ABSTRACT
Wonder has been identified as one of the driving forces of early modern philosophy, magic, experimentation, poetry, theatre and visual arts. The types of wonders and the attitudes toward them can define a cultural paradigm. In a broader perspective, one can argue that the marvelous was intrinsic to Western culture in classical antiquity, it was at the core of Christianization and it continued to animate theological debates, natural observation, the perception of the real and the shaping of the imaginary until the onset of modernity and beyond. In spite of its enduring presence in the Western culture, the marvelous does not have an objective ontological status, but is called into being by the sense of wonder. The necessity to deal institutionally with the demonic wonders concretized in establishing the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition in 1542, which was to trial, among many others, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei.
