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Ovanes Akopyan

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Beni Culturali, Faculty Member

Harvard University, Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at VIlla I Tatti, Post-Doc

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My research interests are in Renaissance and early modern intellectual history. I am the author of "Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception" (Brill, 2021) and the editor or co-editor of four collections of essays, on the late Renaissance polymath Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (Intellectual History Review, 2019), the notions of fate and fortune in early modern scholarship (Brill, 2021), authority in early modern cosmology (Perspectives on Science, 2022), and disasters in the early modern world (Routledge, 2024). My second monograph, provisionally entitled "Explaining Natural Disasters in Early Modern Europe: Science, Politics, Rhetoric," is under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press. My work has also appeared in several top-tier journals, including Renaissance Studies, Rinascimento, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, and Erudition and the Republic of Letters, among others. I have held research fellowships at the Warburg Institute, University of London, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Villa I Tatti - The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Since July 2023, I have been a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

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Cambridge

Jonathan Singerton

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Barbara Mancuso

Università di Catania

Emanuela Garofalo

The University of Sheffield

University of Oxford

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Camila Moreiras

Lorenza Gianfrancesco

University of Chichester

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Books by Ovanes Akopyan

Virtual book launch for "Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance" (Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick, 4 May 2021)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/author-meets-critics-discussing-giovanni-pico-della-mirandolas-ast... more

Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021)

https://brill.com/view/title/36397 In Debating the Stars, Ovanes Akopyan sheds new light on the a... more https://brill.com/view/title/36397
In Debating the Stars, Ovanes Akopyan sheds new light on the astrological controversies that arose in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries after the publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (1496). This treatise has often been held responsible for a contemporary reassessment of the status of astrology, a discipline that attracted widespread fascination in the Renaissance. Akopyan's reconstruction of the development of Pico's views demonstrates that the Disputationes was a continuation of rather than a drastic rupture with the rest of his legacy. By investigating the philosophical and humanist foundations for Pico's attack on astrological predictions, Akopyan challenges the popular assumption that the treatise was written under Girolamo Savonarola's spell. He shows instead how it was appropriated ideologically by pro-Savonarolan circles after Pico's death. This book also offers a comprehensive study of the immediate reception of the Disputationes across Italy and Europe and reveals that the debates initiated by Pico's intervention pervaded all of the European intellectual oikumene. Ovanes Akopyan is a research fellow at the University of Innsbruck.
BRILL'S STUDIES IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 325 ISSN 0920-8607

Marco Piana (ed.), Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533): Faith, Antiquity, and the Witch Hunt. Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 42.4

by Marco Piana, Tamar Herzig, Denis Robichaud, Ovanes Akopyan, and Lucia Pappalardo

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 42.4, 2019

A special issue of Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme dedicated to the figure o... more

Edited volumes by Ovanes Akopyan

Disaster in the Early Modern World: Examinations, Representations, Interventions, eds Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2024)

by Ovanes Akopyan and William M. Barton

How did early modern societies think about disasters, such as earthquakes or floods? How did they... more How did early modern societies think about disasters, such as earthquakes or floods? How did they represent disaster, and how did they intervene to mitigate its destructive effects? This collection showcases the breadth of new work on the period ca. 1300-1750.

Covering topics that range from new thinking about risk and securitization to the protection of dikes from shipworm, and with a geography that extends from Europe to Spanish America, the volume places early modern disaster studies squarely at the intersection of intellectual, cultural, and socio-economic history. This period witnessed fresh speculation on nature, the diffusion of disaster narratives and imagery, and unprecedented attempts to control the physical world.

The book will be essential to specialists and students of environmental history and disaster, as well as general readers who seek to discover how pre-industrial societies addressed some of the same foundational issues we grapple with today.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal

Part 1: Examinations

1. Taming the Future?: From ‘Natural’ Hazards and ‘Disasters’ to a Securitisation Against ‘Risks’
Gerrit Jasper Schenk

2. Power, Fortune and Scientia naturalis: A Humanist Reading of Disasters in Giannozzo Manetti’s De terremotu
Ovanes Akopyan

3. Thinking with the Flood: Animal Endangerment and the Moral Economy of Disaster
Lydia Barnett

4. Flood, Fire, and Tears: Imagining Climate Apocalypse in Scheuchzer’s De portione (1707/08)
Sara Miglietti

5. Communicating Research on the Great Frost in the Republic of Letters: From Halle to London
William M. Barton

Part 2: Representations

6. What is an Avalanche?: Death in the Snow from Antiquity to Early Modern Times
Martin Korenjak

7. Disasters and Devotion: Sacred Images and Religious Practices in Spanish America (16th–18th Centuries)
Milena Viceconte

8. Straightening the Arno: Artistic Representations of Water Management in Medici Ducal and Grand Ducal Florence
Felicia M. Else

9. Responses to a Recurrent Disaster: Flood Writings in Rome, 1476–1598
Pamela O. Long

Part 3: Interventions

10. Flood, War and Economy: Leonardo da Vinci and the Plan to Divert the Arno River
Emanuela Ferretti

11. The Making of a Transnational Disaster Saint: Francisco Borja, Patron Saint of Earthquakes from the Andes to Europe
Monica Azzolini

12. Dikes, Ships and Worms: Testing the Limits of Envirotechnical Transfer During the Dutch Shipworm Epidemic of the 1730s
Adam Sundberg

(De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology, eds Ovanes Akopyan and Pietro Daniel Omodeo, special issue of Perspectives on Science, 30:5-6 (2022).

https://direct-mit-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/posc/issue/30/5 https://direct-mit-edu.ezp-prod... more

Fate and Fortune in European Thought, ca. 1400-1650, ed. Ovanes Akopyan (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021).

by Ovanes Akopyan, Paul Richard Blum, and Sophie Raux

If the universe were conceived to fulfill a certain divine plan or to manifest God’s will and glo... more If the universe were conceived to fulfill a certain divine plan or to manifest God’s will and glory, what would the place of an individual be within this plan? What is more, if, from the very beginning of its existence and through divine providence, it were predestined to be driven toward a certain end, how could people adjust their individual lives to the incognizable universal design and react to the obscure future fraught with both luck and failure?

