Volume 3, Number 2 · September 10, 1964
A Dark Side of the Renaissance
By J. Bronowski
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
by Frances A. Yates
University of Chicago, 466 pp., $7.50
Miss Frances Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century, when the late Renaissance turned into the scientific revolution. The new scientists of that time were deeply influenced by humanist concepts, and this influence has notoriously been neglected. For example, the writers and painters of the Renaissance were excited by a mystic religion of nature which they found in some books from the east; but only recently has it been seen that the same mystic ideas also fired philosophers and astronomers. Miss Yates sets out these ideas, and their history, with exemplary clarity; and since I find this the richest part of her book, I will begin there.
Review, 2217 words
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