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Hello in 1461, one of the powerful Medici family's many agents carried a mysterious

manuscript into his master's house in Florence.

It purported to be the work of an ancient Egyptian priest, king and magician called Hermes Trismagistus.

When Cosmo de Medici saw the new discovery, he ordered his translations of Plato by Ficino to be stopped so that work could begin on the new discovery at once.

Hermes promised secret knowledge to its initiates and claimed to have spoken with the spirits and turned base metal into gold.

His ideas propelled natural magic into the mainstream

of Renaissance intellectual thought, as scholars and magi vied to understand the ancient secrets that would

bring statues to life and call the angels down from heaven.

But why did magic appeal so strongly to the Renaissance mind,

and how did the scholar the Immegas who became a feature of the period managed to escape prosecution and relate his work to science and the church.

With me to discuss Renaissance magic is Peter Foreshaw, lecturer in Renaissance philosophers at Burke

University of London,

Vile Rheer Rhees, a Renaissance historian,

and a translator for Chino's letters,

and Jonathan Sord, a professor of English studies

at the University of Strathcly.

Let's begin with this extraordinary figure, Hermes, she's magisters,

Peter Forshore.

Who did the Renaissance Scholars think he was?

And when did they think he was writing?

...