The Celestial Streams of Giulio Camillo

Robinson K. , “Fame with tongue”, Reformation and Renaisance review, vi (2004), 107–23.

Yates Frances , Quoting Enciclopedia Italiana, in The art of memory (London, 1966), 129.

Collected works of Erasmus, vi: Ciceronianus, ed. by Levi A. H. T. (Toronto, 1986), n. 308, pp. 562–3.

Vickers Brian , “Rhetoric and poetics”, The Cambridge history of Renaissance philosophy, ed. by Schmitt Charles B. (Cambridge, 1988), 715–45, p. 739.

Delminio Giulio Camillo , De l'imitation, French transl. by Graziani Françoise (Paris, 1996).

Bolgar R. R. , The Classical heritage (Cambridge, 1954), 434.

Wylie James A. , The history of Protestantism, ii (London, 1878), Book 13, chap. 18, quoted at www.doctrine.org/history.

Yates , op. cit. (ref. 2), 150.

Ibid., 132.

Ibid., 133.

Ibid., 132.

Ibid., 136.

Ibid., 136.

Ibid., 132. Yates then converts this into a “Memory Theatre of the World”, p. 171, to “the Hermetic Memory Theatre”, p. 203, and finally the “Theatre of the World”, p. 339.

By which an image will, by association, trigger off more meanings than is apparent at face value. In addition to Yates, for more on this subject see Carruthers Mary ,The book of memory (Cambridge, 1990) and Bolzoni Lina , transl. by Parzen Jeremy , The gallery of memory: Literary and iconographic models in the age of the printing press (Toronto, 2001).

Gatti Hilary , for example, in her recent work on the “scientific” Giordano Bruno, remarks that the result of Yates's thesis leads to a “radical concept of incommensurability between the mechanistic and magical worldviews”. Gatti attempts, instead, to reappraise Bruno's work in terms of what she sees as “the twentieth-century scientific discussion to which Bruno's work is most relevant”. Alexander Koyré had long valued Bruno's contribution to the contemporary philosophy of science in terms of his (that is, Bruno's) understanding of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe. Gatti's emphasis, on the other hand, is methodological. She defines the crucial issue of “the twentieth-century scientific discussion” as “the conflict over theory”. Gatti classifies an “optimistic” and a “pessimistic” approach to theory. The former involves “an evaluation of theory as progress through refutation toward ever more refined and satisfactory premises (Popper)”. The latter views “the necessary anarchy of method and the impossibility of exact observation of a chaotic world (Feyerabend)”. With the birth of a “new romantic philosophy” that emphasized “mental paradigms accompanied by the concept of nature as a vitalistic process”, Gatti believes that Bruno has much to offer in terms of reconciliation between these two opposing “optimistic” and “pessimistic” views of theoretical practice. This she identifies as Bruno's “dynamic, vitalistic concept of matter.” Gatti Hilary , Giordano Bruno & Renaissance science (Ithaca, NY, 2002).

Copenhaver Brian , “Natural magic, Hermeticism, and occultism in early modern science”, Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. by Lindberg David Westman Robert (Cambridge, 1990), 261–301, p. 265.

Altani Federigo , “Nuova raccolta d'opusculi scientifici e filologici”, in Memorie intorno alla vita (Venice, 1755), 239–88.

For further discussion, and for an exploration of other aspects of Camillo's book, notably imagery, see Robinson K. , “A search for the source of the whirlpool of artifice”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Glasgow, 2003 (to be published by Dunedin Academic Press, autumn 2005).

I have been greatly helped by the translation in Wenneker Lu Beery , “An examination of L'idea del Theatro of Giulio Camillo, including an annotated translation, with special attention to his influence on Emblem Literature and Iconography”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1970.

For the collected writings of Camillo, see Delminio Giulio Camillo , ed. by Bolzoni Lina , L'idea del Theatro e altri scritti di retorica (Turin, 1990).

“The food for this banquet will be served as fourteen courses, that is, as fourteen canzoni, treating of both love and virtue”, says Dante at the beginning of his work (p. 15). He goes on to say that Latin “… is more beautiful, more virtuous and more noble …” than the vernacular. Therefore, he reasons, “a commentary in Latin would have been not the subject of the canzoni but their sovereign”. Dante , The banquet, transl. by Ryan Christopher (Saratoga, 1989), 23.

See Wenneker , op. cit. (ref. 19), passim; Robinson , “Whirlpool of artifice” (ref. 20), 102–6; and Yates , op. cit. (ref. 2), 134. For emblematic work in the history of science, see Ashworth William B. Jr , “Natural history and the emblematic world view”, in Lindberg Westman (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 18), 303–32.