These questions, which have bothered humanity for centuries, formed a remarkable element of early modern European thought. This collection of essays presents new insights into what shaped and constituted reflections on fate and fortune between, roughly, 1400 and 1650, both in word and image. This volume argues that these ideas were emblematic of a more fundamental argument about the self, society, and the universe and shows that their influence was more widespread, geographically and thematically, than hitherto assumed.

https://brill.com/view/title/36100

Francesco Patrizi da Cherso: Ancient Wisdom, Natural Philosophy and Poetics in the Late Renaissance, ed. Ovanes Akopyan, special issue of Intellectual History Review, 29:4 (2019).

by Ovanes Akopyan, Paul Richard Blum, Jacques Joseph, and Anna Laura Puliafito

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rihr20/29/4?nav=tocList

Thesis by Ovanes Akopyan

Controversies on Astrology in Renaissance Italy (late 15th - early 16th centuries).

University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance. Supervisors: Dr Maude Vanhaelen,... more

Journal articles by Ovanes Akopyan

‘Volcano Aesthetics, Scholarly Ascents, and a Return to the Ancient Past in Early Modern Europe,’ Constructing European Historical Narratives across the Early Modern World, ed. by Megan Armstrong, Hilary Bernstein, and Fabien Montcher

special issue of Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, 47, 4 (2024), 175–203

This chapter investigates the interpretative strategies behind a proliferation of texts that disc... more This chapter investigates the interpretative strategies behind a proliferation of texts that discussed the origins and features of volcanic eruptions in the early modern period. In so doing, it focuses on two essential trends. The first is closely related to the emerging idea that, for the benefit of the scientific method, relying on previous authorities and historiae composed by contemporary authors may not be sufficient. In this respect, imaginative historical "travels," sometimes to the past, gradually gave way to real excursions. The second trend concerns a growing perception of volcanoes as loci memoriae (i.e., the physical places adopted in the creation of collective memory). As a result, the changes, triggered by the rise of the antiquarian tradition, were instrumental in developing a genre in which personal experience and written histories of physical sites increasingly converged, thereby making the spectator (and the reader) an integral actor in the history of the natural world.

'Introduction: Quis dixit? The Vicissitudes of Authority in Early Modern Cosmology,' (De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology, eds Ovanes Akopyan and Pietro Daniel Omodeo, special issue of Perspectives on Science, 30:5 (2022), 819–25.

Please note: this is the essay's pre-print version.

'Discussing Tides Before and After Newton: Roger Joseph Boscovich’s De aestu maris,' (De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology, eds Ovanes Akopyan and Pietro Daniel Omodeo, special issue of Perspectives on Science, 30:6 (2022), 1042–64.

The causes of tidal motions were widely debated from antiquity up to the eighteenth century. Thes... more The causes of tidal motions were widely debated from antiquity up to the eighteenth century. These discussions got a second wind in the early modern period, in the wake of a growing number of cosmological alternatives that challenged the dominant Aristotelian-Ptolemaic stance. The 1687 publication of Isaac Newton’s 'Principia Mathematica' was a defining moment in the discussions and consequently made universal gravitation the most credible and generally accepted explanation. This paper investigates the aftermath of Newton’s discovery and demonstrates how his understanding of tidal motion crowded out competing theories within a broader European context. My main point of reference is Roger Boscovich’s 'De aestu maris' (1747). In his work, the leading Jesuit scholar of the time contrasted Newton’s interpretation to those of other major authorities, namely Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and René Descartes, and went on to claim the superiority of the British scientist’s achievements over anything written prior to the 'Principia'. As this essay argues, alongside a significant body of literature produced under the umbrella of the Jesuit order, Boscovich’s 'De aestu maris' subsequently contributed to the formation of the popular image of Newton as a “scientific hero.”

'Medicine, Astrology, and Self-Censorship: Translating Marsilio Ficino in Muscovy (ca. 1580-1620),' Rinascimento, 62 (2022), 165-200.

Please note: this is the essay's pre-print version accepted for publication. A final version will... more Please note: this is the essay's pre-print version accepted for publication. A final version will come out later this year. For it, please consult the journal Rinascimento.

Abstract: This essay traces the history and intellectual context of a unique source: the late sixteenth-century Russian translation of several chapters of the "De vita libri tres" by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499). Through a meticulous reconstruction of the trajectory of Ficino's text to Moscow and the subsequent translation commission, this article sheds light on peculiar features of the reception of foreign learning in the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Muscovite state. The essay also provides an annotated edition of the Russian fragments of Ficino's renowned treatise.

'The Power of Unity: Love in Marsilio Ficino’s Letters about Family Life, Friendship, and the Relationship with God,' Bruniana & Campanelliana, 27:1-2 (2021), 335-48.

by Ovanes Akopyan and Simon Smets

This is the authors' version of the article. For the published version, please consult the journa... more This is the authors' version of the article. For the published version, please consult the journal.

This article discusses the various facets of love found in Marsilio Ficino’s epistolary collection. We demonstrate that the appearance of love in Ficino’s letters can be roughly divided into three stages, which coincide with the ascent from interpersonal love between a philosopher and his pupil to societal engagement to a contemplation of the divine and cosmic unity. We argue that, in this respect, the Florentine philosopher’s letter collection complemented and developed the themes discussed in his other writings, including, above all, De amore and De vita.

‘Praenotio, Prisca Haeresis, and Astrology: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola between Savonarola and Giovanni Pico.'

Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533): Faith, Imagination, and Scepticism, ed. Marco Antonio Piana, special issue of Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, 42, 4 (2019), 135–58.

This essay considers the place of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s ideas within the astrologi... more This essay considers the place of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s ideas within the astrological debates that arose in Renaissance Italy after the publication of the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco Pico’s famous uncle. Published posthumously in 1496, the Disputationes incited a rigorous discussion of the status of astrology in various intellectual circles in Renaissance Italy. Gianfrancesco Pico was the editor of his uncle Giovanni Pico’s Opera, and the younger Pico was also known as one of Girolamo Savonarola’s most ardent followers. This article will focus on Gianfrancesco’s two main anti-astrological treatises, the De rerum praenotione and the Quaestio de falsitate astrologiae. Gianfrancesco’s writings reveal his own elaborate ideological agenda and the ways in which he used, in a controversial manner, both his uncle’s and Savonarola’s arguments in consequent philosophical and astrological discussions.

'Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529-1597): new perspectives on a Renaissance philosopher,' Francesco Patrizi da Cherso: Ancient Wisdom, Natural Philosophy and Poetics in the Late Renaissance, ed. Ovanes Akopyan, special issue of Intellectual History Review, 29:4 (2019), 541–43.

'In search of a spiritus: Francesco Patrizi on tides,' Francesco Patrizi da Cherso: Ancient Wisdom, Natural Philosophy and Poetics in the Late Renaissance, ed. Ovanes Akopyan, special issue of Intellectual History Review, 29:4 (2019), 655–68.

This article analyzes two chapters of Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia that deal... more This article analyzes two chapters of Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia that deal with a topic widely debated in European intellectual circles at the time—the origin of tides. By deconstructing Patrizi’s views on the phenomenon of ebb and flow, this paper places these chapters of Patrizi’s opus magnum into a larger context and shows how, with the use of novel philosophical arguments, he sought to replace what he considered an outdated theory of tides.

"'Me quoque adolescentem olim fallebat': Giovanni (or Gianfrancesco?) Pico della Mirandola versus prisca theologia," Accademia (Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin), 18 (2016 [2019]), 75-93.

Abstract: The publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam d... more Abstract: The publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem provoked large-scale discussions in various humanistic circles. In his work, Giovanni Pico questioned the status of astrology as a discipline able to predict the future. This article is focused on one of the most intriguing aspects of his attack, one which concerns the prisca theologia doctrine. The second central topic that this paper deals with is the question of the Disputationes' authorship.

'Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on Tides,' Bruniana & Campanelliana, 1 (2018), 135-45.

The article deals with the ways in which in his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (... more The article deals with the ways in which in his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (1496) Giovanni Pico della Mirandola interpreted the problem of tides, probably the most significant practical example with which he aimed to demonstrate the fallacy of astrology. The essay focuses on the polemical strategies Pico applied in his exploration of this natural phenomenon, and shows that in rejecting the astrological interpretation of tides Pico combined both the textual, humanist and natural philosophical approaches that he developed, in quite a controversial manner, throughout his last anti-astrological treatise.

'Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Astrology (1486-1493): From Scientia naturalis to the Disputationes adversus astrologiam,' I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 21:1 (2018), 47-66.

"'Princeps aliorum'' and his followers: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on the ''Astrological Tradition'' in the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem,' Renaissance Studies, 32:4 (2018), 547-64.

Virtual book launch for "Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance" (Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick, 4 May 2021)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/author-meets-critics-discussing-giovanni-pico-della-mirandolas-ast... more

Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021)

https://brill.com/view/title/36397 In Debating the Stars, Ovanes Akopyan sheds new light on the a... more https://brill.com/view/title/36397
In Debating the Stars, Ovanes Akopyan sheds new light on the astrological controversies that arose in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries after the publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (1496). This treatise has often been held responsible for a contemporary reassessment of the status of astrology, a discipline that attracted widespread fascination in the Renaissance. Akopyan's reconstruction of the development of Pico's views demonstrates that the Disputationes was a continuation of rather than a drastic rupture with the rest of his legacy. By investigating the philosophical and humanist foundations for Pico's attack on astrological predictions, Akopyan challenges the popular assumption that the treatise was written under Girolamo Savonarola's spell. He shows instead how it was appropriated ideologically by pro-Savonarolan circles after Pico's death. This book also offers a comprehensive study of the immediate reception of the Disputationes across Italy and Europe and reveals that the debates initiated by Pico's intervention pervaded all of the European intellectual oikumene. Ovanes Akopyan is a research fellow at the University of Innsbruck.
BRILL'S STUDIES IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 325 ISSN 0920-8607

Marco Piana (ed.), Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533): Faith, Antiquity, and the Witch Hunt. Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 42.4

by Marco Piana, Tamar Herzig, Denis Robichaud, Ovanes Akopyan, and Lucia Pappalardo

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 42.4, 2019

A special issue of Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme dedicated to the figure o... more

Disaster in the Early Modern World: Examinations, Representations, Interventions, eds Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2024)

by Ovanes Akopyan and William M. Barton

How did early modern societies think about disasters, such as earthquakes or floods? How did they... more How did early modern societies think about disasters, such as earthquakes or floods? How did they represent disaster, and how did they intervene to mitigate its destructive effects? This collection showcases the breadth of new work on the period ca. 1300-1750.

Covering topics that range from new thinking about risk and securitization to the protection of dikes from shipworm, and with a geography that extends from Europe to Spanish America, the volume places early modern disaster studies squarely at the intersection of intellectual, cultural, and socio-economic history. This period witnessed fresh speculation on nature, the diffusion of disaster narratives and imagery, and unprecedented attempts to control the physical world.

The book will be essential to specialists and students of environmental history and disaster, as well as general readers who seek to discover how pre-industrial societies addressed some of the same foundational issues we grapple with today.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal

Part 1: Examinations

1. Taming the Future?: From ‘Natural’ Hazards and ‘Disasters’ to a Securitisation Against ‘Risks’
Gerrit Jasper Schenk

2. Power, Fortune and Scientia naturalis: A Humanist Reading of Disasters in Giannozzo Manetti’s De terremotu
Ovanes Akopyan

3. Thinking with the Flood: Animal Endangerment and the Moral Economy of Disaster
Lydia Barnett

4. Flood, Fire, and Tears: Imagining Climate Apocalypse in Scheuchzer’s De portione (1707/08)
Sara Miglietti

5. Communicating Research on the Great Frost in the Republic of Letters: From Halle to London
William M. Barton

Part 2: Representations

6. What is an Avalanche?: Death in the Snow from Antiquity to Early Modern Times
Martin Korenjak

7. Disasters and Devotion: Sacred Images and Religious Practices in Spanish America (16th–18th Centuries)
Milena Viceconte

8. Straightening the Arno: Artistic Representations of Water Management in Medici Ducal and Grand Ducal Florence
Felicia M. Else

9. Responses to a Recurrent Disaster: Flood Writings in Rome, 1476–1598
Pamela O. Long

Part 3: Interventions

10. Flood, War and Economy: Leonardo da Vinci and the Plan to Divert the Arno River
Emanuela Ferretti

11. The Making of a Transnational Disaster Saint: Francisco Borja, Patron Saint of Earthquakes from the Andes to Europe
Monica Azzolini

