Page 145 [145]
OCR
A CHRISTIAN-HERMETIC-JUDAIC INITIATION... This is the same man who, about three years ago, on the 12" of November, when the cardinals were coming together appeared on the stairs of the palace, holding a sacred Bible mystically closed with seven seals, on the front cover of which this sacred oracle could be read: fT . . . ] Ihis is my beloved and waxing son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him and obey him, speaks the Almighty.” (EE 12.1, ibid., 141-43) Giovanni came from a well-established family in Bologna, but nothing is known about how he turned into a prophet or why he decided to assault the Papal consistory in Rome. According to historical reconstruction, when Lazzarelli witnessed da Correggio’s first entry into Rome, he recognized in him the reincarnation of Hermes, while he himself underwent a mystical transformation, recognizing himself as the “son of Hermes,” actually Enoch, who now turned from the leaves of Parnassus to Mount Sion, meaning that from now on, he would leave profane poetry and “pursue the road of spiritual wisdom” (Hanegraaff, Lazzarelli, 24). The combination of Hermes and Enoch in this spiritual reunion is noteworthy and reminds us of one of the medieval speculations about the identity of the two sages.’ Our present protagonists must have been aware of the tradition of the three Hermeses, one of them being Enoch. In 1938, Paul Oskar Kristeller announced his discovery of a latequattrocento codex preserved in the city library of Viterbo which contained an intriguing collection of Hermetica.* The codex in question includes a copy of Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum 1-XIV, together with his preface and commentaries. Added to this is Lazzarelli’s own translation of another Hermetic tract unknown to Ficino (today it is labelled CH XVI, “The Definitions of Asclepius”). Among these texts, three dedications have been inserted to Giovanni da Correggio by Lazzarelli, whom he addresses as Giovanni “Mercurio” and who, from this time on, indeed adopted this name for himself. These prefaces are of utmost interest, because Lazzarelli not only outlined in them his theoretical opinion of the Hermetica, but also revealed his personal relationship with the wandering prophet. It is also revealed that Lazzarelli presented this codex to Mercurio in 1482 in order to provide him with a most complete anthology of the Hermetic corpus. The first preface is in prose. In it, Lazzarelli-Enoch recommends the writings of Hermes Trismegistus together with those of Moses and Jesus Christ (i.e. the Old and New Testaments), as those who “are all sitting at one table, and with friendly faces serve their fellow guests the fragrant dishes of the gods” On the reinterpretations of Hermes and Enoch in the Middle Ages see Szönyi, The Reincarnations of Enoch...; on the origins of these contaminations see Bladel, The Arabic Hermes (2009). ® Cod. II D1 4, see Kristeller 1938 and 1960; Hanegraaff, Lazzarelli. * 143 ¢ Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 143 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:17
