Magic and technology in early modern Europe

Abstract

From an interview conducted with Professor Anthony Grafton in the Princeton University Campus in 2002 Grafton showed how "the notion of a mathematical or artificial magic" rose from the ancient art ofnat- ural ma^c, embodied in such things as prayers and talismans, to the complex optical, hydraulic and mechanical devices that "not only rivaled, but actually outdid, the creative powers of nature itself"