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GYÖRGY E. SZÖNYI
(Lazzarelli, 153). Here, he announces his transfiguration due to the effect
of Giovanni, and he calls himself his son. He also praises Ficino for his
recovery of this ancient wisdom, but he corrects the Florentine philosopher
by claiming that
One thing only I considered incorrectly, namely what he tells us about the lifetime
of this Hermes. For Trismegistus did not live after the times of Moses, but, rather,
a long time before... (Ibid., 157)
In the following explanation, he locates Trismegistus among the first
pharaohs, thus, apparently, placing him approximately at the time of Enoch.
At the end of this text, Lazzarelli thanks Mercurio for the mystical teaching
he gained from him: "for you know not only the origin, succession, duration,
and end of the world, but also your generosity makes them known to me"
(ibid.).
The second dedication is an Ode to Mercurio. It contains a very personal
confession:
Father Mercurius, teacher by fatherly love,
Hail to you, who are like a god to me.
You have begotten me anew by ethereal seed,
And taught me to be born again without deceit. (Ibid., 159)
The third preface tells of how he accidentally stumbled upon this lost tract of
the Corpus Hermeticum, the “Definitions of Asclepius.” He translated it from
Greek to Latin for Mercurio, but he adds that the original must have been
the sacred language of the Egyptians, because it “does not smack of Greek
eloquence, but looks more like some foreign manner of speech.” Lazzarelli
concludes his dedication with the following elevated comparison:
Now, I am sending it to you, with a willing and jubilant spirit, because I feel that
I must forever venerate, worship, and follow you the same way as our Hermetic
Dionysius the Areopagite venerated, worshipped, and followed his most holy
teachers Paul and Hierothus. (Ibid., 163)
Between 1482 and 1484, Giovanni Mercurio seems to have studied
the Hermetica seriously, because on the occasion of his next appearance
in Rome, he presented a syncretic, Hermetic-Christian-apocalyptic
choreography and message. Ihe main source on which our knowledge of
the events is based is again the Epistola Enoch, but we have independent
evidence, too. The town chronicle of Cesena (on the road between Bologna
and Rome) recorded that a gentleman "went to Rome this year upon an ass and
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