Oldal 144 [144]
GYÖRGY E. SZÖNYI
meant to be a counterpart to Ovid’s Fasti, a poetical description of the pagan
religious feasts, thus immortalizing in verse the celebrations of the Christian
calendar year. In this poem, Lazzarelli mentioned Hermes Trismegistus three
times, which foreshadows his later devotion to the works of the supposed
priscus theologus.
1481 brought about great changes in Lazzarelli’s life and thought. He met
with, and was enchanted by, the wandering prophet and philosopher, Giovanni
da Correggio (c. 1451-after 1503), a mysterious and enigmatic representative
of quattrocento Italian esotericism.°
We know about da Correggio’s debut on the Italian scene from the work
of Lazzarelli entitled Epistola Enoch. This curious work, which was printed
around 1490,° relates his astounding appearances in Rome in 1481 and 1484,
Lazzarelli’s first meeting with him, and the Humanist’s spiritual conversion
effected by this encounter. The events described in the following paragraphs
are reconstructed on the basis of the Epistola Enoch.
The title informs the reader that the Letter is “about the admirable and
portentous appearance of a new and divine Prophet to the entire human race.”
But who is this Enoch who writes the report? Clearly the author, Lodovico
Lazzarelli, who transformed with the help of the Prophet into the Biblical
patriarch, who had “walked with God.” And now it is his task to record the
miraculous events of the present day which can be compared to the workings
of prophets of old: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Isaiah. Contrary to the Renaissance
Humanists, the author calls the age in which this new Christian prophet
appeared a “final state of an unhappy and dark age” (EE 4.1). To understand
all the mysteries which are going to unfold, one is warned to read the portents
as veiled allegories and also to work for purification and exaltatio, which
should result in deification. The quotation is a close paraphrase of the Corpus
Hermeticum 10.6:
It is impossible, brothers, for the soul of a man to assume a divine form while lying
in the waste of the body; nor is it permissible to look at the beauty of God if one has
not first been transformed into a god. For the supreme good of those who come to
know themselves is to become a god. (EE 4.7, Lazzarelli, 117)
Then follows the account of da Correggio’s two visits to Rome, apparently in
reverse order. The 1481 episode is recalled after the detailed narrative of what
happened in 1484 as follows:
5 On da Correggio see Kristeller 1938; 1941; Brini, Lodovico Lazzarelli: Testi scelti (1955);
Ruderman, Giovanni da Correggio’s Appearance in Italy (1975); Hanegraaff, Lazzarelli.
Only one copy has survived, presently in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, see Hanegraaff,
Lazzarelli, 107.
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