Guilio Camillo's Emblems of MemoryAuthor(s): Douglas Radcliff-UmsteadSource: Yale French Studies, No. 47, Image and Symbol in the Renaissance (1972), pp. 47-56Published by: Yale University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929400Accessed: 13/09/2010 09:17

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Douglas Radcliff-Umstead

Giulio Camillo's emblems of memory

In his Gran Theatro delle Scienze the Friulan author Giulio Camillo (ca. 1475-1544) hoped to construct an encyclopedic arrangement of all the existing knowledge of his time in such a manner that it could be set to memory through a system of magical emblematic images. Of his ambitious project only the brief text L'Idea del Theatro remains to give a sketchy and often quite confusing impression of Camillo's great theatre. Was his theatre an actual construction in wood on a life-size scale as some contemporary letters suggest or was it merely an enormous desk with mysterious shelves and secret drawers? 1 Even during Camillo's lifetime the exact nature of his theatre was a mystery. King Francis I, who summoned the author from Venice to France in 1530 and 1533, exacted of Camillo the promise that he would never reveal the theatre's secrets without royal sanction. But late in 1543 Camillo broke his promise to the French monarch and delivered a series of bedside lectures to the generous Milanese Marchese del Vasto, and early the following year he dictated the text of the Idea del Theatro over the period of a week to his friend Girolamo Muzio. 2 In 1550, six years after Camillo's death,

I A letter from Viglius Zuichemus to Erasmus with the date of June 8, 1532, describes the theatre's wooden structure. The large scale size of Camillo's theatre is accepted by both Richard Berhheimer, "Theatrum Mundi," The Art Bulletin, XXXVIII (December 1956), 225-247; and Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago, 1966), p. 131. Yates does admit, p. 145, that the theatre might seem to resemble "a highly ornamental filing cabinet." For Yates the emblematic images are magical talismans set on the planetary gangways of the theatre. Camillo's project is reduced to a "glorified bookcase" in the unpubl. diss. (University of Pittsburgh, 1970) by Lu Berry Wenneker, "An Examination of L'Idea del Theatro of Giulio Camillo," p. 85. The Wenneker study also includes a complete and accurate translation of the Idea del Theatro.

2 Biographical details can be found in Federigo Altani, Nuova raccolta d'opuscoli scientifici e filologici (Venice, 1755), I, 81 ff.; Gian-Giuseppe Liruti, Notizie delle vite ed opere scritte da' letterati del Friuli (Udine, 1780), III, 98-99; and Girolamo Muzio, Lettere (Florence, 1590), passim.

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his Idea del Theatro appeared in a Florentine edition by Lorenzo Torrentino.

From a reading of the Idea del Theatro it is obvious that Camillo's theatre was an attempt to combine the form of the encyclopedia with the Ciceronian mnemonic method of visual "loci" for the retention of knowledge by orators. Giulio Camillo was a typical representative of Venice's oratorical academies, which considered the art of memory to be a standard device of rhetoric. 3 He intended his theatre to be a vast storehouse of information, a memory building that would reveal its secrets to a scholarly elite who could use the emblematic images on its levels to find enlightenment on any subject known to the men of the Renaissance. Knowledge was to be stored and awakened according to various visual images.

To appreciate Camillo's artificial memory system one must bear in mind the typical Renaissance preference for visual representation over the discursive knowledge communicated by words. Pictures, contained in a hieroglyph or an emblem, were believed to signify an ultimate reality which words formed of ordinary letters could never represent. The hieroglyph went beyond the written word to an eternal meaning. Marsilio Ficino, working from a statement by Plotinus, defined Egyptian hieroglyphs as a sacred form of writing which enabled the human intellect to glimpse divine ideas behind symbolic pictures. Through hieroglyphs abstract thoughts acquired visual embodiment. Ficino felt that the ancient Egyptians had foreseen the universal truths of Christianity, and the Tuscan Neo-platonist rendered into Latin the writings of Mercurius or Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian sage who was believed to have been a contemporary of Moses. Because of the fascination with hieroglyphs which developed in the second half of the fifteenth century scholars and artists sought to revive the ancient art of picture writing. The Hypnerotoma- chia (1499) by the Venetian Francesco Colonna included woodcuts of pseudo-Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Italian misinterpretation of the true nature of the ancient Egyptian language was further com- pounded by the influence of the Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, sup-

3 See Yates, pp. 160-172.

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posedly an Egyptian author of the fifth century A.D. who wrote a descriptive text in two books on the various animal symbols of hieroglyphics. As early as 1419 the Greek version of the Hieroglyphics by a certain Phillippus had entered Italy; in 1505 Aldus published the work, and twelve years later Filippo Fasanini translated it into Latin. Later editions of Horapollo's work were to appear with illustrations, thereby providing the pictures which enabled erudite readers to ascend to the invisible realm of eternal Ideas by means of the visible. 4