12. Dikes, Ships and Worms: Testing the Limits of Envirotechnical Transfer During the Dutch Shipworm Epidemic of the 1730s
Adam Sundberg

(De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology, eds Ovanes Akopyan and Pietro Daniel Omodeo, special issue of Perspectives on Science, 30:5-6 (2022).

https://direct-mit-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/posc/issue/30/5 https://direct-mit-edu.ezp-prod... more

Fate and Fortune in European Thought, ca. 1400-1650, ed. Ovanes Akopyan (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021).

by Ovanes Akopyan, Paul Richard Blum, and Sophie Raux

If the universe were conceived to fulfill a certain divine plan or to manifest God’s will and glo... more If the universe were conceived to fulfill a certain divine plan or to manifest God’s will and glory, what would the place of an individual be within this plan? What is more, if, from the very beginning of its existence and through divine providence, it were predestined to be driven toward a certain end, how could people adjust their individual lives to the incognizable universal design and react to the obscure future fraught with both luck and failure?

These questions, which have bothered humanity for centuries, formed a remarkable element of early modern European thought. This collection of essays presents new insights into what shaped and constituted reflections on fate and fortune between, roughly, 1400 and 1650, both in word and image. This volume argues that these ideas were emblematic of a more fundamental argument about the self, society, and the universe and shows that their influence was more widespread, geographically and thematically, than hitherto assumed.

https://brill.com/view/title/36100

Francesco Patrizi da Cherso: Ancient Wisdom, Natural Philosophy and Poetics in the Late Renaissance, ed. Ovanes Akopyan, special issue of Intellectual History Review, 29:4 (2019).

by Ovanes Akopyan, Paul Richard Blum, Jacques Joseph, and Anna Laura Puliafito

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rihr20/29/4?nav=tocList

Controversies on Astrology in Renaissance Italy (late 15th - early 16th centuries).

University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance. Supervisors: Dr Maude Vanhaelen,... more

‘Volcano Aesthetics, Scholarly Ascents, and a Return to the Ancient Past in Early Modern Europe,’ Constructing European Historical Narratives across the Early Modern World, ed. by Megan Armstrong, Hilary Bernstein, and Fabien Montcher

special issue of Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, 47, 4 (2024), 175–203

This chapter investigates the interpretative strategies behind a proliferation of texts that disc... more This chapter investigates the interpretative strategies behind a proliferation of texts that discussed the origins and features of volcanic eruptions in the early modern period. In so doing, it focuses on two essential trends. The first is closely related to the emerging idea that, for the benefit of the scientific method, relying on previous authorities and historiae composed by contemporary authors may not be sufficient. In this respect, imaginative historical "travels," sometimes to the past, gradually gave way to real excursions. The second trend concerns a growing perception of volcanoes as loci memoriae (i.e., the physical places adopted in the creation of collective memory). As a result, the changes, triggered by the rise of the antiquarian tradition, were instrumental in developing a genre in which personal experience and written histories of physical sites increasingly converged, thereby making the spectator (and the reader) an integral actor in the history of the natural world.

'Introduction: Quis dixit? The Vicissitudes of Authority in Early Modern Cosmology,' (De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology, eds Ovanes Akopyan and Pietro Daniel Omodeo, special issue of Perspectives on Science, 30:5 (2022), 819–25.

Please note: this is the essay's pre-print version.

'Discussing Tides Before and After Newton: Roger Joseph Boscovich’s De aestu maris,' (De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology, eds Ovanes Akopyan and Pietro Daniel Omodeo, special issue of Perspectives on Science, 30:6 (2022), 1042–64.

The causes of tidal motions were widely debated from antiquity up to the eighteenth century. Thes... more The causes of tidal motions were widely debated from antiquity up to the eighteenth century. These discussions got a second wind in the early modern period, in the wake of a growing number of cosmological alternatives that challenged the dominant Aristotelian-Ptolemaic stance. The 1687 publication of Isaac Newton’s 'Principia Mathematica' was a defining moment in the discussions and consequently made universal gravitation the most credible and generally accepted explanation. This paper investigates the aftermath of Newton’s discovery and demonstrates how his understanding of tidal motion crowded out competing theories within a broader European context. My main point of reference is Roger Boscovich’s 'De aestu maris' (1747). In his work, the leading Jesuit scholar of the time contrasted Newton’s interpretation to those of other major authorities, namely Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and René Descartes, and went on to claim the superiority of the British scientist’s achievements over anything written prior to the 'Principia'. As this essay argues, alongside a significant body of literature produced under the umbrella of the Jesuit order, Boscovich’s 'De aestu maris' subsequently contributed to the formation of the popular image of Newton as a “scientific hero.”

'Medicine, Astrology, and Self-Censorship: Translating Marsilio Ficino in Muscovy (ca. 1580-1620),' Rinascimento, 62 (2022), 165-200.

Please note: this is the essay's pre-print version accepted for publication. A final version will... more Please note: this is the essay's pre-print version accepted for publication. A final version will come out later this year. For it, please consult the journal Rinascimento.

Abstract: This essay traces the history and intellectual context of a unique source: the late sixteenth-century Russian translation of several chapters of the "De vita libri tres" by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499). Through a meticulous reconstruction of the trajectory of Ficino's text to Moscow and the subsequent translation commission, this article sheds light on peculiar features of the reception of foreign learning in the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Muscovite state. The essay also provides an annotated edition of the Russian fragments of Ficino's renowned treatise.

'The Power of Unity: Love in Marsilio Ficino’s Letters about Family Life, Friendship, and the Relationship with God,' Bruniana & Campanelliana, 27:1-2 (2021), 335-48.

by Ovanes Akopyan and Simon Smets

This is the authors' version of the article. For the published version, please consult the journa... more This is the authors' version of the article. For the published version, please consult the journal.

This article discusses the various facets of love found in Marsilio Ficino’s epistolary collection. We demonstrate that the appearance of love in Ficino’s letters can be roughly divided into three stages, which coincide with the ascent from interpersonal love between a philosopher and his pupil to societal engagement to a contemplation of the divine and cosmic unity. We argue that, in this respect, the Florentine philosopher’s letter collection complemented and developed the themes discussed in his other writings, including, above all, De amore and De vita.

