Giordano Bruno: Ars Reminiscendi, Triginta Sigilli, Sigillus Sigillorum

This text contains a group of works on the art of memory published by Giordano Bruno in London in 1583: the Ars Reminiscendi, the Triginta Sigilli (“Thirty Seals”) with their explanation, and the Sigillus Sigillorum (“Seal of Seals”). It opens with verses sending the book out into the world, to the halls of princes and the far ends of the earth, harmful to none, then a dedication to Michel de Castelnau, seigneur de Mauvissière, the French ambassador to Queen Elizabeth, in whose house Bruno lived. The “seals” are thirty methods for arranging and combining images in memory, followed by deductions of non-sensible forms from sensible ones.

The Sigillus Sigillorum goes beyond technique to a general theory of the mind’s operations, from sense and imagination to reason and intellect, and of the contraction of the soul toward the divine. These works were among the first Bruno published in England, and their difficulty and boldness puzzled readers at Oxford. They are central to his philosophy of the mind and to understanding the Renaissance art of memory as a path to knowledge. The text follows Nuccio Ordine’s edition.