Pico della Mirandola considered ancient Hebrew, with its reliance solely on consonants, to be still another form of hieroglyphic writing. He wished to penetrate the mysteries of the Kabala, the great body of esoteric Hebrew wisdom which had been transmitted orally across the centuries and also recorded in the Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation) and the Zohar (Book of Splendor) of ancient times. Pico trained himself in the Kabalistic method of revelation through the letters, accents and numbers of the Hebrew language. His treatise Heptaplus of 1489 interprets the seven days of creation according to the Kabalistic tradition. Although Pico sought a fuller understand- ing of ancient mysteries, be always stressed the need to veil sacred knowledge with consciously enigmatic language. Truth had to be expressed in riddles that only the especially initiated could solve. Pico, who planned a comparative study of pagan myths in his Poetic Theology, believed the ancients had tried to protect knowledge with the allegory of myths and fables. Philosophical wisdom in Pico's view was never to be made accessible to the profane crowd. 5

To create his treasure house of knowledge with its powerful visual images to stir the memory of the learned, Giulio Camillo turned to Christian, Neo-platonic, Hermetic and Kabalistic sources. He delib- erately followed Pico's observation to employ cryptic language, so

4 Erik Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (Copenhagen, 1961), pp. 57-87, discusses the vogue of neo-hieroglyphic writing in Renaissance Italy. For an English translation of Horapollo's text with a penetrating introduction see George Boas, The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (New York, 1950).

5 Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven, 1958), pp. 13-23, speaks of Pico's stress on linguistic obscurity. Wenneker, pp. 406- 419, adds an appendix on the Kabala.

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that only the scholarly few would be able to grasp the meanings of the mnemonic images. Originally Camillo had thought to use the metaphor of the human body as a microcosm of the universe in order to illustrate his memory system, but he later chose instead the ancient metaphorical representation of the world as a great the- atre. 6 Basically Camillo's theatre follows a Vitruvian scheme, with a series of ascending tiers according to a hierarchical structure wherein the lower levels are assigned to the more important figures. Through- out the theatre the number seven predominates, following the seven days of creation as Pico had done similarly in the Heptaplus. At the base of the theatre, before the audience tiers, stand the Seven Pillars of Solomon's House of Wisdom which for Camillo symbolize the seven Kabalistic Sepiroth. These Sepiroth are manifestations of the divine sphere and in the Renaissance were interpreted as equivalents of the Platonic Essences. Although there were supposed to be ten Sepiroth, Camillo eliminated the highest two as dwelling beyond the compre- hension of even the most blessed intellect, and he combined two of the Sepiroth into one. Thus Camillo's theatre has its foundations in the eternal order of the universe. 7

On the lowest tier there are seven doors for the seven planets, with the exception of the Sun which has a place of honor of its own in the center of the second tier. Each of the doors bears an image of the planetary deity; their image will be repeated on every tier in the following respective order: Diana, Mercury, Venus, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The seven planets must be seen as adminis- trators of the sense world which represent the measures of the uni- verse. Camillo interprets the symbolical meaning of the planets according to the same threefold level that Pico employed in the Heptaplus. On the level of the Inferior World the planets stand for the feats of the pagan gods. In the Celestial world they are the heavenly bodies. Finally they symbolize the angels of the Superce- lestial world. For each planetary sphere Camillo indicates a corres-

6 For the theatrical metaphor see Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York, 1953), pp. 138-144. Also cf. F. A. Yates, Theatre of the World (Chicago, 1969), pp. 162 ff.

7 Yates, Art of Memory, pp. 129 ff., describes the Sepiroth.

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ponding Sepiroth and Kabalistic archangel. Each tier has beneath every door certain slots containing volumes of esoteric wisdom with emblematic covers. A scholar need only recall the emblem, and the entire subject matter of a volume would come immediately to mind.

In describing the upper six tiers Camillo followed the story of creation as presented in the Hermetic Pimander rather than Genesis. The second tier is the Banquet level, named for the Banquet in the Iliad, I:417-419 to which Oceanus invites all the gods. Symbolically interpreted, Oceanus represents the water of wisdom; and the gods are the eternal Ideas. In the stages of creation this is the first moment, the ocean realm of simple elements. The thirteenth book of the Odyssey suggested to Camillo the name for the third tier: the Cave, where the Naiads wove purple linen and bees made their hives. The author carefully distinguished this Homeric Cave from the cave in Plato's Republic. This third tier refers to the creation of everything that is mixed and simple except for man. Whereas in Genesis man's body and soul were created together, there are two separate stages in the Pimander of Hermes Trismegistus.8 Consequently the creation of the human soul is figured on the fourth tier of the Gorgons, the three sisters who shared a single interchangeable eye. The Gorgons symbolize man's three souls that Camillo derived from the Kabalistic Zohar: the high intellectual soul of the Nessamah; the moral intel- ligence of the middle Ruach; and the sense instinct of the lowest soul the Nephes. The union of man's soul with his body is symbolized by the emblem of the fifth tier: Pasiphae and the Bull. Since the bull figures as the animal in man and represents different parts of the human body, the fifth tier is concerned solely with outer man.

