Thirty Seals and the Seal of Seals

Bruno published this composite work without date or place, almost certainly in London around 1583, soon after his arrival in England in the household of the French ambassador; the printer is identified as John Charlewood. It brings together the Ars reminiscendi with its thirty ‘seals’, an Explicatio or explanation of those seals, and the Sigillus sigillorum, the ‘seal of seals’, a more speculative treatise on the powers of the soul. Each seal is a mnemonic or inventive device with an evocative name, among them the Field, the Chain, the Tree, the Ladder, the Wheel and the Interpreter, and many are presented first through Latin verse riddles and then explained. The seals describe ways of arranging places and images, combining elements in the manner of Llull, and deriving ‘non-sensible forms’ from sensible things. The Sigillus sigillorum extends the theme into a theory of contemplation, the passions and the operations of the mind, including the role of imagination in religion and magic. The volume was associated with Bruno’s controversial appearance at Oxford in 1583, and its address to the university’s vice-chancellor and doctors is famously grandiloquent. Frances Yates saw in it the heart of Bruno’s Hermetic project; recent editors have emphasised its technical place in the history of memory arts and logic.

What it contains

• Addresses to readers and to the Oxford authorities
• Thirty seals: named mnemonic and combinatorial devices
• Verse enigmas encoding the method of each seal
• Explanation of the seals with tables
• Thirty modes of deriving non-sensible forms from sensible ones
• Sigillus sigillorum: the powers of the soul, contemplation and magic