It’s hard to know where to begin this story because there are many facets that reflect the many colliding cultures of the Renaissance. It’s also difficult for a modern person to get into the mindset of Medieval Europe because it was so drastically different than what the modern world is like today. Imagine a world without science, a world shaped by myths and superstitions, where both long-distance travel and communication are slow and difficult. Imagine a world ruled by the medieval Church and its constrained worldview. Imagine a world where medicine is part prayer and part folklore. This is the world that our story begins in but it’s a very different place from where it ends up.

Talismanic Ring (1400’s). The Sapphire and symbols were said to protect the wearer from harm.

The Medici dynasty of bankers were the ruling family in Florence, Italy in the late 15th century. Under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, arts and culture were flourishing. Cosimo had a strong interest in philosophy, particularly Humanism and Platonism. The various philosophers he was in contact with inspired Cosimo to sponsor a modern version of Plato’s ancient Academy. This Neoplatonic Florentine Academy was a sort of club for modern thinkers, philosophers, and mystics to get together, read ancient texts, and discuss their ideas about life and the nature of human beings. At the head of this new Academy was Marsilio Ficino, a scholar, priest, and philosopher who was versed in many languages.

Ficino was interested in finding the True Philosophy, a grand unified theory that would unite all of mankind. He was working on translating the ancient philosophical writings of Plato and Socrates from Greek into a more widely readable Latin when something a little more unusual came to him for translation. His patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, presented to him a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents now known as the Corpus Hermeticum. Ficino put his other translations on pause to begin translating these new texts that were said to have been written by a figure with godlike knowledge and impeccable credentials, Hermes Trismegistos. Hermes Trismegistos was, at the time, considered to be a contemporary of Moses and was thought to have been the originator of all philosophies. You can imagine that when Ficino and his Academy started to read these newly discovered manuscripts they got very excited because they seemed to contain the root of the universal philosophy that they were pining for.

Hermes Trismegistos

Hermetic Philosophy and the Birth of Western Magic

The introduction of these ancient texts and their mystic content into the philosophical vernacular of the Hermetic Academy had a major influence in kicking off the spiritual and religious revolution of the Renaissance. We must remember that the Middle Ages was a time when the Church dictated much of the worldview and morality of the Western world. These new influences are partially the reason why we recognize a cultural shift from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. When we look back to the Renaissance, we typically remember the great developments that happened in art but we must also recall that the Renaissance birthed modern science and that without the change in worldview that these occult manuscripts provided, science may not have been able to develop as it did.

The ancient documents that Ficino was translating provided a worldview that the medieval Christian mentality hadn’t been able to consider before. The Hermetica offered a model of reality in which the Earth and the Heavens were intrinsically linked and could affect one other (“as above, so below”). The prevailing idea at the time was that God controlled the world and that anything that happened was the direct result of God’s Will. This new idea that man could somehow directly shape his life and also the world around him was not only revolutionary but ultimately liberating. Over the next few hundred years, man would go from being a purely receptive being in a universe that was completely controlled by his creator into a creator himself who could dominate and shape the Earth and its events to suit his own desires. This began with the idea that man could affect the outer world along with his own internal world through the act of magic rituals and slowly evolved and influenced what we now know as scientific inquiry and the scientific method.

Post-Byzantine Necklace: Gold, Amethyst, Emeralds, Rubies, Pearls and more (16th C) ©Colombia

The introduction of these ancient Greek and Egyptian ideas were explosive in a culture that was ready to explore the world in new ways. In figures like Medici and Ficino, we see an obvious yearning for ancient knowledge and they were searching all over the Western and Eastern world for it. The medieval mindset was the perfect breeding ground for a new magical outlook because the common populous already considered the world to be run by hidden, divine forces, so it would have only taken a small but powerful mental step to assume that Man might be able wield the “power of God” in order to influence the world through his own invisible, divinely appointed powers.

Through the study of the Hermetica, along with other ancient texts that had been imported to Europe and translated such as the Emerald Tablet and the Hygromanteia, the Renaissance reader is given a new context for a world in which magic is not only possible but necessary. The manuscripts stated that by analyzing oneself, you could understand Nature and by analyzing Nature you can understand yourself. In order to be able to affect the world in a magical way, you must be able to see it for what it is, and in order to do that you need to develop a pure perception. Ficino and his Academy learned that Man must be initiated into seven spheres, related to the planets and their influences, in order to purify the soul and enable the pure perception that they sought.

An imaginative 17th century depiction of the Emerald Tablet from the work of Heinrich Khunrath, 1606.

The further Ficino and his associates got into these new Greco-Egyptian inspired mystical realms, the more adventurous they would become in their magical experiments. Ficino would take his best and closest students into his meditation chamber and perform magical invocations to move their spirit through the seven spheres in an attempt to purify their soul. Since Ficino had been a Catholic priest, his rituals were a sort of experiment in liturgy. He would fill the chamber with objects that were related to the sphere and planet and God he was trying to invoke.

The material in these texts sparked an interest in Astronomy, Astrology, Alchemy, and Theurgy (the magical practice of invoking or evoking a God or spirit). The translation of the Hermetica was published in 1471 and was one of the first books to ever be printed after the Gutenberg Bible. After being hidden for over a thousand years, this ancient occult philosophy quickly spread all over the Western World, inspiring mystics, writers, theologians, and painters. Hermetic Magic was born! The influence that these texts had on popular culture was huge: By the 16th century, over 30,000 people in Paris alone identified as a magician, astrologer, or sorcerer.

