“Eros and Magic in the Renaissance” is a world-famous historical study of the problem of magic and the figure of the magician.

It is generally accepted that our vision of the world and its perception by Renaissance man are separated by an abyss. Culianu offers the modern reader the key to understanding magic as the “science of image manipulation” that had power over the man of that time. Turning to the work of Giordano Bruno, whom Culianu calls “the great manipulator,” the author notes that all magic is based on eros, including social or political magic, that there is an instrumental similarity between magic and erotic attraction: the art of love or seduction is structurally similar to the task magician.

Thanks to his original ideas, unconventional approach to the study of religion, not to mention his bottomless erudition and literary talent, Culianu became one of the most widely read academic authors of the 1980s and 1990s. The book has been translated into English, Romanian, Italian, Spanish.