‘Praenotio, Prisca Haeresis, and Astrology: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola between Savonarola and Giovanni Pico.'

Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533): Faith, Imagination, and Scepticism, ed. Marco Antonio Piana, special issue of Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, 42, 4 (2019), 135–58.

This essay considers the place of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s ideas within the astrologi... more This essay considers the place of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s ideas within the astrological debates that arose in Renaissance Italy after the publication of the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco Pico’s famous uncle. Published posthumously in 1496, the Disputationes incited a rigorous discussion of the status of astrology in various intellectual circles in Renaissance Italy. Gianfrancesco Pico was the editor of his uncle Giovanni Pico’s Opera, and the younger Pico was also known as one of Girolamo Savonarola’s most ardent followers. This article will focus on Gianfrancesco’s two main anti-astrological treatises, the De rerum praenotione and the Quaestio de falsitate astrologiae. Gianfrancesco’s writings reveal his own elaborate ideological agenda and the ways in which he used, in a controversial manner, both his uncle’s and Savonarola’s arguments in consequent philosophical and astrological discussions.

'Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529-1597): new perspectives on a Renaissance philosopher,' Francesco Patrizi da Cherso: Ancient Wisdom, Natural Philosophy and Poetics in the Late Renaissance, ed. Ovanes Akopyan, special issue of Intellectual History Review, 29:4 (2019), 541–43.

'In search of a spiritus: Francesco Patrizi on tides,' Francesco Patrizi da Cherso: Ancient Wisdom, Natural Philosophy and Poetics in the Late Renaissance, ed. Ovanes Akopyan, special issue of Intellectual History Review, 29:4 (2019), 655–68.

This article analyzes two chapters of Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia that deal... more This article analyzes two chapters of Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia that deal with a topic widely debated in European intellectual circles at the time—the origin of tides. By deconstructing Patrizi’s views on the phenomenon of ebb and flow, this paper places these chapters of Patrizi’s opus magnum into a larger context and shows how, with the use of novel philosophical arguments, he sought to replace what he considered an outdated theory of tides.

"'Me quoque adolescentem olim fallebat': Giovanni (or Gianfrancesco?) Pico della Mirandola versus prisca theologia," Accademia (Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin), 18 (2016 [2019]), 75-93.

Abstract: The publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam d... more Abstract: The publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem provoked large-scale discussions in various humanistic circles. In his work, Giovanni Pico questioned the status of astrology as a discipline able to predict the future. This article is focused on one of the most intriguing aspects of his attack, one which concerns the prisca theologia doctrine. The second central topic that this paper deals with is the question of the Disputationes' authorship.

'Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on Tides,' Bruniana & Campanelliana, 1 (2018), 135-45.

The article deals with the ways in which in his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (... more The article deals with the ways in which in his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (1496) Giovanni Pico della Mirandola interpreted the problem of tides, probably the most significant practical example with which he aimed to demonstrate the fallacy of astrology. The essay focuses on the polemical strategies Pico applied in his exploration of this natural phenomenon, and shows that in rejecting the astrological interpretation of tides Pico combined both the textual, humanist and natural philosophical approaches that he developed, in quite a controversial manner, throughout his last anti-astrological treatise.

'Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Astrology (1486-1493): From Scientia naturalis to the Disputationes adversus astrologiam,' I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 21:1 (2018), 47-66.

"'Princeps aliorum'' and his followers: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on the ''Astrological Tradition'' in the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem,' Renaissance Studies, 32:4 (2018), 547-64.

'Ренессансная магия как духовное явление (на примере текстов конца XV - начала XVI в.),' Диалог со временем. Альманах интеллектуальной истории, 57 (2016), 76-92.

Автор рассматривает вопрос о том, какое место в творчестве ренессансных авторов рубежа XV-XVI вв.... more Автор рассматривает вопрос о том, какое место в творчестве ренессансных авторов рубежа XV-XVI вв. занимала магия. В статье доказывается, что с помощью магии была произведена одна из попыток «реформировать» христианство без Реформациирезультаты, правда, оказались неутешительными. В центре внимания автора Италияродоначальница гуманистической и ренессансной культуры, а также Франция и Германия, где быстрее прочих перенимались новые идеи. На примере трактатов итальянских, французских и германских мыслителей показано, что магические спекуляции в это время были тесно связаны с религиозной и философской проблематикой. Ключевые слова: Ренессанс, магия, астрология, Марсилио Фичино, Джованни Пико делла Мирандола, Жак Лефевр д'Этапль. Акопян Ованес Львович, кандидат исторических наук, докторант Центра по изучению Ренессанса, Уорикский Университет, Великобритания; [email protected]

'От споров об астрологии к новой астрономии? К вопросу об одной историографической проблеме,' Вопросы истории естествознания и техники, 4 (2015), 625-41.

В статье анализируется, в какой мере в своих научных исследованиях Николай Коперник и Галилео Гал... more В статье анализируется, в какой мере в своих научных исследованиях Николай Коперник и Галилео Галилей опирались на предшествующую философскую традицию. Особое внимание уделяется влиянию на них неоплатонической философии Марсилио Фичино и антиастрологической полемики, развернувшейся после публикации трактата Джованни Пико делла Мирандолы «Рассуждения против прорицательной астрологии». Несмотря на то что в исследовательской литературе тезис о влиянии антиастрологической полемики конца XV -начала XVI в. на научную революцию выдвигался неоднократно, убедительные доказательства подобного воздействия приводились далеко не всегда. Объектом исследования стали четыре эпизода из текстов Николая Коперника и Галилео Галилея, которые, по мнению автора, могут служить доказательством того, что эти двое ученых, в отличие от своих коллег не подчеркивавшие свое знакомство с трудами Фичино и Джованни Пико, на них опирались.

'Что такое "гуманизм"? От Ренессанса к современности,' Диалог со временем. Альманах интеллектуальной истории, 45 (2014), 117-30.

Аннотация: Статья посвящена сущности историографических споров о термине «гуманизм», преимуществе... more Аннотация: Статья посвящена сущности историографических споров о термине «гуманизм», преимущественно между итальянской и американской школами изучения Ренессанса, и его постепенной трансформации в новоевропейской культуре.

