Decoding Bruno's *Thirty Seals*

[turducken]

Hello everyone,

after receiving my copy of Scott Gosnell’s translation of Giordano Bruno’s Thirty Seals a few days ago I thought it may be a worthwhile endeavor to try and decode some of the techniques Bruno tries to convey, as a community of mnemonists.

A few quick things before we get started:

• I will be using the Warburg Institute’s digital copy for cross-referencing with Gosnell’s Translation. The digital copy can be found here: https://resources.warburg.sas.ac.uk/mnemosyne/Bruno/pdf/180229040x.pdf
• The term ‘seal’ is applied rather loosely by Bruno. By it, he means not just a geometrical structure but memory techniques in general, such as a linked list (The Chain,Seal No. 3) or a PAO-like system of furniture and materials (a OM-System?) used to encode numbers (The Arithmetist, Seal No. 16).
• I am not a trained historian, least of all one specialised in hermetic philosophy, as may become painfully obvious during the course of this exercise. And while I do have some knowledge of latin, it is of a very rudimentary level.
• When reading Thirty Seals, there is one initial section on any given seal and a secondary section in the latter half of the same book explaining the seal in more detail, which is a somewhat confusing way of arranging any given book.

Now with that estabilshed, let us turn to the first seal, which is called The Field. In the first section on it, Bruno writes:

Campus est primus sigillus. Hic ex illis speciebus confletur oportet, quarum simulacra in phantasticae facultatis amplissimo sinu ideo continentur, ut iacta intentionum et phantasiabilium universorum semina in exoptatam messem promoveant. Hunc etiam, quo nobis maxime subsit officiosus, in eas distributum esse voluimus partes, quae sensibiles, mediocris dimensionis, non excellentis nec diminutae perspicuitatis, diversae, differentes, ordinatae, congruentibus sepositae seiunctaeque intervallis, ad humanorum brachiorum elevatorum altitudinem et extentorum amplitudinem, adiectivatae animataeve, exquisitarum formarum numero adcommodatae, iterum iterumque lustratae existant. Non vulgari tibi praesto erit emolumento, si affabre ipsum divisionum portionibus distributum concipias. Sic Thalmutista Solymam in quattuor latera orientis, aquilonis, austri et occidentis divisam, primo eiusdem laterum singula ad duodenarium multiplicanda numerum, in tres patriarcharum nominibus insignitas portas subdividit, moxque in atria duodecim, quorum singula domorum duodenarium complectuntur, quarum singulae quattuor constant ordinibus, quorum quique duodecim ad summum referunt cubilia, quae tandem vel quattuor angulos, vel etiam in quattuor mediantibus lateribus intersituata recipiant, certo ingressum facit ordine.

Now the first half seems to be giving general rules for the art of memory such as distances, images and places, with even the old ‘imagines agentes’ of pseudo-ciceronian fame making an appearance in the form of ’ adiectivatae animataeve’ (“adjectives” being what Bruno calls images). Now, the second half starts with ‘Sic Thalmutista Solymam… divisam’. Gosnell appears to translate ‘Thalmutista Solymam’ as referring to the philosopher Themistius of Jerusalem but considering the sentence structure I’m more inclined to read them as subject and object of the sentence, which would leave us with ‘As the Thalmutists (people of or adhering to the Talmud, ie Jews or Rabbis) divided (that place called) Solyma…’. Though of course whichever option you go with has no bearing on any given use of this seal.

Bruno, using the example of the ‘Thalmutista’ to illustrate, then tells us to divide the ‘Field’ into four ‘lattera’ (sides) facing east, south, north and west. What shape the ‘Field’ is, whether it be a square, circle or some other shape, is never expressly stated, though given the division into four sectors the first two options appear the most likely. He then says to

primo eiusdem laterum singula ad duodenarium multiplicanda numerum, in tres partiarcharum nominibus insignitas portas subdividit

This could be read as either subdividing each side into twelve segments holding three gates (inscribed with the ‘symbols of the partriarchs’, which Gosnell notes to be the Hebrew Alphabet) each or as each side being subdivided into three segments with one gate per segment, resulting in 4x3 = 12 segments in our ‘field’. Whatever the segmentations may be, they are then further subdivided into twelve ‘atria’ (from ‘atrium’, referring to the central accessing space common to many roman-style villas) each containing twelve chambers ‘organized into four rows’, with some somewhat confusing (but largely irrelevant) subdivisions of the rooms following.

The ‘explanation’ section concerning this sign does little more than extol the method of loci, and note that people or animals placed within a locus may themselves be used as memory palaces by placing images on their body parts (similar to what Bruno would do with his Statues later on). He also mentions that this seal ‘must be prepared first of all the work’, suggesting a significant position within the system of the ‘seals’.

Now, on to the main question: What does it all mean? Is it just a general intorduction of the method of loci, using a city and its subdivisions as an example? Is the reader meant to use the city described here as a sort of virtual memory palace? Or might Gosnell be right about the unlabeled 22x22 square grid overlaid with the Hebrew Alphabet found in the graphical section of the book being The field? The numbers certainly don’t match up, but this book is no stranger to having conflicts between the printed ‘seals’ and their descriptions.

It could very well simply be a lesson about memory palaces and subdividing a given location in 2d space, as the second seal (The Sky) appears to do to a sphere (or any given object) in 3d space, effectively using different sections of the same object or space as loci.

What do you think? I’d be delighted to awaken some discourse on this seldom-discussed work of Bruno’s.

Best regards as always,

Turducken.

[Noan]

I’m exceptionally under qualified for this, but going to give it a try anyway. Not because I think I could explain Bruno’s teachings. Rather, trying to understand something this foreign highlights how I think.
The translations are taken from the browser.

