On the Composition Of Images, Signs & Ideas by Giordano Bruno Translated by Charles Doria Edited and annotated by Dick Higgins Foreword by Manfredi Piccolomini “Images cannot be ideas, but they can play the part of signs.” — Claude Lévi-Strauss 1991 New York Willis, Locker & Owens Copyright © 1991 by Charles Doria and Richard C. Higgins. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without permission of the authors, the publisher, Willis, Locker & Owens, New York, New York, or their duly authorized agent, except for brief passages reproduced for inclusion in a review written for a newspaper or radio or television broadcast. ISBN Number: 0-930279-18-2 (cloth edition) Willis, Locker & Owens 71 Thompson Street New York, NY 10012 This book was designed and typeset by WindWords, Barrytown, New York, using Monotype Plantin Light. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bruno, Giordano, 1548-1600. [De imaginum, signorum et idearum compositione. English] On the composition of images, signs & ideas / by Giordano Bruno; translated by Charles Doria; edited and annotated by Dick Higgins; foreword by Manfredi Piccolomini. 426 pp. 21 x 24 cm. Translation of: De imaginum, signorum et idearum compositione. Includes notes, bibliography and index. ISBN 0-930279-18-2 (hard) : $39.95 1. Philosophy—Early works to 1800. 2. Gods, Greek—Early works to 1800. 3. Mnemonics-Early works to 1850. I. Higgins, Dick, 1938-II. Title. B783.D392E6 1991 195--dc20 91-17563 CIP MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Credits and Acknowledgements We wish to thank the following organizations for their support of this project:: The John W. and Clara C. Higgins Foundation for a grant to Charles Doria. The Experimental Intermedia Foundation for a grant to Charles Doria. The illustrations from the 1591 edition of Bruno's work are printed by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The reproductions from Albumasar's works are included courtesy of the Rare Book Room, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. * * * * The quotation on the title page is from Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind. Copyright © 1966, University of Chicago Press. Reprinted by permission. * * * * Portions of this translation first appeared in Wch Way and Adz. * * * * We also wish to express our gratitude to the following individuals for their generous advice and assistance: Dr. Bengt af Klintberg of the University of Stockholm for his help with the Nordic deities in Book II. Dr. Anthony Bonner, translator of Ramon Llull, and Dr. Charles Lohr of the Raimundus-Llullus- Institut of the University of Freiburg (Federal Republic of Germany) for their help in detailing the relation of Bruno's arbor scientiae diagram in Book IIΙ, Chapter 5, to Llull's own diagrams. Messrs. Robert Volz and Wayne Hammond of the Chapin Library at Williams College, for making many of the rare works in their holdings accessible to us, such as the 1563 Basel edition of Bede. Prof. Emeritus Dr. Andrzej Nowicki of the Catholic University, Lublin (Poland) and Drs. Maria Rita and Loris Sturlcse of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (Italy) for their help in sorting out bibliographic problems. Dick Higgins Charles Doria Table of Contents Foreword:0T Omnia Quæ Sunt, Sunt Lumina, by Manfredi Piccolomini,T page xi Introduction1T ,T by Dick Higgjns and Charles Doria, page xxiii Dedicatory2T Epistle,T page 3 Book One, Part One Chapter3T One,T On light, radius and mirror, page 7 Chapter4T Two,T Concerning those things that go towards the mirror, and those things which are in the mirror, page 10 Chapter5T Three,T Explanation of various ideas, page 13 Chapter6T Four,T Every sign should be referred to the atnum of sense and the tribunal of sight, page 15 Chapter7T Five,T On the physical, mathematical and logical movement of images, according to the general reception or acceptance of these modes, page 16 Chapter8T Six,T Separating image and sign, page 20 Chapter9T Seven,T Concerning the images of things, page 21 Chapter1T Eight,T On the modes by which various figures and intentions are made, page 22 Chapter1T Nine,T Some ways of fashioning and deriving images that the Chaldean writing holds in Mnemosyne's temple, page 28 Chapter1T Ten,T On the images of words, or of utterance and expressions, page 31 Chapter1T Eleven,T Conditions under which the images adhere better to subject and object in the Temple, as we express it, of Mnemosyne, page 34 Chapter1T Twelve,T Of light, the vehicle of images, page 36 Chapter1T Thirteen,T On the subject of the images, page 38 Chapter1T Fourteen,T On the effector of images, page 40 Chapter1T Fifteen,T On the storehouse of the species and its gates, page 42 Chapter1T Sixteen,T On the fixers of images, page 43 Chapter1T Seventeen,T