Spanish Hermes and Wisdom Traditions in Medieval Iberia

JUAN UDAONDO ALEGRE is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Penn State University. He earned a Ph.D. in Education and Literature from the University of La Coruña (Spain), as well as an MA in Classics and a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA).

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsNote on names, translations, transliterations, abbreviations, and quotationsIntroduction1. Hermetic Wisdom's Arrival in Spain and Its Diffusion Among the "Three Cultures"2. Hermetic History in the Arabic Sources of Alfonso the Wise's General Estoria3. Interpreting Ovid's Metamorphoses in the General Estoria through Hermetic Motives and Adab4. The Legend of the Three Hermeses in the General Estoria5. Hermes's Wisdom and the Liberal Arts in the General EstoriaConclusionBibliographyIndex

Central to understanding [the intellectual culture of the Middle Ages] is the book known in Arabic as Ghayat al-Hakim and in Latin as Picatrix. Studying this tradition requires a conceptual clarity capable of engaging with the nascent production of scientific texts that do not always adhere to the established rules of what we now understand as science, while at the same time acknowledging that all our knowledge owes to a long scholarly tradition. It is an imposing tradition that demands meticulous attention to detail. Juan Udaondo Alegre successfully tackles all these challenges.Central a la hora de considerar [la cultura intelectual de la Edad Media] es el libro conocido en árabe como Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm y en latín como Picatrix. El estudio de esta tradición requiere combinar una claridad conceptual capaz de enfrentarse a la producción incipiente de textos científicos que no siguen siempre las reglas enunciativas de aquello que hoy conocemos como ciencia, mientras que a la vez la persona interesada en estos textos debe todo aquello que sabemos a una larga tradición erudita que pasa por Fritz Saxl, Eugenio Garin o, más recientemente, Charles Burnett. Se trata de una tradición imponente que requiere atención al detalle. A todas estas pruebas se enfrenta con gran éxito Juan Udaondo Alegre.