Acknowledgments
This work owes an immense debt of gratitude to the persons who have contributed to my growth as a scholar. I carried out my research under the guidance of Michele Ciliberto, under whom I studied in the Corso Ordinario and the Corso di Perfezionamento at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and then as the holder of a stipend at the post-doctoral Scuola “Eugenio Garin” at the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento in Florence. I am deeply grateful to him for following me in the years of my university formation. In the context of my studies of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, the determinative event for my maturing was indubitably the encounter with Vittoria Perrone Compagni (University of Florence). The contact with her accompanied my writing of the dissertation, and I am very grateful to her for her precious contribution, and for the dedication and commitment with which she assessed the progress of this work.
I should like to express my especial thanks to Paul Richard Blum (Loyola University Maryland) and to Thomas Leinkauf (University of Münster) for their availability, for their observations, and for their constant support of my work. I am also grateful to Ornella Pompeo Faracovi (University of Florence), Fabrizio Lelli (University of Salento), Fabrizio Meroi (University of Trento), Alfonso Maurizio Iacono (University of Pisa), Marco Matteoli (University of Pisa), Marco Lamanna (University of Lucerne), and Pasquale Terracciano (Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento) for the encouragement they have given me on many occasions. I express my affectionate thanks to my friends and colleagues at the Scuola Normale Superiore with whom I have discussed my research, and who have given me valuable advice: Nicola Comentale, Anna Maria Cimino, Ruggero Lionetti, Marco Catrambone, and Andrea Beghini. I am particularly grateful to Tijana Okić, whose unfailing support has helped to reinforce in my work the commitment that I see as connatural to the historical mission of the philosopher: the civil vocation as a reform of that which exists.
Finally, I shoud like to thank the Brill – Wilhelm Fink editors, Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (University of Copenhagen) and Martin Mulsow (University of Erfurt), for allowing this book to be published in the series Humanistische Bibliothek I – Abhandlungen. Brian McNeil, to whom my appreciation goes for his competence, has translated my text into English. As for citations and Latin passages in the body of the text, I have relied on published translations, which I have referred to in the footnotes. I have translated by myself in cases where no translation was available.
This book is dedicated to Alessandro.
April, 2021
Pisa, Italy