O hermetismo renascentista e a melancolia: novos sentidos e significados do humor melancólico nos séculos XV e XVI

Abstract

The end of the 15th century and the entire 16th century, the height of the Renaissance, in addition to being a fruitful historical moment for the arts and sciences, also proved to be a very troubled period for Western culture. The widespread political-religious revolutions, the various announcements of omens, inherited from the Middle Ages, and a strong yearning for the renewal of Humanity, made up the daily life of Renaissance European society. The old understanding of homo melancholicus – the individual who was affected by melancholy – remained alive in the Renaissance imagination. The feelings of dismay and despondency, characteristic of melancholy, were present at the end of the 15th century. A disturbing feeling, or “state of mind”, that necessarily needed to be re-signified. This is how the Neoplatonic Academy in Florence, headed by Marsilio Ficino, realized the urgent need to give new meanings to melancholic humor, in order to make it beneficial to human development. This philosophical attitude became our research focus, since one wanted to know why the Academy felt the necessity to reframe the formerly black humor. Later, we were led to investigate what were the main impacts of this “new melancholy” in the 16th century, when it came to be understood as candid melancholy. In this way, supporting us in a vast bibliographical research, which ranges from the philosophical to the artistic field, this research sought to reconstruct an important historical period which, effectively, the bases for the constitution of the “man of genius” were laid.