Mnemosine in London: The Art of Memory and Giordano Bruno’s Dialoghi Italiani

While it has sometimes been argued that Giordano Bruno’s Dialoghi Italiani and his Latin mnemotechnical and Lullian works are philosophically distinct projects, in this chapter I argue that some of the key themes of Brunian mnemotechnics find expression in two of the dialogues he wrote in the 1580s—the Spaccio della bestia trionfante (1584) and the Degli eroici furori (1585). The dialogues and his treatises on the art of memory are linked both by a common set of metaphysical assumptions and by their diverse but complementary expression of Bruno’s search for a technique which could harness both the intellect and the imagination in order to transform man’s ethical and intellectual capacities. It is the cultivation of these ‘inward operations’ which is the primary purpose of Bruno’s memory art. It is an instrument designed to help the mind trace the multitudinous species of the universe back towards the unity of the superessential form. Bruno’s dialogues and his mnemotechnical writings are united in a single overarching project: the perfection of the human mind and the transformation of the self into a state of god-like being.