Chronology · Timeline
Chronology
Renaissance
39 moments, c. 1428–1436 to c. 1597–98.
- c. 1428–1436
Early witch hunts in the Valais
Trials in the western Alps help crystallise the new idea of a diabolical sect of witches who fly to sabbaths and make pacts with Satan.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - c. 1440s
First tarot (trionfi) decks in Italy
Northern Italian courts add a series of allegorical trump cards to playing cards; the Visconti-Sforza decks survive from mid-century.
Liber VII · Divination - 1446
Oldest near-complete Clavicula manuscript
An Italian Key of Solomon (BnF Ital. 1524), likely translated from a Latin copy in the Visconti library at Pavia, is completed.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - c. 15th century
Hatha Yoga Pradipika compiled
Svatmarama's 'Light on Hatha Yoga' gathers postures, breath control, seals and the arousal of kundalini into the classic hatha manual.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1463
Ficino translates the Hermetica
Cosimo de' Medici has Marsilio Ficino set aside Plato to render the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin, believing Hermes older than Moses' successors.
Liber XI · Hermeticism - 1471
Corpus Hermeticum first printed
Ficino's Latin Pimander is printed at Treviso and runs through many editions; the same year George Ripley completes his Compound of Alchemy.
Liber XI · Hermeticism - 1484
Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus
Innocent VIII authorises inquisitors Kramer and Sprenger to pursue witches in Germany; the bull is later printed with their manual.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1486
Pico's 900 Theses and Oration
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola proposes a public debate in Rome, claiming that magic and Kabbalah prove Christ's divinity; several theses are condemned in 1487.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1486–87
Malleus Maleficarum published
Heinrich Kramer's 'Hammer of Witches' argues witchcraft is real, chiefly female and demands secular prosecution; it becomes a notorious reference.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1489
Ficino's Three Books on Life
Ficino's De vita teaches drawing beneficial planetary influences through music, images and medicine—a learned 'natural magic'.
Liber XI · Hermeticism - late 15th century
Oldest Latin Clavicula exemplar
Oxford's Coxe 25 preserves an early Latin Key of Solomon, alongside the Italian witnesses of the same century.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1492
Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
The Alhambra Decree scatters Iberian Jewry; exiled kabbalists carry their traditions to Italy, North Africa and the Ottoman lands, especially Safed.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1494
Reuchlin's De verbo mirifico
Johannes Reuchlin argues that inserting the letter shin into the Tetragrammaton yields the name of Jesus, launching Christian Kabbalah in Germany; Pico dies the same year.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1508
Trithemius's Antipalus maleficiorum
The abbot of Sponheim catalogues magic books he deems dangerous, including the earliest reference to pseudo-Abano's Elucidation of Necromancy.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1509–10
Agrippa drafts De occulta philosophia
The young Cornelius Agrippa sends a manuscript of his three books of occult philosophy to Trithemius, who advises discretion.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1516
Portae Lucis and the sefirotic tree
Paulus Ricius's Latin version of Gikatilla's Gates of Light is printed with a famous woodcut of a man holding the sefirot; Trithemius dies the same year.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1517
Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica
Reuchlin's dialogue presents Kabbalah to Christian humanists; that autumn, Luther's theses begin the Reformation.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1525
Giorgi's De harmonia mundi
The Venetian friar Francesco Giorgi weaves Kabbalah, Neoplatonism and numerology into a theory of cosmic harmony.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1527
Paracelsus burns the medical canon
Teaching at Basel, Paracelsus publicly burns a standard medical text, championing experience, chemical remedies and the salt–sulphur–mercury triad; John Dee is born.
Liber I · Alchemy - 1531–33
Agrippa's Three Books printed
The full De occulta philosophia appears in Cologne, organising natural, celestial and ceremonial magic into the Renaissance's most influential occult manual.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1535
Death of Agrippa
Agrippa dies at Grenoble; his reputation as a black magician grows posthumously, abetted by spurious works issued under his name.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1541
Death of Paracelsus
The radical physician dies at Salzburg; his followers spread Paracelsian chemical medicine and spiritual alchemy across Europe.
Liber I · Alchemy - 1548
Cordovero's Pardes Rimonim
In Safed, Moses Cordovero completes the 'Orchard of Pomegranates', the great systematic synthesis of earlier Kabbalah.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1550
Rosarium philosophorum printed
The 'Rosary of the Philosophers', with woodcuts of the royal couple's union and death, is printed at Frankfurt; Jung later analyses it.
Liber I · Alchemy - 1558
Della Porta's Magia naturalis
Giambattista della Porta's natural magic gathers experiments and wonders, treating magic as the practical side of natural philosophy.
Liber XI · Hermeticism - 1558–60
First printings of the Zohar
Rival editions appear at Mantua and Cremona, making the Zohar widely available despite rabbinic controversy.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1559
Pseudo-Agrippa's Fourth Book
A spurious 'Fourth Book' of occult philosophy appears, soon printed alongside the Heptameron attributed to Peter of Abano—handbooks of practical conjuration.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1563
Witchcraft acts and Weyer's dissent
England and Scotland pass new witchcraft acts, while Johann Weyer's De praestigiis daemonum argues most accused witches are deluded, not guilty.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1564
Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica
John Dee publishes a single glyph combining planetary and elemental signs, which he presents as a key to cosmic unity.
Liber XXIX · Symbols - 1570–72
Isaac Luria in Safed
In barely two years Luria teaches a revolutionary Kabbalah of divine contraction, shattered vessels and cosmic repair; he dies in 1572.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1575
Arbatel of Magic published
A short, Paracelsian-flavoured Latin grimoire of Olympic spirits and pious aphorisms is printed at Basel.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1577
Weyer's Pseudomonarchia daemonum
Weyer appends a catalogue of demons and their offices to his book—a precursor of the Goetia's 72 spirits.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1577
Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa and Interior Castle
In Bengal, Purnananda describes the six chakras; in Spain, Teresa of Ávila writes The Interior Castle on the soul's seven mansions.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1582
Dee and Kelley begin the angelic actions
With Edward Kelley as scryer, Dee records sessions with angels that yield the Enochian language and tables.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1584
Scot's Discoverie and Bruno's Spaccio
Reginald Scot's sceptical Discoverie of Witchcraft reprints conjurations to expose them; in London Bruno publishes his Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1587
The Faustbuch printed
The anonymous Historia von D. Johann Fausten tells of a scholar's pact with Mephistopheles, inspiring Marlowe and later Goethe.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1590–91
North Berwick witch trials
Scottish trials accuse dozens of raising storms against James VI's ship; the king publishes his Daemonologie in 1597.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1595
Khunrath's Amphitheatrum
Heinrich Khunrath's Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom, with its famous engraved plates, fuses alchemy, Kabbalah and Christian devotion.
Liber I · Alchemy - c. 1597–98
Death of Edward Kelley
Dee's former scryer dies imprisoned in Bohemia; the often-repeated date of 1595 is too early.
Liber XII · High Magick