Florence and the Inspiration of the Future

PROGRAM, Day 1: Tuesday, 19 June, 2001

Morning: Ralph Abraham

In 1462, Marsilio Ficino, the central figure in the Florentine Platonic Academy under the patronage of the Medici family, translated and sythesized numerous strands of ancient wisdom. One such work was the ground-breaking Corpus Hermeticum. This lecture will be a jump-start into Ficino's roots. We will penetrate the essence of the Hermetic philosophy of Ancient Egypt, Plato and Neoplatonism, the astrological mysticism of the Corpus Hermeticum, the alchemical and magical rites of the Chaldean Oracles, and look how all of this was gathered by the Alexandrians of late Antiquity, and launched into the future by the last of the Gnostics, then caught and revealed by the early Humanists of the Renaissance.

Afternoon: Giannozzo Pucci

The relation between Nature and Truth and the problems of the twenty-first century.