Anthony Grafton

Professor of History Anthony Grafton

A distinctive history of the traditions of reading and life in the Renaissance library, as seen in the texts of Renaissance intellectuals

Ancient Books and Renaissance Readers

Commerce with the Classics

The work of the Renaissance humanists comes to life in Anthony Grafton's exploration of the primary sources and modern scholarship, classical and modern elements in the world of European letters from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Tracing the ties that bound the world of humanistic learning in early modern Europe to other social and cultural spheres, Grafton defines the current state of the art of scholarship on early modern European cultural and intellectual history while simultaneously demonstrating how entertaining, enlightening, and relevant that history can be. Covering a dazzling variety of topics and authors as different as Alberti and Descartes, Grafton maps the grand and meticulous efforts of the past to connect the realm of nature with that of books, the realm of everyday experience with that of passionate reading in massive tomes, and the realm of codes of etiquette and institutions with that of extravagant and joyous erudition--efforts that this book itself brilliantly carries on.

The Past as Revelation

Bring Out Your Dead

Girolamo Cardano was an Italian doctor, natural philosopher, and mathematician who became a best-selling author in Renaissance Europe. He was also a leading astrologer of his day, whose predictions won him access to some of the most powerful people in sixteenth-century Europe. In Cardano's Cosmos, Anthony Grafton invites readers to follow this astrologer's extraordinary career and explore the art and discipline of astrology in the hands of a brilliant practitioner. Renaissance astrologers predicted everything from the course of the future of humankind to the risks of a single investment, or even the weather. They analyzed the bodies and characters of countless clients, from rulers to criminals, and enjoyed widespread respect and patronage. This book traces Cardano's contentious career from his first astrological pamphlet through his rise to high-level consulting and his remarkable autobiographical works. Delving into astrological principles and practices, Grafton shows how Cardano and his contemporaries adapted the ancient art for publication and marketing in a new era of print media and changing science. He maps the context of market and human forces that shaped Cardano's practices--and the maneuvering that kept him at the top of a world rife with patronage, politics, and vengeful rivals. Cardano's astrology, argues Grafton, was a profoundly empirical and highly influential art, one that was integral to the attempts of sixteenth-century scholars to understand their universe and themselves.

The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer

Cardano's Cosmos

William R. Newman

Jed Z Buchwald

A fresh look at the role of astrology and alchemy in Renaissance thinking and everyday life.

Professor of History Anthony Grafton

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