A group of scholars from Japan and Liana Saif (ENSIE and University of Amsterdam) have received a grant from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and the Ministry of Education for a three-year KAKEN research project that addresses the interactions of various traditions of magic, astrology and alchemy between the Islamicate world and Latin Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
The title of the project is "Traditions of Magic in the Medieval and Early Modern Islamicate World and Europe."
The research team will explore the texts attributed to Jābir, Ikhwān al-Safā’, the work known as Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica. In addition, it will study the medieval and early modern reception of such works in translation - Picatrix, Liber vaccae, Liber aneguemis - and their impact on Marsilio Ficino, Heinrich Agrippa, Paracelsus or Ps.-Paracelsus. In addition to reinforcing scholarly networks via series of publications and workshops, the team is planning an international conference to commemorate the works of Keiji Yamamoto, world renowned historian of Arabic astrology, to be held in Kyoto 2024.
The members of the team are:
- Amadeo Murase – Project Leader: (Seigakuin University): Paracelsianism, early modern alchemy.
- Liana Saif (University of Amsterdam): Arabic and Islamic occult sciences.
- Hiroaki Ito (Senshu University): Medieval and Renaissance mysticism.
- Junichi Ono (Jichi Medical University): Islamic mysticism.
- Yuki Nakanishi (Jichi Medical University/Keio University): Islamic theology and magic.
- Hiro Hirai: (Jichi Medical University/Columbia University): Renaissance alchemy.