The Power of Stones

Emerging from the Medieval period, gemstones were extremely charged magical artifacts. The gemstone was a symbol of divine power and seen as the perfection of God’s creation of the world. The glowing light that radiated from a Ruby or Garnet cabochon not only represented the beauty of the stone and the perfection of nature as created by God but it was also thought to reveal to the wearer a reflection of Heavenly and Divine beauty and perfection.

Hermes Trismegistos himself wrote that:

The reason why gemstones have more magical power than anything else is because their luminescence and transparency resemble the appearance of heaven.

Crystal Stone Divination from Bononiensis 3632 (15th Century)

Medieval man believed that light radiated out of gemstones and that this light contained “magic” powers of the divine, so most stones of that period were cut as domed cabochons to enable the strongest glow they knew how to facilitate. Throughout the Medieval and Renaissance periods, there was a continued use of light in texts as a metaphor for the Divine and this helped the gemstone achieve the status of an ultimately valuable and divinely important item.

In the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, tomes were compiled listing the magical and healing properties of gemstones. These books were called Lapidaries and the tradition of recording this type of magical gem knowledge goes back 2300 years to ancient Mesopotamia. Until the Renaissance, these lapidary manuscripts were very classical in composition and content. It wasn’t until Ficino published his de Vita Coelitus Comparanda in the 1480's that lapidary knowledge was infused with fresh innovation: Ficino attributes the mystical power of gems to their relationship with and influence from the heavens.

Gold Ring with Garnet Cabochon (Late 13th-14th Century) © medieval-rings.com

For Ficino, the planets have the ability to affect the mind and the health of the body. Aside from merely connecting stones to elemental energies and their associated healing qualities (Hot, Cold, Hard, and Soft), he asserts that they have much more specific powers such as resisting fire, invisibility, diverting lightning, endowing the wearer with wisdom, giving favor with princes, repelling poising, increasing riches, curing disease, fostering love, and calming tempests, among others. We can imagine that if Ficino is writing about the magical, astrological properties of stones while also leading ceremonies to move the soul through the seven Heavenly spheres, he is most likely using gemstones to enhance his rituals.

Ficino’s lapidary text kicks off a trend of writing “updated” Renaissance lapidary books. These new interpretations of ancient lore and knowledge connected gemstones to various natural and magical forces and gave instructions on how to use them as magical talismans to ward off evil and sickness and attract all the things that people typically desire.

The Lapidary of Alfonso X (1253)

Hygromanteia

The Hermetica was not the only important mystical text that came to Italy from Constantinople. Possibly even more importantly, from the point of view of modern magical culture, was the “Hygromanteia” which later became the “Key of Solomon.”

The Key of Solomon is what most of most of traditional Western Magical practices in the modern world are based upon. The Hygromanteia and the Key of Solomon that it spawned were important to Renaissance philosophers-turned-magicians and they’re still important as a magical texts today. The text contains spells and rituals to create magical items, invoke the power of Gods and their related planetary bodies, and also provides information about the connection between the magical influence of astrological bodies, herbs, and gemstones:

Pay attention, my dearest son Rehoboam, to the details of this art, regarding the things in which the entire interest of the Hygromanteia lies… And Rehoboam asked him: “Father, in which things does the virtue of things reside?” And Solomon replied: “In herbs, in words and in stones.”

Hygromanteia except

We can see that a theme is building here: Ancient manuscripts transmit forgotten knowledge to a population that is eager for a spiritual revolution. Along with these new insights into the nature of the human soul comes ancient knowledge about natural magic which inherently is connected to gemstones, plants, and planets, and typically all three. In an attempt to purify his soul and obtain an enlightened state, Man embraces these new yet old ideas and in the process, transforms them into new magical theories and practices for the Renaissance man.

It’s easy to see how this changing worldview could start to transform Western human society and its outlook on reality into what is has become today. The Scientific Revolution is traditionally held by most historians to have begun in 1543, when the books by Andreas Vesalius and the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus were first printed. The scientific method was developed in 1637 by René Descartes. Even as late as the 1720’s we see scientific figures such as Isaac Newton, who famously discovered gravity, studying not only physics and mathematics, but also alchemy, the magical act of turning lead into gold and purifying the human soul.

The Birth of Gem Faceting

While Ficino and the Academy were translating ancient texts in Florence (1460's), Venice was enjoying the end of its Silk Road prosperity. For over a thousand years, Venice had been the entry point for the Silk Road into Europe. Goods were received by ship and then travelled with merchants who had trade connections throughout Northern Europe. Trade with Flanders was carried out mainly at the Champagne fairs where Italian merchants bought their goods. When the sea route started between the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic, trade with Flanders was carried out directly by ship. A second route linked Venice with Augsburg, Nuremberg, Prague, and Vienna through the Brenner Pass.

One of the specialty goods that Venice was importing from Asia was pigment. These new colors came to Europe from the East in the form of gems: Cinnabar from China was ground down to make bright red vermillion. Russian Malachite was imported to make a vivid green. Most precious of all was Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan that made a vibrant blue they called Ultramarine. The availability of these colors had a big influence on art as the Renaissance spread throughout Europe.