The Corpus Hermeticum, the Medicis, and Why a Banking Family Wanted Ancient Egyptian Wisdom
Book: Financial Vipers of Venice
Author: Joseph P. Farrell
ISBN: 978-1-93623-974-0
Chapter 2 of Financial Vipers of Venice opens with a big claim: Giordano Bruno was not just a martyr for Copernican astronomy. He was a Hermeticist, and the ideas he championed threatened Venetian merchant banking as much as they threatened Rome. Before Farrell gets to the math and the money, he has to answer a simpler question. Where did these texts come from, and why did a Florentine banking dynasty care?