Otherwise known as the Accademia Forojuliensis, it was founded by the Venetian General Bartholomeo d'Alviano in a temporary respite from battles in Padua instigated by the League of Cambrai.

Raphael painted a double portrait of Navagero, with Agostino Beazzano, around 1516. Oil on canvas: Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.

Erasmus was in Italy from c. 1506 to 1509. For Erasmus's letter in which he talks about “sharing a mattress” with Camillo, see Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterdami, ed. by Allen H. M. (Oxford, 1937), Ep. 3032, 219–22. See also Robinson , “Fame with tongue” (ref. 1).

A copy of L'idea del Theatro illustrated by Titian sadly did not survive a fire at the Escorial in 1671.

Camillo lectured at Serlio's father's house and was named in Serlio's will.

de Luca Elena , “Silent meanings: Emblems, lay culture and political awareness in sixteenth century Bologna”, Emblematica, xii (2002), 61–81.

I have not been able to study this manuscript myself. For further details see Mattusek , www.sfbperformativ.de.

See Wenneker , op. cit. (ref. 19), 16–20. Yates suggests a later date, nearer to 1544.

Delminio Giulio Camillo , Due trattati … l'uno delle materie, che possono uenir sotto lo stile dell'eloquente: L'altro della imitatione (Venice, 1544). For an English translation of this see Robinson , “Whirlpool of artifice” (ref. 20), 182–205.

Camillo Giulio , L'idea del Theatro (Florence, 1550), 10–11.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 14.

Ibid., 9.

Ibid., 17.

Ibid., 18.

Ibid., 20.

Ibid., 25.

Ibid., 29.

Camillo calls them “sopracelesti ruscelli”.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 30.

Ibid., 54.

Ibid., 57.

Ibid., 59.

Ibid., 62.

E.g. Christine de Pisan's Epistre Othea, cqmposed in the early fifteenth century. See Russell Daniel , Emblematic structures in Renaissance French culture (Toronto, 1995), 31–37.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 67.

Ibid., 76.

Ibid., 77.

Ibid., 78.

Ibid., 79.

Ibid., 85.

Sometimes called “Cannone”. Translated by Wenneker , op. cit. (ref. 19), as “tube”.

Camillo uses a method of “progressive interpretation” of imagery. See Robinson , “Whirlpool of artifice” (ref. 20), 77–106.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 31.

Cicero , De natura deorum, 37, quoted by Camillo in L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 40.

Prado, painted around 1505–10. Transparent, or semi-transparent, orbs of varying sizes form a recurrent visual motif. One prominent sphere, for example, in the middle panel, shows a man and woman inside, both of whom are faced with another glowing orange sphere that might be the inside of the flower, or it could be a sun.

Dante describes the movement in Il convivio (The banquet, c. 1304–7) as being instigated by Intelligences, or angels (“substances separate from matter”). The tenth immovable sphere, according to Dante, “announces the unity and stability of God”. This Empyrean Heaven is, he says, “immovable, because it has within itself, in every part, that which its matter demands”. This is the reason that the primum mobile moves with such immense velocity: “… because [of] the fervent longing of all its parts to be united with those of this most quiet heaven ….” Dante , The banquet, transl. by Hillard Katherine (London, 1889), 65–69.

Nifo Agostino , In quattuor libros De cáelo et mundo et Aristotelis et Averrois expositio, Book 2, fols 23–26, quoted in Lattis James M. , Between Copernicus and Galileo (Chicago, 1994), 90.

Copernicus's teacher, Domenico da Novara, for example, “held that no system so cumbersome and inaccurate as the Ptolemaic had become could possibly be true of nature”, Kuhn Thomas S. , The Copernican Revolution (Cambridge, 1957), 69.

In his critique, Clavius complained that some of the homocentrists proposed up to seventy-nine spheres, for example. See Lattis , op. cit. (ref. 61), 94.

Lattis , op. cit. (ref. 61), 90. Della Torre was also known as Giovanni Battista. I follow Wilmer Wright in calling him Giambattista. Fracastoro Girolamo , De contagionibus et contagiosis morbis et eorum curatione libri tres, transl. by Wright Wilmer Cave (New York, 1930).

As regards his influence on Camillo, it is also noteworthy that Fracastoro has been associated with the construction of one of the first orreries.

Lattis , op. cit. (ref. 61), 95. Donahue William H. , “The solid planetary spheres in post-Copernican natural philosophy”, in The Copernican achievement, ed. by Westman Robert (Los Angeles, 1975), 244–75, p. 273.

