J.R. Ritman Library - Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica

J.R. Ritman Library - Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica: "Hermetica


The term 'Hermetica' is used to cover a heterogeneous body of works attributed to the legendary philosopher Hermes Trismegistus, which are mostly philosophical, theosophical, astrological, magical or alchemical in nature. The treatises we now call the Corpus Hermeticum, which is today perhaps the best-known Hermetic work, were compiled mainly in the 2nd-3rd centuries CE and have been preserved in Greek codices (although Coptic fragments have also been recovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945). In the Middle Ages, only one Hermetic work, the Latin Asclepius (its Greek original is lost) was widely known. This changed when Marsilio Ficino in 1463 translated fourteen Greek Hermetic texts into Latin at the request of his patron Cosimo de Medici."