'Трактат Джамбаттисты делла Порта "О небесной физиогномике" и ренессансная традиция натуральной магии,' Вестник РГГУ, серия "Исторические науки. Всеобщая история", 13 (2013), 99-111.

Трактат Джамбаттисты делла Порта «О небесной физиогномике» и ренессансная традиция натуральной ма... more Трактат Джамбаттисты делла Порта «О небесной физиогномике» и ренессансная традиция натуральной магии 1 В статье анализируется трактат «О небесной физиогномике» итальянского мыслителя Джамбаттисты делла Порта и его значение в контексте концепции «натуральной магии», впервые изложенной в сочинениях Марсилио Фичино и Джованни Пико делла Мирандола и нашедшей одно из наиболее полных воплощений, но уже в ином виде, в фундаментальном труде того же делла Порта -«О натуральной магии».

'Reading (?) Vives in Sixteenth-Century Russia,' Erudition and the Republic of Letters, 6:3 (2021), 225-69.

This article provides an annotated edition, along with an English translation, of a relatively ne... more This article provides an annotated edition, along with an English translation, of a relatively neglected sixteenth-century Russian text claimed to be a response to Juan Luis Vives’s renowned commentary on Augustine’s De civitate Dei. The Words against Juan Luis Vives was composed by Maximus the Greek, who was a central figure in Russian culture during the first half of the sixteenth century. As this article demonstrates, Maximus’ text serves as a revealing summary of what constituted the negative attitude towards Renaissance thought at the Muscovite court. This article also investigates the grounds on which Maximus based his critical remarks; there is a strong argument to assume that Maximus had never, in fact, read Vives’s commentary on Augustine.

"A Sixteenth-Century Russian Vita of Girolamo Savonarola," Renaissance Studies, 34:5 (2020), 803-15.

This essay provides an edition, along with an English translation, of an early sixteenth-century ... more

'Письмо патриарха Тихона папе Римскому Бенедикту XV и другие документы из истории отношений Святого Престола с СССР (1920-е годы),' Новое литературное обозрение, 154 (2018), 141-60.

'The letter of Patriarch Tikhon to Pope Benedict XV and other documents on the relations between ... more 'The letter of Patriarch Tikhon to Pope Benedict XV and other documents on the relations between the Holy See and the USSR in the 1920s,' New Literary Observer, 154 (2018), 141-60.

This work is an annotated publication of several documents from the history of the relations between the Holy See and the Soviet government in the 1920s: the letter of Patriarch Tikhon to Pope Benedict XV with a request for help for victims of the mass famine of 1921—1922; the letter by Exarch Leonid Feodorov of the Apostolic Catholic Exarchate of the Byzantine Rite, about a criminal case filed by the Soviet authorities against a number of Catholic priests (Feodorov himself was one of the convicted); as well as the correspondence between the USSR and representatives of the Holy See relating to the release of Antonio Gramsci from prison.

'Моше бен Маймон (Маймонид). Письмо об астрологии,' Средние века, 78:3 (2017), 94-109 (Moshe ben Maimon, Letter on Astrology, in Russian).

'Парижское осуждение 1277 года,’ Inter Esse, 1 (2011), 117—27 (‘The Condemnation of Paris of 1277,' in Russian).

Парижское осуждение 1277 года 1 В начале марта 1277 года комиссия теологов во главе с епископом П... more Парижское осуждение 1277 года 1 В начале марта 1277 года комиссия теологов во главе с епископом Парижа Стефаном Тампье выпустила список философских заключений, содержание которых, по мнению теологов, шла вразрез с основами католичества. Удар епископа был обращен против группы преподавателей факультета свободных искусств Парижского Университета, среди которых традиционно выделяют Сигера Брабантского и Боэция Дакийского. И хотя, по всей видимости, в доступных ныне трудах «группы Сигера» осужденные тезисы не всегда прямо обнаруживаются, тем не менее в научной литературе события 1277 года традиционно ассоциируют с выступлением теологов против «магистров искусств», которых можно назвать преподавателями философии.

'Марсилио Фичино. О звезде волхвов. О Солнце,' Платоновские исследования, 1 (2014), 446-85 ('Marsilio Ficino, De stella magorum. De Sole,' trans. Ovanes Akopyan, in Russian).

Переводы Марсилио Фичино О звезде волхвов. О Солнце* Фигура итальянского мыслителя Марсилио Фичин... more Переводы Марсилио Фичино О звезде волхвов. О Солнце* Фигура итальянского мыслителя Марсилио Фичино (1433-1499)¹ до сих пор остается не слишком известной отечественному читателю. Несмотря на то, что в последнее время появилось несколько исследований², посвященных его творчеству, его труды издавались на русском языке редко³, а те из них, кому подобная честь все же выпала, не могут считаться в полной мере репрезентативными.

'Джованни Пико делла Мирандола, Рассуждения против прорицательной астрологии. Книга Первая,' пер. О.Л.Акопяна, Академия. Материалы и исследования по истории платонизма, 9 (2014), 247-79 ('Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, Book I').

УДК 141, код ВАК 09.00.03

'Introduction,' in Disaster in the Early Modern World: Examinations, Representations, Interventions, eds Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2024), pp. 1-13.

'Power, Fortune and Scientia naturalis: A Humanist Reading of Disasters in Giannozzo Manetti’s De terremotu,' in Disaster in the Early Modern World: Examinations, Representations, Interventions, eds Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal (Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2024), pp. 50-74.

In 1456, two strong earthquakes hit Southern Italy and killed around 30,000 people. The dreadful ... more In 1456, two strong earthquakes hit Southern Italy and killed around 30,000 people. The dreadful disasters were reflected in numerous contemporary texts, the most famous of which was Giannozzo Manetti’s De terremotu. In this treatise, addressed to his patron Alfonso of Aragon, with abundant references to Latin and Greek sources, Manetti sought to reconstruct an ancient understanding of natural disasters and thus provide a detailed account of how to prevent earthquakes in the future. Apart from that, as this paper will show, Manetti aimed at exploring an alleged correlation between the political virtues of the ruler and disasters hitting their territories. By addressing the issue of the ruler’s fortuna widely debated at the time in Italian humanist circles, Manetti combined contemporary natural philosophical debates on the origin of disasters with political ethics. As we shall see, this approach of interpreting the origin and timing of earthquakes at the intersection of political theory, humanist ethics, natural philosophy and theology became characteristic of several accounts concerned with natural disasters, and was reflected, inter alia, in sixteenth-century dream literature, baroque emblem books and even in early twentieth-century Latin poetry. This makes Manetti’s De terremotu a highly representative text within a long-standing tradition.

