| Description: | This course embraces various disciplines including astrology, alchemy, the Cabala, Gnosticism and music. These disciplines, which have their roots in classical pre-Christian culture, will be explored within a historical and philosophical context from the medieval period up to the Renaissance. Each of these subjects will be examined, not in isolation, but with reference to other disciplines, in such a way as to demonstrate the correlation between them. These interrelationships existed in antiquity but have, to a large extent, been forgotten in our modern day culture with its tendency to compartmentalize knowledge. Scientific developments have led humankind to lose contact with their inner selves and consequently with a lay conception of the divine. The aim of this course is to seek to rediscover, through the study of these 'sciences' which have been lost along the centuries, the sense of the divine which allowed man to experience supreme self-knowledge in conjunction with a deep knowledge of the universe. It is for this reason that the course is entitled "Enthusiasm", a term deriving from the ancient Greek and which means "the sense of the divine within each of us". This course is not, therefore, a mere historical excursus, an illustration of disciplines which have lost their very essence and meaning over the centuries; it is, rather, a course which stimulates debate and deep reflection, not only within a classroom context, but also through frequent visits to spiritual sites both in Florence and elsewhere. |