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This book presents a major reassessment of the career and cultural background of John Dee (1527-1609), one of Elizabethan England's most interesting figures. Challenging the conventional image of the isolated, eccentric philosopher, Sherman situates Dee in a fresh context, revealing that he was a well-connected adviser to the academic, courtly, and commercial circles of his day. The centerpiece of Dee's life is shown to be the massive library and museum at Mortlake, perhaps the first modern "think tank". There he lived, worked, and entertained some of the period's most influential intellectuals and politicians. Sherman discusses Dee's household arrangements, reading practices, and writings on subjects ranging from calendar reform to imperial policy. He also offers the first detailed account of the broad network of scholars and other experts who, along with Dee, operated behind the political scenes, providing textual and technological support during this time of unprecedented intellectual and global expansion.
Outlandish alchemist and magician, political intelligencer, apocalyptic prophet, and converser with angels, John Dee (1527–1609) was one of the most colorful and controversial figures of the Tudor world. In this fascinating book—the first full-length biography of Dee based on primary historical sources—Glyn Parry explores Dee’s vast array of political, magical, and scientific writings and finds that they cast significant new light on policy struggles in the Elizabethan court, conservative attacks on magic, and Europe's religious wars. John Dee was more than just a fringe magus, Parry shows: he was a major figure of the Reformation and Renaissance.
Discovered in a hidden compartment of an old chest long after his death, the secret writings of John Dee, one of the leading scientists and occultists of Elizabethan England, record in minute detail his research into the occult. Dee concealed his treatises on the nature of humankind's contact with angelic realms and languages throughout his life, and they were nearly lost forever. In his brief biography of John Dee, Joseph Peterson calls him a "true Renaissance man"? detailing his work in astronomy, mathematics, navigation, the arts, astrology, and the occult sciences. He was even thought to be the model for Shakespeare's Prospero. All this was preparation for Dee's main achievement: five bo...
Delving into the life and work of John Dee, Renaissance mathematician and "conjurer to Queen Elizabeth," György E. Szo‹nyi presents an analysis of Renaissance occultism and its place in the chronology of European cultural history. Culling examples of "magical thinking" from classical, medieval, and Renaissance philosophers, Szo‹nyi revisits the body of Dee's own scientific and spiritual writings as reflective sources of traditional mysticism. Exploring the intellectual foundations of magic, Szo‹nyi focuses on the ideology of exaltatio, the glorification or deification of man. He argues that it was the desire for exaltatio that framed and tied together the otherwise varied thoughts and activities of John Dee as well.
John Dee (1527-1609) has emerged as one of the most influential figures in the intellectual history of Tudor England. Though best known in his own time as a mathematician, he had a host of other interests (including navigation, astrology and astronomy, cabbala, alchemy, paracelsian medicine, and Welsh history) and was one of the first scholars to advocate collecting manuscripts from the dissolved monastic libraries. Indeed his own library was perhaps the largest assembled in England by one man before 1600. This study, which includes a facsimile of the detailed catalogue of 1583, recounts for the first time the growth of Dee's library, the raid made upon it during his absence in Poland, and its dispersal after his death. The book also describes the location of his surviving books and manuscripts.
This is the definitive study of John Dee and his intellectual career. Originally published in 1988, this interpretation is far more detailed than any that came before and is an authoritative account for anyone interested in the history, literature and scientific developments of the Renaissance, or the occult. John Dee has fascinated successive generations. Mathematician, scientist, astrologer and magus at the court of Elizabeth I, he still provokes controversy. To some he is the genius whose contributions to navigation made possible the feats of Elizabethan explorers and colonists, to others an alchemist and charlatan. Thoroughly examining Dee’s natural philosophy, this book provides a balanced evaluation of his place, and the role of the occult, in sixteenth-century intellectual history. It brings together insights from a study of Dee’s writings, the available biographical material, and his sources as reflected in his extensive library and, more importantly, numerous surviving annotated volumes from it.
This was originally a two volume set which is now bound as one. Here is presented an investigation of the nature of the earliest extant records of the supposed communication with angels and spirits of John Dee (1527-1608) with the assistance of his two mediums or 'scryers', Barnabas Saul and Edward Kelly. Volume 2 of this work is a transcription of the records in Dee's hand contained in Sloane MS 3188, which has been transcribed only once before, by Elias Ashmole in 1672. Volume 1 is an introduction and thorough commentary to the text which is primarily explaining its many obscurities. The author describes the physical state of the manuscript and its history then continues with a biography o...
John Dee's angel conversations have been an enigmatic facet of Elizabethan England's most famous natural philosopher's life and work. Professor Harkness contextualizes Dee's angel conversations within the natural philosophical, religious and social contexts of his time. She argues that they represent a continuing development of John Dee's earlier concerns and interests. These conversations include discussions of the natural world, the practice of natural philosophy, and the apocalypse.
Discovered in a hidden compartment of an old chest long after his death, the secret writings of John Dee, one of the leading scientists and occultists of Elizabethan England, record in minute detail his research into the occult. Dee concealed his treatises on the nature of humankind's contact with angelic realms and languages throughout his life, and they were nearly lost forever. In his brief biography of John Dee, Joseph Peterson calls him a "true Renaissance man" -- detailing his work in astronomy, mathematics, navigation, the arts, astrology, and the occult sciences. He was even thought to be the model for Shakespeare's Prospero. All this was preparation for Dee's main achievement: five ...
Intellectual History and the Identity of John Dee In April 1995, at Birkbeck College, University of London, an interdisciplinary colloquium was held so that scholars from diverse fields and areas of expertise could 1 exchange views on the life and work of John Dee. Working in a variety of fields – intellectual history, history of navigation, history of medicine, history of science, history of mathematics, bibliography and manuscript studies – we had all been drawn to Dee by particular aspects of his work, and participating in the colloquium was to c- front other narratives about Dee’s career: an experience which was both bewildering and instructive. Perhaps more than any other intellec...