“The field is the first seal. Here it must be fused from those species, whose images are contained in the most ample pocket of the fantastic faculty, so that the cast of intentions and fanciful universes may advance the seeds into the desired harvest.”
To see results, you focus on your intention and have your subjects represent those intentions in imaginative ways.

“We also desired that this, which is the most responsible for us, should be distributed into those parts, which are sensible, of average size, of neither excellent nor diminished transparency, diverse, different, and ordered, set apart and separated by suitable intervals, to the height and extent of the elevators of human arms, added to and animated, adapted to the number of exquisite forms, exist again and again surveyed.”
Make your images clear and unique. Keep them about arms length apart, set at eye level and sized to see the entire thing. Make them do interesting things. Transform them (added to, and adapted to read to me like giving your apple tree arms, or making it into a bowl) Think through how you organize them. Review your images periodically.

“Thus the Talmutist divided Solyma into four sides, east, north, south, and west, and at first each of the same sides to multiply the number by twelve, he divided the gates into three gates marked with the names of the patriarchs he subdivides it, and immediately into twelve courts, each of which comprises twelve houses, each of which consists of four rows, each twelve of which refer to the top of the beds, which finally receive either the four corners, or even interspersed on the four mediating sides, he makes a definite entry in order.”
(Oh boy…) Seems like this is creating a town divided into four quadrants and fleshing it out in a way that each quadrant is mirrored and fleshed out. Then he suggests you travel it in a very specific order.
I can’t even make an educated guess as to what he’s getting at. Pure conjecture: Some of the things he suggests are modifiers, like the cardinal directions, that you would use for a broad category like north is plants. The patriarchs, if individuals, could exist to act as avatars for a more narrow subset of information. Herbs, trees, grasses. The courts (what are these, city zones?) could be ways to further categorize, ex herbs for healing, herbs for flavor, herbs to impress the ladies. Finally you have four sets of twelve houses to enter, in order, placing information in a consistent manner. I assume you focus on something to make each row, and each house within each row mentally unique. Row 1 belongs to the pig farmer, house 1 belongs to (the pig farmer’s) wife, 2 son, 3 daughter, 4 doctor etc.
This seems like it would be ridiculously hard to do entirely in your head, but if you used a device like a memory wheel it might be pretty navigable.

[turducken]

Right then, let us move on to seal number two, which Bruno calls ‘The sky’ (‘caelo’). For this one we do have a graphic, which looks like this:

Unfortunately, this does not mesh with the description at all. However, Gosnell notes that this motif was ‘a commonly used representation of the sky used for horoscopes’, which jives better with the spheres mentioned in the actual text. And indeed, two-dimensional representations of the night sky seem to have been quite popular, such as the ones in Anna Friedman Herlihy’s article here: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V3_Pt1/HOC_VOLUME3_Part1_chapter4.pdf

Though of course, not being a historian, I cannot judge the efficacy of this claim to any significant degree. Hearsay, I say!

In any case, Bruno introduces The Sky as such:

Quo caeli imaginum series insculpatur et ordo, sphaera primum in quattuor circumferentiales angulos rectos duobus se circulis magnis intersecantibus divisa, totidem distinctas aequales offeret portiones, quarum quaeque perquisiti, inventi atque retinendi locum situmque ponit ob oculos. Quod si quadrantum singulos in geminas libeat subsecare partes, omni procul dubio divisionis multiplicato opere fiet ut minus in proposito principaliore gravere. Ipsa quidem tribus magnis circulis se ad angulos rectos inter secantibus delineata occurrens, octo circumferentialium triangulorum spacia suppeditabit aequalis, in quibus tu postea quid ad cuiusque basim, quid ad conum, quid ad laterum quaeque positum sit, per dextri, sinistri, superni infernique differentias contemplabere.

In short, he talks about a sphere being subdivided by two circles, that is, one around the equator and another at a 90 degree angle to that. He then adds yet another circle around the surface of the sphere, resulting in something like the graphic below (ignore the mathematical points):

This produces “eight equal circumferential triangular spaces” (Gosnell Translation). Each of the corners of these “triangular” spaces could then be used as a locus. In the “explanation” section, Bruno likens it to the globe and also talks about placing ‘the universe’ within the sphere, which reminds one of the astrological memory palace supposedly employed by Metrodorus of Skepsis.
Once more, as with the field, the question presents itself of whether this is supposed to be a singular large memory palace, as Bruno talks about places and their habitus and other further subdivisions on the sphere, or simply a blueprint to create an indefinite amount of memory palaces from, perhaps even using the planetary bodies of our solar system as “spheres” to be subdivided, as would certainly line up with Bruno’s interest in planetary magic which he demonstrated in De Umbris Idearum by including the images of Teucer the Babylonian. Or perhaps it is more abstract than that, simply providing an example for subdividing 3-dimensional spaces into distinct loci as The Field may have taught for 2-dimensional ones? Perhaps even, the two mentions of the universe (night sky) and the globe would be the only two use cases, as in to memorize, better yet, create an internal mirror of information which already came in the form of a sphere? Knowing Bruno’s inventiveness that last possibily seems unlikely, but not impossible.

[Magno]

In reality the atrium has 8 angles and these in turn can be multiplied by 3 or 6, it also says that more angles can be used and I use the following formula 16x3x30=1,440 in only 30 places, but in his method he only explains 8x3=24, he multiplies them by adding loci that the images can move like a dagger in a chair… It is a mental zettelkasten with sections of information or a dictionary of information, pietro da ravena is the inspiration of bruno and it is from this one that he extracts several ideas, since pietro used alphabetical places, only that bruno went further than pietro… Bruno liked the effort, curiosity, obsessed with knowledge, this is something that is not said of him… My explanation is vague, but I wanted to contribute something.