The De summa hominis dignitate dialogus qui inscribitur Via Christi et Crater Hermetis is a philosophical dialogue witten in prosimeter.
Lazzarelli plays the role of teacher and prophet. He shows his disciples, through a hermetic and Christian path, how to reach happiness and salvation.
Taking up the medieval concordist exegesis - according to which Hermes Trismegistus was considered the pagan prophet of Christian revelation -, Lazzarelli tells in first person about the enlightenment recieved by Nous-Chris.
At the end of this work, the hermetic mystery of the generation of the divine souls, through which the real man can reach Heaven and divine knowledge, is recovered.
LUDOVICO LAZZARELLI
Ludovico Lazzarelli, also known as Septempedanus, was born in San Severino Marche on February 4,1447.
He studied greek, jewish, astrology and mathematics in Teramo.
He later went to Venice and then to Padua, where he composed the De apparatu Patavini hastiludii.
Between Rome, Camerino, Ferrara and Naples, he wrote works of literary, philosophical and astrological nature entitled De gentilium deorum imaginibus (1471), Fasti Christianae religionis (1482-1494), De Bombyce (1490 ca.) and Prometheus (1468).
In 1481 he met the alchemist Giovanni Mercurio da Correggio, who initiated Lazzarelli to hermetic doctrines and whom Lazzarelli then dedicated his translation of the Definitiones Asclepii (1507), the last three treatises of the latin Corpus Hermeticum.
Between 1486 and 1494 he composed his most famous work, the De summa hominis dignitate dialogus qui inscribitur Via Christi et Crater Hermetis.
Lazzarelli died in San Severino Marche on June23, 1500.
