Literature and Science :  

Overviews of Renaissance Science

Books

• Linden, Stanton J., ed. The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Substantial excerpts in English from works dealing with alchemy. There is a general introduction as well as introductions to each excerpt, illustrations from the original editions, and a glossary and bibliography.

• Shumaker, Wayne. The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance: A Study in Intellectual Patterns. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Looks at astrology, witchcraft, magic, alchemy, and Hermetism. Mostly descriptive. Close look at Renaissance writings for and against various subjects starting with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s attack on astrology. Deals with both readily available and obscure works and authors.

• Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Classic work on the occult in 16th- and 17th-century England. Attributes its decline to the rise of the mechanical philosophy. Originally published 1971.

• Thorndike, Lynn. History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–1958.

Pioneering discussion of natural thought from early Christian times through the 17th century detailing both readily available and obscure works and authors. Although written in part to debunk the Burckhardtian view of the Renaissance, it shows how endemic astrology, alchemy, and magic were to Renaissance thought even in the period known as the “scientific revolution.”

• Webster, Charles. The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626–1660. 2d ed. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2002.

Important revision of the traditional view of English science as movement toward modernity from Francis Bacon to Isaac Newton. Focuses on the social and religious background. Explores the pursuit of science among Puritans in the 17th century and shows that they concentrated on Paracelsian medicine, alchemy, and natural history in the Baconian tradition. Originally published 1976.

• Yates, Frances. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London: Routledge, 2002.

Building on the author’s work on Hermetism, this volume presents all early modern science as an outgrowth of a European-wide 17th-century occult movement. Originally published 1972.

• Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., ed. and trans. The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.

Short excerpts on “signs and portents,” astrology, alchemy, and magic, some appearing in English for the first time. Includes a brief general introduction and an introduction to each section. Comprehensive in scope. Good for classroom use.

Encyclopedias

While only Applebaum 2000 deals specifically with the Renaissance period, the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (Gillispie 1970–1980, with a 2007 supplement) is a classic reference work and very useful.

• Applebaum, Wilbur, ed. Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: From Copernicus to Newton. New York: Garland, 2000.

Contains articles ranging from several hundred to several thousand words on figures and concepts, including astrology, alchemy, magic, and related subjects.

• Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 16 vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1970–1980.

One of the most important reference works in the history of science. Substantial articles on scientists from Antiquity to modern times. Supplemented by Scribner’s 2007 New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Noretta Koertge. The new volumes also contain supplements to articles in the original work. Both are available in electronic format as well as book form.

Bibliographies

The best bibliography on the history of science, Isis, which includes works on astrology, alchemy, and magic prior to the 18th century, is maintained by the History of Science Society. While Isis continues to provide an annual bibliography as part of each volume, the most usable form is at the society’s website, but it is available by subscription only. Cantamessa 2007 only covers astrology, but it includes original printed editions as well.

• Cantamessa, Leandro. Astrologia: Opere a stampa (1472–1900). 2 vols. Florence, Italy: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2007.

Lists 5,045 volumes on astrology with full titles, collations, and descriptions and library locations for rare works. Commentary in Italian.

• Isis.

Journal of the History of Science Society. Covers all periods and disciplines in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, which includes astrology, alchemy, and magic before 1700. The last issue of each volume is a bibliography of recent publications, including articles, monographs, collections, editions, and reference works. The most usable form, however, is on the society’s website, but it is available by subscription only.

Anthologies

Earlier scholarship often dismissed the value of Renaissance occult. Vickers 1984 tries to separate the occult from the scientific tradition. Later works reject this approach. Newman and Grafton 2001 depicts astrology and alchemy as part of Renaissance science; Principe 2007 shows alchemy as an experimental science. Zambelli 1986 focuses on astrology at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Osler 2000 questions whether early modern science was revolutionary. Scholz Williams and Gunnoe 2002 contains various studies of the appearance of occult ideas. Oestmann, et al. 2005 suggests the benefits of studying horoscopes.

• Newman, William R., and Anthony Grafton, eds. Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

Shows how much astrology and alchemy were intertwined with the natural philosophy and medicine of the early modern period. Articles on Girolamo Cardano, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, Johannes Trithemius, the Rosicrucians, Simon Forman, and the historiography of alchemy.

• Oestmann, Günther, H. Darrel Rutkin, and Kocku von Stuckrad, eds. Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005.

Considers horoscopes as historical sources, as astronomical sources, as rhetorical devices, and as biographical sources. Four of the essays deal with the Renaissance period—two essays on Girolamo Cardano, one on medical astrology, and one on astrological practice.

• Osler, Margaret J., ed. Rethinking the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Reprints B. J. T. Dobbs’s essay on Isaac Newton’s alchemy that challenges the concept of a “scientific revolution” and response in favor of the traditional view by Richard Westfall. Other essays on astrology, alchemy, and magic support Dobbs’s view.

• Principe, Lawrence M., ed. Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History, 2007.

Twenty-two papers from the International Conference on the History of Alchemy and Chymistry, held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, July 2006, on alchemy and early modern chemistry, which the editor calls chymistry, that consider the topic as the foundation of theories of matter and chemical change.

• Scholz Williams, Gerhild, and Charles D. Gunnoe Jr., eds. Paracelsian Moments: Science, Medicine, and Astrology in Early Modern Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002.

More than half the articles are devoted to Paracelsus, but there are also articles on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, François Rabelais, Robert Boyle, Johannes Praetorius, and vision.

• Vickers, Brian, ed. Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Articles on John Dee, Marin Mersenne, Johannes Kepler, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, universities, and witchcraft and demonology, most of which question the extent to which the occult contributed to the development of modern science. The longest article by far is by Vickers, who suggests that occult knowledge operates by analogy while science operates by “identity” and that this led to a rejection of the occult.

• Zambelli, Paola, ed. “Astrologi Hallucinati”: Stars and the End of the World in Luther’s Time. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.

Proceedings of conference at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, May 1984, on 16th-century astrology. All articles are in English, but the article on Martin Luther is a summary of the author’s German work.

Journals

Articles and book reviews on astrology, alchemy, and magic in the Renaissance period can be found in journals that deal with the science of the period. Early Science and Medicine covers only the premodern period, while Isis covers all periods of science. Renaissance Quarterly is period specific but covers all disciplines. Culture and Cosmos is one of the few refereed journals that specialize in one of the disciplines under discussion.

• Culture and Cosmos.

Covers the history of astrology and cultural astronomy for all periods and geographical locations. Appearance of issues is erratic.

• Early Science and Medicine.

Covers all disciplines in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, including astrology, alchemy, and magic, from ancient times to about 1700.

• Isis.

Journal of the History of Science Society. Covers all periods and disciplines in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology, which includes astrology, alchemy, and magic before 1700.

• Renaissance Quarterly.