Castile; 1486). Madrigal was a proverbially voluminous
writer in Spanish and Latin (escribir más que el Tostado—
“to write more than el Tostado”). He is reputed to have
produced six printed sheets for every year of his adult life,
and his two books attacking the Jews and the Koran ran to
27 volumes. In addition to works on moral philosophy
and religious subjects, he translated SENECA’s Medea and
wrote a commentary on the early Church historian Eu-
sebius. The first edition of his Opera omnia (Venice,
1507–31) was published in 20 volumes.
Maecenas, Gaius (74/64–8 BCE) Roman statesman and
patron
He was the trusted adviser of Emperor Augustus and the
friend and patron of VIRGIL, HORACE, and other major
Roman poets, who eulogized him in their poetry. His
name became synonymous with discerning PATRONAGE,
and he is often invoked in Renaissance writers’ dealings
with their own patrons.
Maestlin, Michael (1550–1631) German astronomer
Educated at Tübingen university, Maestlin became in 1576
a Lutheran pastor. He also served as mathematics profes-
sor at the universities of Heidelberg and Tübingen. Having
observed the NEW STARof 1572 and the comets of 1577
and 1580, Maestlin began to express privately his support
for the COPERNICAN SYSTEM, but in public and in his Epit-
ome astronomiae (1582) he continued to expound the
PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM. He must have been more daring in
conversation, for it was from Maestlin that KEPLER, as a
student at Tübingen, received his first serious introduc-
tion to Copernican astronomy. Maestlin also edited Ke-
pler’s Copernican treatise, Mysterium cosmographicum
(1596).
Maestro Giorgio See ANDREOLI, GIORGIO
Magellan, Ferdinand (c. 1480–1521) Portuguese
explorer
Born near Villa Real of noble parentage, Magellan served
in the court of Queen Leonor from an early age. In 1505
he sailed to the East Indies with Francisco de Almeida, ac-
quiring during the voyage a comprehensive knowledge of
navigational techniques. From then until 1510 Magellan
was perpetually on the move, helping to establish a fort
in Mozambique and fighting at the battle of Diu (1509),
which confirmed Portuguese supremacy in the Indian
Ocean. He also played a major role in the conquest of
Malacca (1511), the gateway to the Far East. Back in
Portugal (1512), Magellan took part in an expedition
against Morocco (1513), but he then lost favor with King
Manuel I.
Magellan responded by offering his services to Spain.
In 1518 he and the exiled Portuguese astronomer Ruy
Faleiro were commissioned by Charles I of Spain (later
Emperor Charles V) to sail west and ascertain that the
Spice Islands were within Spanish territory (see TORDESIL-
LAS, TREATY OF). To reach his destination, Magellan navi-
gated the southern tip of America, discovering the straits
which now bear his name. He then took the unprece-
dented decision to return home by continuing to sail west-
wards. On September 6, 1522 the Vittoria arrived back in
Seville, but Magellan himself had been killed a year earlier
in battle against the natives of Mactan in the Philippines.
Consequently, his deputy, Sebastian del CANO, is ac-
claimed as the first actual circumnavigator.
Further reading: Tim Joyner, Magellan (Cambden,
Me.: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press, 1992:
repr. 1994).Maggior Consiglio (Italian, “Great Council”) The ruling
body of Venice on which all adult males belonging to pa-
trician families had a lifelong hereditary right to sit. The
closure (serrata) of the membership to all except these
families took place in 1297, and from 1325 their names
were recorded in the Libro d’oro (Golden book). Through-
out the Renaissance period the Maggior Consiglio func-
tioned mainly as a pool from which members could be
drawn for other councils and committees of state, such as
the senate (with about 200 members) and the COUNCIL OF
TEN, all under the chairmanship of the DOGE.
The Venetian council was copied in Florence on the
fall of the Medici in 1494 and became the basis of the re-
publican constitution there until 1512.magic In the Renaissance, a specific and essentially liter-
ate view of how the universe operates. It was far from the
body of superstitious beliefs held by illiterate peasants
in many other cultures. One of the fullest accounts of
Renaissance magic is to be found in Cornelius AGRIPPA’s
De occulta philosophia (1531). For Agrippa, the universe
was divided into natural, celestial, and intellectual worlds,
with influences flowing from the intellectual to the celes-
tial to the natural world. There were, thus, three types of
magic: natural magic applying to the natural world, celes-
tial magic deriving from the stars and planets, and intel-
lectual magic controlled by ceremony and ritual. As
natural magic operated by observing the sympathies and
antipathies between natural objects, such as the lodestone
and iron, it approximated to some extent to Renaissance
science. Celestial and intellectual magic, whatever their
pretensions, soon degenerated into astrology and nu-
merology. Much ingenuity was consequently devoted to
extracting, by techniques like that of gematria, important
and potent numbers, such as that of God (tetragramma-
ton), Christ (pentagrammaton), and the Shemham-
phorash (the preeminent name). In gematria words were
converted into numbers by assigning the letters arbitrary
values. Thus, given that Y = 10, H = 5, and V = 6, then the
name of God, YHVH (the tetragrammaton) takes the valuemmaaggiicc 2 29955