Aphorisms on the condition of sight, the visible, the medium and the place, page 44 Book One, Part Two Chapter2T One,T On the places, order, chaos, coordination, composition, complement and distinction of species, page 47 Chapter2T Two,T Concerning the places of species, page 48 Chapter2T Three,T Form of the atrium, page 49 Chapter2T Four,T On the number and name of the atria, page 50 Chapter2T Five,T The division of the places, of which the common places support a five-fold relationship with the east approach, west, south, north and middle, page 52 Chapter2T Six,T The adjective places of the atrium of the altar you will [now] vary with five forms with an assisting atrium's five-fold situation, page 53 Atria2T ,T page 54 Chapter2T Seven,T Concerning a possible addition for a third generation complement, page 79 Chapter2T Eight,T On the order [or ranking] of the species, page 81 Chapter2T Nine,T The twelve chapters of the harmonizers, page 82 Chapter3T Ten,T The thirty chambers of the harmonizing forms, page 88 Chapter3T Eleven,T Conspicuous images in the center of the minor chambers, page 91 Chapter3T Twelve,T An explication of the sensible images, first by the action of other accompanying things, page 94 Chapter3T Thirteen,T An explication of the sensible images secondly by the action of other harmonizers, page 96 Fields3T ,T page 98 Chapter3T Fourteen,T Concerning the establishment of a field by a chain, page 113 Chapter3T Fifteen,T Concerning the conditions of the parts in the observable houses, atria and fields, page 114 Chapter3T Sixteen,T On the composition of the species, or, rather, the images' configuration, page 118 Chapter3T Seventeen,T A third example of composition, page 121 Chapter3T Eighteen,T On the first complement of the species, page 122 Chapter4T Nineteen,T page 125 Chapter4T Twenty,T The Platonic word “logos” concerning the twofold sense of intellect “nous” as shaper and harmony, page 128 Book Two Chapter4T One,T Wherein are discussed the images of the princes of the Roman gods, and first concerning those things which pertain to Jove, page 131 Chapter4T Two,T Other images which appear in Jove's campus, page 133 Chapter4T Three,T Jove's assistants. Antecedents, page 135 Chapter4T Four,T Images of Saturn, page 140 Chapter4T Five,T The image of Mars, page 155 Chapter4T Six,T The image of Mercury, page 162 Chapter4T Seven,T Pallas' image or Minerva's, page 178 Chapter4T Eight,T Image of the Sun or Apollo, page 180 Chapter5T Eight, Part Two,T The image of Aesculapius and Chiron, page 184 Chapter5T Nine,T Circe's image, page 186 Chapter5T Ten,T The image of Anon and Orpheus, page 187 Chapter5T Eleven,T The image of the Sun, page 190 Chapter5T Twelve,T Images of the Moon, page 194 Chapter5T Thirteen,T The images of Venus, page 200 Chapter5T Fourteen,T The image of Tellus, page 210 Chapter5T Fifteen,T Epilogue and application, page 214 Chapter5T Sixteen,T page 218 Book Three, which is about the images of the Thirty Seals Chapter5T One,T The fields of Zoroaster, page 221 Chapter6T Two,T The image of the first seal. The abacus of Theutis, page 224 Chapter6T Three,T The image of the second seal. The banner, page 226 Chapter6T Four,T The numerator of the third seal, page 228 Chapter6T Five,T Proteus in the house of Mnemosyne, page 233 Chapter6T Six,T Seal five. The chain, page 243 Chapter6T Seven,T Seal six. The tree, page 247 Chapter6T Eight,T Seal seven. The wearer of clothes, page 252 Chapter6T Nine,T Seal eight. The horizon, page 255 Chapter6T Ten,T The ninth seal. The farmer, page 259 Chapter6T Eleven,T The tenth seal The sky, page 261 Chapter7T Twelve,T The eleventh seal. The orbit of the sky, page 263 Chapter7T Thirteen,T Seal twelve. The interpreter, page 264 Chapter7T Fourteen,T A compendium of the rest of the signs, page 267 Footnotes7T ,T page 275 Bibliography7T ,T page 351 Index7T ,T page 371 Foreword: Omnia Quæ Sunt, Sunt Lumina It is impossible to place Giordano Bruno's De Imaginum, Signorum et Idearum Compositione in the straitjacket of one of the many categories and types of treatises, fictions, poems, and other genres of writing in which the clear-minded Renaissance rhetoricians and followers of Aristotle and Cicero thought that all types of speculative and creative activities could be divided. The very personal and original nature of Giordano Bruno—his iconoclastic and rebellious nature mat throughout a short and tumultuous life set him apart from and against the major religions of the time, and against most other established cultural and political institutions—should discourage from the start any attempt to “define” the De Imaginum... Compositione in any way other than as a fascinating and engrossing multi- and intermedia work whose symbolism is not to be read with the eyes of the body but with the eyes of the mind.