HERMES TRISMEGISTUS (ascribed to) - photo 1
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS (ascribed to) - photo 2

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS (ascribed to)

Lot 103
11.12.2024 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1349781
Lot 103 | HERMES TRISMEGISTUS (ascribed to)
Estimate value
£ 40 000 – 60 000
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS (ascribed to)
De potestate et sapientia Dei [Pimander], translated by Marsilius Ficinus (1433-1499). Treviso: Gerardus de Lisa, de Flandria, 18 December 1471
Rare first edition of a foundation text of the Renaissance. When a manuscript of Pimander discovered in Macedonia arrived at the Florentine court of Cosimo de Medici, it disrupted received understanding of Antiquity and Christianity, with its author, Hermes Trismegistus, ascribed an antiquity predating Plato and even Moses. Cosimo therefore ordered Marsilio Ficino to interrupt his work translating Plato in order first to translate Hermes; his translation of Pimander was completed in April 1463, and it is thus Ficino's first book. Hermes was hailed as the ‘fons et origo’ of a wisdom tradition and founder of theology presaging Christianity, and hermetic philosophy informed a wide spectrum of Renaissance humanism, from Pico's Oration on the Dignity of Man to the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, to the Christian study of the cabala, and, owing to the alchemical hermetic works, magic and spirituality. Pimander was printed in more than 20 editions before 1641, and hermetic influence has been traced in works as disparate as Newton's physics and the writings of Shakespeare, Sidney and Spenser. It was not until the 17th century that the Corpus Hermeticum was shown by Isaac Casaubon to have been written in the 2nd-3rd centuries CE in Egypt, probably by Egyptians with a Greek education, and not by a single priscus theologus. Rare; RBH records only one copy (Sullivan-Stonyhurst) at auction in over a century, in addition to the copy in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. HR 8456; BMC VI, 883; CIBN H-45; Bod.-Inc. H-049; Ford, BPH 114; Klebs 510.1; Goff H-77; ISTC ih00077000.

Quarter-sheet royal octavo (199 x 135mm). 56 leaves, quires misbound into order 1-2-5-4-3-6. With variant 'FRAH' on 1/1v. 1- to 4-line initial spaces, a few filled in later ink, some contemporary MS quiring, spaces for Greek (marginal repairs/replacements in first leaf, occasional light soiling, occasional minor marginal wormtrack). Modern binding reusing a noted manuscript leaf. Provenance: early marginal annotations in several hands (trimmed) – deleted inscription – Bernardinus Groppetus(?, 17th-century inscription) – P. Stella (18th-century inscription).
Place of origin:Italy, Europe
Auction house category:Antiquarian books, Books and manuscripts, Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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11.12.2024 – 11.12.2024
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
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