Bruno, Gloriously
Feb. 20th, 2018 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
I just got my author's copies of the new Azoth Press edition of my translation of Giordano Bruno's De Umbris Idearum -- that's On the Shadows of the Ideas in English. Oh my.
It's a gorgeous piece of work: printed in black and red on archival acid-free paper, with elegant layout, and fully illustrated with Bruno's own diagrams and a set of magical images; attractively and sturdily bound. The magical images, by the way, were selected by me and executed by a gifted artist, Alex McVey; they were chosen to have specific talismanic effects -- bringing happiness, wisdom, and prosperity to anyone who owns the book. (If someone's going to do me the favor of buying one of my books, I'm going to do them a favor where I can..)
The translation -- well, I've tried to make it as clean and readable as possible, scholarly without being academic; there's an extensive introduction, an abundance of footnotes, a final essay explaining how to put Bruno's methods into practice, and a glossary of terms. Bruno's not easy to follow even at the best of times, but I've done my best to help those who want to master the most advanced Art of Memory of the Renaissance era. I hope it finds its appropriate audience.
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Lovely lovely book!
Date: 2018-02-21 04:34 am (UTC)Thank you for this translation!
Marie
Re: Lovely lovely book!
Date: 2018-02-21 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 07:40 am (UTC)I am checking my mailbox daily.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 09:50 am (UTC)"Comprising an art of investigating, discovering, judging, ordering, and applying, set forth for the purpose of inner writing, and not for vulgar operations of memory."
Really looking forward to this arriving... the idea of 'not for vulgar operations of memory' has put a smile on my face!
Also on the write-up it says:
"...provided it with an introduction, detailed notes, examples of Bruno’s memory images, and a detailed guide to practical work with his system."
Two questions if I may be so bold:
Is your translation geared to use with your system and will I need to tweak methods to fit usage elsewhere?
Are there any additional resources/groundwork you would recommend to get the most out of the work?
Thanks.
[earthworm]
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 08:18 pm (UTC)1) No, my translation is a translation, not a rewrite; the system in this book is Bruno's own, right down to the smallest detail. Er...by "my system," what exactly did you mean?
2) You should certainly read The Art of Memory by Frances Yates for a good solid introduction to the history and practice of the art; that will give you a basis on which to make use of Bruno's methods.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 09:57 pm (UTC)I wasn't sure if 'his' referred to Bruno or you.
2) Thank you - I'll chase that up!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-22 02:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-27 04:19 pm (UTC)[earthworm]
Beautiful book...
Date: 2018-02-21 03:22 pm (UTC)Re: Beautiful book...
Date: 2018-02-21 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 03:43 pm (UTC)That initial dialog cracks me up....
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 04:20 pm (UTC)In your brief biography of Bruno, it struck home how not all that long ago, one could be executed for simply expressing ideas not in conformity with the official narrative. Sobering indeed.
--David, by the lake
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 06:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-21 08:21 pm (UTC)I feel dumb now
Date: 2018-02-21 06:30 pm (UTC)Re: I feel dumb now
Date: 2018-02-21 08:28 pm (UTC)Kudos to you, by the way, for having memorized The Waste Land! That's an uncommon kind of mental training these days, though it's something that most people would benefit from. If I were to set out to memorize Eliot's poem using the art of memory, I'd use a combination of images from the poem and bits of Bruno for prompting. For the first line, "April is the cruelest month," all I'd need for a prompt would be an open calendar with a big red number 4 on the upper half, and a cruller (the variety of doughnut) sitting on the lower half. I'd simply practice until that image automatically suggested the line, and go on: "breeding lilacs out of the dead land," and away we go.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-22 03:36 am (UTC)“…That a cuckoo tries to catch wolves, Or pigs desire to fly:”
Did Bruno originate that phrase/idea? Flying pigs, gasp choke hah hah hah; I would NEVER have predicted that the notion goes back to the 16th century!
Clavis Magna
Date: 2018-02-22 05:38 am (UTC)The "plain" hardcover has an attractive smell, as though an essential oil was worked into the ink. I'm pleased by that.
Were all manuscript copies of Clavis Magna confirmed destroyed, or is it just in hiding somewhere? I saw on another site that his De Magia was unpublished until 1891, so...
Looking forward to reading this
Date: 2018-02-22 12:08 pm (UTC)Congratulations. I am looking forward to reading my copy ordered yesterday.
Kind regards,
C.M. Mayo
(no subject)
Date: 2018-02-22 02:31 pm (UTC)My Copy Arrived
Date: 2018-02-25 09:58 pm (UTC)Recently I had an opportunity to teach a 50-minute workshop on the core ideas of the Palace of Memory techniques, namely method of image and method of place. We wandered down a couple of public hallways of a hotel, memorizing the Taylor translations of the Orphic Hymns to Mnemosyne and the Muses (#75 and #76). It was dismaying to me, again (as it is every time I teach this workshop) how easy it was for me to memorize a new chunk of the Hymns (I'd never memorized either before), and how hard it was for most of the participants. Just by stopping outside the men's room, and finding there a fire alarm on the wall and imagining a dullard asleep on the couch there, the couplet still comes clear to me, "tis thine to waken from lethargic rest / all thoughts deposited within the breast." And then the next couplet in Mnemosyne's hymn, at the next station with its myriad details and specific identifications, "and naught neglecting, vigorous to excite / the mental eye from dark oblivion's night."
You do mention in your afterword/appendix that you find the geomantic figures an adequate tool for the *ars combinatoria*. I presume that this means that each of the figures serves as its visual image, (e.g., a sword or an armed man for Puer, an empty purse for Amissio, and so on), a category or set of categories (e.g., action or activity for Puer, expense or cost for Amissio, and so on), a question or a group of questions (e.g., Puer might indicate "what direction?" as in, how is this force or agent moving?", while Amissio might indicate "what expense?" or "how declining/diminishing?" Could the letters used for calculating the supernatural agent (not the spirit's title/type, but I can't find my copy at the moment) in *Art and Practice of Geomancy* also be used as the kinds of "heads" that Bruno speaks of? That's quite elegant... I could make quite good use of that.
Re: My Copy Arrived
Date: 2018-02-26 04:34 am (UTC)Re: My Copy Arrived
Date: 2018-02-26 11:36 pm (UTC)I suspect it's needed.