See Donahue , op. cit. (ref. 66), n. 149.

Lattis , op. cit. (ref. 61), 94.

Jardine Nicholas , “The significance of the Copernican orbs”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xiii (1982), 168–94, p. 171.

Pontano Giovanni Giovano , Opera (Venice, 1512).

See ref. 33.

d'Abano Pietro , Tractatus de venenis (Mantua, 1473).

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 14.

Clavius , Sphaera (1611), 48, quoted in Lattis, op. cit. (ref. 61), 104.

Giannettasio Nicola Partenio , Universalis cosmographiae elementata (1688), quoted in Lattis, op. cit. (ref. 61), 103.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 29.

The idea of the waters above the heavens is derived from Genesis 1:7.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 22.

Ibid., 23.

Ibid., 30.

Luke 12:7. Quoted in Camillo, L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 24.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 38.

The idea of a mystical “dew” was common parlance in alchemical treatises, and it is appropriate here to mention the probable influence on Camillo of Paracelsus (or Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541)), whose alchemical works were widespread.

It is reasonable to estimate that Camillo would have been at Padua in the years around 1500. Copernicus was there from 1501 to 1503. He took his doctorate at Ferrara in 1503. Previously Copernicus was a student at Bologna from 1497 to around 1500, where Camillo was later to hold a Chair in Dialectics, c. 1521–25.

See Westman Robert , “Proof, poetics and patronage”, in Lindberg Westman (ed.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (ref. 18), 167–205, p. 168, for discussion of Duhem's, Burtt's and Kuhn's approaches.

Jardine , op. cit. (ref. 69), 168.

“Kuhn and others” have tied Copernicus to Florentine Neoplatonism through his teacher, Domenico Maria de Novara, resulting in what Westman has called the “Kuhnian” aesthetic. See Westman , op. cit. (ref 85), 179–82.

Rossi Paolo , “Hermeticism and rationality”, in Reason, experiment and mysticism in the Scientific Revolution, ed. by Bonelli M. L. Righini Shea William R. (London, 1975), 247–73, p. 259.

Westman , op. cit. (ref. 85), 167–205.

Yates Frances , Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition (London, 1964), 153.

Camillo begins L'idea del Theatro by saying: “The oldest and wisest writers always have had the habit of protecting in their writings the secrets of God with dark veils, so that they are understood only by those, who (as Christ says) ‘have ears to hear’, that is, those who are chosen by God to understand His most holy mysteries.” Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 7.

Copernicus Nicholas , On the revolution of the heavenly spheres, transl. by Duncan A. M. (Newton Abbot, 1976), Book 1, chap. 10, p. 50.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 38.

Copernicus , op. cit. (ref. 92), Book 1, chap. 11, p. 51.

For details, see in particular pp. 20 and 38 of L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34).

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 20.

Ibid., 38.

See ref. 92.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro (ref. 34), 14.

Yates , op. cit. (ref. 2), 152.

says Yates , “To bring out the importance of Sol, he [Camillo] varies the arrangement … by representing the Sun on the first grade by the image of a pyramid …” (ibid., 138). According to Camillo, however, the pyramid represents the Trinity, or “The Breadth of Being”. Later on, Yates says that Camillo places the image of a pyramid on the “Banquet grade of the Sun series”, though elsewhere she says correctly, if inconsistently, that it represents the Trinity (p. 151). Where Camillo talks about the Sun, Yates says that he is describing “Sol”. But instead Camillo consistently calls the Sun — In Italian — The “Sun”. Yates says that Camillo talks about a “light” series: Sol, Lux, Lumen, Splendor, Calor, Generatio in relation to the image of Apollo (p. 152). But in fact, this system, which Camillo terms the “Gamone” and discusses in detail with regard to the whole of the second level of the Theatre, is a Pythagorean system, which he describes in Latin, rather than his usual vernacular, hence the unusual reference to “Sol”. Camillo also tends to call the Moon, the “Moon”, rather than “Diana”, as Yates describes.

Camillo , L'idea del Theatro, 27. Camillo also talks about the angels, Tipheret and Raphael, here, in terms of the supercelestial world, as well as discussing Apollo in terms of the myths ascribed to the Sun. I have omitted these from Figure 2 for the sake of clarity.

Ibid., 15.

Ibid., 71. There are three appearances of the fates image, all of them in this central column of the Theatre. Aside from the one above, the other two are as follows: “… the Fates, symbols of destiny, of the cause, of the beginning, of the event, of the effect and of the end” (p. 16); “The fates: To give cause, to begin, to lead to the end” (p. 77).