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Negotiating Neoplatonic Image Theory: The Production of Mental Images in Marsilio Ficino and Giovan Battista Della Porta's Magic Lamps

Book cover © Routledge

Book cover © Routledge

Sergius Kodera – 2020

This chapter discusses selected aspects of image-making in traditional erudite Renaissance natural magic, focusing on the sixteenth-century transformation of a set of prominent theories synthesized in the last decades of the fifteenth century by Marsilio Ficino. Ficino also applies his theory of demonic illusions within another context. In his account of the retribution for sins in the next world, products of the human imagination become the decisive factor. The chapter examines one particular instance where the process of image-making becomes linked to a set of material objects – magic lamps. Ficino's sophisticated intellectual magic, and his elaborate theories concerning the crucial role of signs and their production, were inserted by Della Porta into a context that effectively subverted Ficino's contemplative intentions, given that Della Porta highlighted certain practical and manipulative applications of a natural magic that Ficino had sought to elide.

Title
Negotiating Neoplatonic Image Theory: The Production of Mental Images in Marsilio Ficino and Giovan Battista Della Porta's Magic Lamps
Publisher
Routledge
Location
New York
Keywords
Book Chapter; RA 2: Travelling Matters
Date
2020-09-23
Appeared in
Berthold Hub, Sergius Kodera (Eds.). Iconology, Neoplatonism and Arts in the Renaissance (= Routledge Research in Art History)
Type
Text
Size or Duration
77–93
Coverage
This publication is the result of work carried out in Research Area 2: Travelling Matters.
How to cite:
Sergius Kodera. "Negotiating Neoplatonic Image Theory: The Production of Mental Images in Marsilio Ficino and Giovan Battista Della Porta's Magic Lamps." In Iconology, Neoplatonism and Arts in the Renaissance, edited by Sergius Kodera and Berthold Hub, 77–93. Routledge Research in Art History. New York: Routledge, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003019671.