Magic and mathematics at the court of Rudolph II (Q1908129)

The Hermetic tradition is traced back to Alexandrian mathematics. Intellectual activities at the Court of Rudolph II are characterized as based, on the one hand, on interpreting the magic Hermetic texts and, on the other hand, on efforts to build sciences also on experiment. The views of G. Bruno, John Dee and M. Maier are briefly touched upon, while the main attention is focussed upon Kepler. The writer detects some remnants of the Hermetic tradition in Newton's philosophy and outlines his deductions of Kepler's Third Law in mathematical detail.