Scientiae 2025: Istanbul, 16-19 September, Annual Conference

Session

S.1.3. Echoes of Antiquity: Myth, Philosophy, and the Stars in Early Modern Thought

16 Sept 2025, 16:15

Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Lecture Hall (Amfi 9) (Istanbul)

Conveners

S.1.3. Echoes of Antiquity: Myth, Philosophy, and the Stars in Early Modern Thought

• Giulia Beccaria (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici (Naples) - National and Kapodistrian University (Athens))
• Monika Frazer-Imregh (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary)
• Agata Starownik (University of Warsaw)

Description

Chair: Divna Manolova

Leopardi as a Byzantine Scholar, Translator of George Gemistos Plethon

Giulia Beccaria (Italian Institute for Historical Studies (Naples) - National and Kapodistrian University (Athens))

16/09/2025, 16:15

Individual papers

This paper focuses on Giacomo Leopardi as a translator of George Gemistos Plethon (1355–1452), whom Silvia Ronchey refers to as the “first true Italian Byzantine scholar.” Plethon, described by Woodhouse as “the last of the Greeks”, was a Byzantine Neoplatonic philosopher and the founder of the Academy of Mistra in the Peloponnese. His intellectual legacy inspired Cosimo de’ Medici to...

Ascensio ad Deum, a Neoplatonic Program in Renaissance Disguise: The Reception of the Teachings of Ficino and Pico in H. C. Agrippa von Nettesheim’s De Occulta Philosophia

Monika Frazer-Imregh (Károli University)

16/09/2025, 16:35

Individual papers

H. C. Agrippa von Nettesheim’s main work, De occulta philosophia, entered the history of thought in the 20th century as an encyclopedia of Renaissance magic. This is how D. P. Walker talks about it, who describes it in connection with the grouping of “spiritual” and “demonic” magic, Frances Yates, who mentions it when discussing the “new religion” of modern Hermeticism, Charles Nauert, who...

The Cycle of Seven Planets – Iconography and Applications

Agata Starownik (University of Warsaw (Poland))

16/09/2025, 16:55

Individual papers

The paper will discuss the cycle of seven planetary deities, popular in 15th and 16th century prints. Iconographic variants of the motif represent different conventions, e.g. in orientalising, antikizing, modernising the appearance of planets. They are accompanied by a specific set of attributes, including signs of the zodiac or elements known from mythology. There are certain trends visible,...