remembrance of other journeys (whether those be experienced personally or vicariously through literature or travel narratives), the imaginative possibilities of experiences beyond the realm of one’s own experience, and preconceived notions of the nature of travel and place.

Maistre’s prescriptive narrative, and its subsequent sequel, engaged with a number of historic precedents. Firstly, in terms of the associative values of objects and places (and the imagined traversal of these), it resembled and exploited what Frances Yates was to later dub the art of memory, being a techne for extending the natural memory advocated by practitioners of classical rhetoric.  Secondly, the work responded to the growing eighteenth century fascination with travel narratives and the vicarious experience of adventure and place they facilitated.  This paper will discuss memory in relation to the imagined voyage, with particular reference to Xavier de Maistre, places and narratives designed for vicarious travel, and the classical art of memory.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger'in Mausoleum: Thirty-seven Ballads from the History of Progress (1975) başlıklı nazım biyografi derlemesinden Tommaso Campanella'yı konu alan, "T. C. (1568-1639)" şiirinin Türkçe çevirisini, Frances Yates'in "Giordano Bruno ve Hermetik Gelenek" yapıtının geçtiğimiz günlerde Say Yayınları tarafından basılan çevirisine nazire olarak sunuyorum.

Across the years, scholars have found in Dante’s "Inferno" a nearly endless wellspring for study, its breadth of vision and scope make it an object of intense curiosity and fascination, and a window into the medieval worldview. The subjects which I have chosen to investigate here, while somewhat radical, are not altogether without precedent having piqued the interest of a number of scholars over the years, whose work I provide a survey of here. My central aim is to consider the function of memory in "Inferno", both in it’s allegorical aspects and its practical historical function as a possible mnemonic tool, while simultaneously calling on Dante to guide us through a more modern Inferno. What does the Inferno mean to a modern audience, especially one that has become increasingly more secular, rational and scientific since it was originally conceived? It is my contention that not only is "Inferno" still very much relevant to the modern(and postmodern) psyche, but that it is as instructive as it is applicable today as it was in Dante’s time. This is due not only to the "Inferno" being a profoundly humanist text, but a text that exhorts the reader to a prudent pursuit of knowledge and remembrance of his or her own profoundly human circumstances, a process which the text itself models through the allegory of Dante the character’s pilgrimage through Hell. The variations of theme and subject in the "Inferno" are as far flung as they are all encompassing, spanning vast historical periods and drawing upon the nascent resurgence of classical learning beginning to percolate through the cultural and scholastic exchange during Dante's own historical moment at the cusp of the renaissance.