'From Princeps Concordiae to a Critic of Tradition: Some Reflections on Giovanni Pico's Method,' in La lama del sapiente. Saggi sulla filosofia di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, eds Giovanni Licata and Pasquale Terracciano (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2022), pp. 45-73.

'Preserving Orthodoxy: Greek Studies in Early Modern Russia,' in When Greece Flew across the Alps: The Study of Greek in Early Modern Europe, ed. Federica Ciccolella (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2022), pp. 279-94.

https://brill.com/view/title/60836

'Pico della Mirandola,' in Augustine and the Humanists. Reading the City of God from Petrarch to Poliziano, eds Guy Claessens and Fabio Della Schiava (Ghent: LYSA Publishers, 2021), pp. 409-26.

"Augustine and the Humanists" fills a persistent lacuna by investigating the reception of Augusti... more "Augustine and the Humanists" fills a persistent lacuna by investigating the reception of Augustine’s oeuvre in Italian humanism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In response to the urgent call for a more extensive and detailed investigation of the reception of Augustine’s works and thought in the Western world, numerous scholars have addressed the topic over the last decades. However, one of Augustine’s major works, the "De civitate Dei," has received remarkably little attention. In a series of case studies by renowned specialists of Italian humanism, this volume now analyzes the various strategies that were employed in reading and interpreting the "City of God" at the dawn of the modern age. "Augustine and the Humanists" focuses on the reception of the text in the work of sixteen early modern writers and thinkers who played a crucial role in the era between Petrarch and Poliziano. The present volume thus makes a significant and innovative contribution both to Augustinian studies and to our knowledge of early modern intellectual history.

https://www.lysapublishers.com/book/augustine-and-the-humanists/4

'Пико о Пико: ренессансная биография между правдой и вымыслом,' в Mare nostrum. Выпуск 2: Море истории, под ред. Н.А. Селунской и А.Н. Маслова (М.: Российское общество интеллектуальной истории - Институт всеобщей истории Российской академии наук, 2021), 210-29.

Выложенная здесь статья - препринт. Финальный текст см. в альманахе "Mare nostrum". Аннотация:... more Выложенная здесь статья - препринт. Финальный текст см. в альманахе "Mare nostrum".

Аннотация: Статья посвящена мифам, которые окружают личность и наследие знаменитого итальянского мыслителя Джованни Пико делла Мирандола (1463–1494). На протяжении своей короткой, но насыщенной жизни Джованни Пико умело создавал образ, обеспечивший ему общеевропейскую славу. После неожиданной смерти дяди в 1494 году его племянник Джанфранческо издал Opera Omnia Джованни Пико, а также написал его биографию. Вкупе со специфическим интеллектуальным климатом в Европе конца XV и начала XVI веков, эти события породили множество легенд о жизни, творчестве и смерти одного из наиболее неординарных философов итальянского Ренессанса.

'Ptolemy, Fortune, and Politics: A Case of the Reception of Western Scholarship in Early Modern Russia,' in Fate and Fortune in European Thought, ed. Ovanes Akopyan (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021), pp. 233-58.

'Introduction: Not Simple Twists of Fate,' in Fate and Fortune in European Thought, ca. 1400-1650, ed. Ovanes Akopyan (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2021), pp. 1-10.

'Джованни Пико делла Мирандола и его "Речь": о достоинстве человека?' в Границы нормы: трансформация гуманизма в русской и европейской культуре Нового и Новейшего времени, под ред. Е.А. Бобринской и А.С.Корндорф (М.: Государственный институт искусствознания, 2020), 62-79.

Статья пересматривает место и значение «Речи о достоинстве человека» – одного из самых известных ... more Статья пересматривает место и значение «Речи о достоинстве человека» – одного из самых известных текстов эпохи Возрождения – в творчестве ее автора, итальянского мыслителя Джованни Пико делла Мирандола.

P. S. Выложенная статья - препринт. Финальный вариант (а также весь сборник целиком) можно найти в открытом доступе здесь: https://sarabianov.sias.ru/docs/sbornik_III_ru.pdf

'Latin Studies and Greek Scholars in Early Modern Russia,' in Post-Byzantine Latinitas: Latin in Post-Byzantine Scholarship (15th-19th centuries), eds Ioannis Deligiannis, Vasileios Pappas, and Vaios Vaiopoulos (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. 93-104.

'One More (Unsuccessful) Reconciliation: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on Averroes and Islamic Philosophy,' in Averroism between the 15th and 17th century, ed. Jozef Matula (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2020), 80-115 (Studia Classica et Mediaevalia, 28).

‘Europe or Not? Early Sixteenth-Century European Descriptions of Muscovy and the Russian Responses,’ in Contesting Europe: Comparative Perspectives on Early Modern Discourses of Europe (15th–18th Century), eds Isabella Walser-Bürgler et al. (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019), pp. 248–71.

'Философ и звезды: астрология Марсилио Фичино между средневековой традицией и неоплатонизмом,' в Книга и книжная культура в Западной Европе и России до начала Нового времени. Сборник в честь А.Х. Горфункеля, под ред. А.К. Гладкова и И.Х. Черняка (М.; СПб: Центр гуманитарных инициатив, 2019), 31-110.

'A Philosopher and the Stars: Astrology in Marsilio Ficino Between the Medieval Tradition and Neo... more

'Марсилио Фичино, неоплатонизм/герметизм и иконология: к вопросу о сложившихся стереотипах,' в История искусства и отвергнутое знание: от герметической традиции к XXI веку, под ред. Е.А. Бобринской и А.С. Корндорф (М.: Государственный институт искусствознания, 2018), 111-25.

Препринт статьи, которая вышла в сборнике по результатам конференции, прошедшей в ГИИ в октябре 2... more Препринт статьи, которая вышла в сборнике по результатам конференции, прошедшей в ГИИ в октябре 2016. A preprint version of my article in the proceedings of a conference on hermeticism and art history held in Moscow in October 2016. An English version of the original Russian essay is also available.

'"Latin Vice" and "Hellenic Charm": Maximus the Greek and Renaissance Debates on Astrology in sixteenth-century Muscovy,' in Cultural Encounters: Cross-disciplinary Studies from the Late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, eds Desiree Cappa et al. (Vernon Press, 2018), 59-72.

Preprint version of my essay in the proceedings of the conference "Cultural Encounters: Tensions ... more

‘Платон и Ренессанс: «древняя теология» и примирение с Аристотелем,' в Платоновский сборник (Приложение к Вестнику Русской христианской гуманитарной академии), 2 тома (М.: СПб: РГГУ-РХГА, 2013), 2, 320-40.

'С "латинянами" против "латинского нечестия": Максим Грек, Савонарола и борьба с астрологией,' в Европейское Возрождение и русская культура XV—середины XVII вв.: контакты и взаимное восприятие, ред. О. Ф. Кудрявцев (М.: РОССПЭН, 2014), 92-102.

С «латинянами» против «латинского нечестия»: Максим Грек, Савонарола и борьба с астрологией 1 В к... more С «латинянами» против «латинского нечестия»: Максим Грек, Савонарола и борьба с астрологией 1 В конце XV в. астрология и магия стали одними из основных объектов интеллектуальных спекуляций в ренессансной Италии. К этому времени относятся возрождение герметической и орфической традиций, повышенный интерес к еврейской мистике. Разумеется, «высокая» культура, обогащенная новыми источниками, не могла пройти мимо оккультных учений, что выразилось в увеличении числа как про-, так и анти-астрологических трудов. И если для Италии и остальных европейских стран интерес к магии на данном временном отрезке объясним 2 , то тем удивительнее проникновение астрологии в Россию, в чем не последнюю роль сыграл преподобный Максим Грек.

‘Benjamin Topp, Venenum de manibus credulorum extorquere: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Disputationes adversus astrologos I – IV. Edition, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen (Göttingen: V&R unipress; Universitätsverlag Osnabrück, 2022),’ Anzeiger für die Altertumswissenschaft, 77, 3 (2024), 145–47.

'Michela Malpangotto, Theoricae novae planetarum Georgii Peurbachii dans l’histoire de l’astronomie (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2020),' Physis: Rivista internazionale di storia della scienza, 57:2 (2022), 521-25.

'Harun Küçük, Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660–1732 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020),' Early Science and Medicine, 26, 4 (2021), 416-18.

'Donato Verardi, La scienza e i segreti della natura a Napoli nel Rinascimento. La magia naturale di Giovan Battista Della Porta (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2018),' Renaissance Studies, 35:3 (2021), 551-53.

'Lydia Barnett, After the Flood: Imagining the Global Environment in Early Modern Europe, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019),' Annals of Science, 78:1 (2021), 126-28.

'Historical Disaster Experiences: Towards a Comparative and Transcultural History of Disasters across Asia and Europe, ed. Gerrit J. Schenk (Cham: Springer, 2017),' British Journal for the History of Science, 52:2 (2019), 374-75.

While environmental history is a relatively new area of research, in recent years the number of v... more While environmental history is a relatively new area of research, in recent years the number of valuable studies in this field has significantly increased. With much work focused on particular periods or territories currently happening, such as a newly European Research Council-funded grant on early modern South Western Europe, guided by Domenico Cecere of the University of Naples, or Monica Azzolini's research on social responses to disasters in early modern Italy, theoretical as well as comparative studies on natural disasters remain extremely limited. The volume edited by Gerrit Schenk of the Universities of Heidelberg and Darmstadt seeks to fill the gap by presenting the first attempt to explore the phenomenon of natural-disaster experiences in global perspective and, subsequently, providing a theoretical framework for further research on the subject.

'Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres: Renaissance Conceptions of Cosmic Harmony, eds Jacomien Prins and Maude Vanhaelen (New York; London: Routledge, 2018),' Nuncius, 34:2 (2019), 463-64.

'Tatiana Matasova, Sophia Palaiologina (Софья Палеолог) (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2017),' Renaissance Studies, 33:2 (2019), 326-27.

'Миф о "достоинстве" versus миф о каббале: заметка об одной дискуссии,' Валла: Историко-филологический журнал европейских исследований, 3:3 (2017), 104-8.

'Liana Saif, The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy (Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015),' Средние века, 77:3-4 (2017), 210-12.

Fake Blues: Exposures of Forgeries and their Aftermaths (18 June 2021)

by Stefan Bauer, Ovanes Akopyan, and Andreea Badea

This online workshop will investigate the unhappy state of mind of those people in history who ha... more This online workshop will investigate the unhappy state of mind of those people in history who have been taken in by fakes and forgeries, as well as the afterlives of forged texts. What effect did the exposure and revelation of their gullibility have on the reception of forgeries? The Donation of Constantine, for example, was defended by high-ranking members of the Catholic Church for another century after Lorenzo Valla's astute criticism. The Reformation lent further urgency to these discussions, when polemicists on both sides of the confessional divide-Catholic and Protestant-often accepted or rejected the results of the humanists on the basis of religious and political expediency. To date, many historians have focussed their attention on the discussion of forgery in ecclesiastical history. This workshop therefore aims to move beyond this genre, to discuss the study of forgery in other disciplines, such as the history of science, literature and art. It will ask questions such as: what were the similarities and differences in the reception of legends, myths, falsely attributed texts and forged documents? How did invention, translation, and circulation of texts inflect upon one another? And finally, how were more everyday objects such as safe-conducts or letters of recommendation subject to scrutiny as fakes or frauds, and how were those carrying them able to 'prove' their identities? This workshop will take place online only.

ALL WELCOME. Book your free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/148185734521

"(De)Constructing Authority in Early Modern Cosmology" (University of Innsbruck, 7 June, 2019)

by Ovanes Akopyan, Anna Gabriella Chisena, and Johanna Luggin

"Fate and Fortune in Renaissance Thought" (University of Warwick, 27 May, 2016)

"Astrology and Anti-Astrology in the Renaissance: Between Philosophy, Religion and Science" (University of Warwick, 6 June, 2014)