Human activities are included on the sixth and seventh tiers. Those tasks that man can accomplish without any particular skill fall under the sixth level's Winged Sandals of Mercury. With those sandals Mercury was able to convey the messages of the gods, but his duties did not involve a high degree of disciplined training. Man's skills, whether of the higher nature like religion or law or of the

8 Ibid., pp. 146 ff. for the importance of the Corpus Hermeticum to Camillo.

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lower like carpentry, are represented by Prometheus with a lit torch; for by the theft of fire from the gods Prometheus gave man the power with which to perform his various skills. Thus from the lowest level to the uppermost tier, Camillo's theatre presents a picture of the world from its base in eternity to man's creative pursuits.

Thirteen years before the writing of the Idea del Theatro a new Renaissance literary form appeared: the emblem book with the Em- blematum liber (Augsburg, 1531) by the famous jurisconsult Andrea Alciati. A true emblem should consist of a symbolic picture, a pithy motto, and an expository poem. Visual image and text were to interpret each other to reveal their hidden truth. During the sixteenth century most emblem books served as encyclopedias of humanistic learning, and the lengthy prose commentaries which followed the picture and poem were in the nature of essays. As emblem books turned increasingly to moralizing, they were often called "theatres" to emphasize their encyclopedic quality and their function as a stage for man's inner reform. 9 By its very name the "great theatre" of Giulio Camillo takes on an emblematic character since his theatre is an emblem of the entire life of the universe. Although the Idea del Theatro was not printed with illustrations, the numerous visual images which Camillo designated to cover the volumes in the slots below each tier's doors can be subjected to the identical multi- layered interpretation on literal, figurative, allegorical and anagogical levels that were used for emblem books. Camillo's book would then constitute a collection of "naked emblems," verbal descriptions without accompanying plates. Several of the images in the Idea del Theatro fit almost exactly the pattern of emblem books. Under the door of Jupiter on the fourth tier of the Gorgons the author indicates the image of a crane flying toward the heavens as it carries a caduceus in its beak and lets a quiver fall from its feet while arrows drop to the ground. According to Camillo, he derived the image from an

9 For information on emblem literature consult the following: Mario Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery (Rome, 1964); Robert J. Clements, Picta Poesis: Literary and Humanistic Theory in Renaissance Emblem Books (Rome, 1960); and Henri Stegemeier, "Problems in Emblem Literature," JEGP XLV (1946), 33-37.

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ancient medal. He interprets the crane as the vigilant soul which has grown tired of this deceitful world and is soaring to heaven's repose with the caduceus that symbolizes peace and tranquility. The arrows which issue forth from the quiver are the cares of the world that the soul is leaving behind. The author attaches to the image this verse from Psalm 54: "Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?" Camillo also refers the image of the dove's wings to Petrarch's sonnet "Jo son si stanco sotto '1 fascio antico" where the poet prays for the inner strength to free himself from sin. The image's moral meaning and its position under Jupiter's door are explained in this manner: "Questa gentile imagine ci conservera la elettione, il giudicio e il consiglio. Et si da' questa imagine a Giove, per esser Pianeta quieto, benigno, e di mente composta." 10 What the author has assembled here is a perfect emblem complete with image, motto, poem, and even the additional interpretative comment which is frequently found in emblem books. Even though the Idea del Theatro may not appear in standard bibliographies of emblem books, it definitely displays an emblematic technique.

Often Camillo assigns different significances to the same image according to the tier in which it is placed. In the Diana series on the Cave level, Daphne because of her transformation into the laurel symbolizes the woods. Under the Winged Sandals of Mercury, Daph- ne is the symbol of drudge labor connected with woodwork like bend- ing and carrying. On the Prometheus level she signifies gardens and all arts using timber. Although the same image may be repeated from tier to tier, it almost always remains in the same planetary series. Occasionally certain images stand in opposition to each other. The image of Juno among the clouds, which figures in the Diana series, represents different degrees of concealment while the image of Apollo shooting an arrow at Juno in the clouds, which is placed in the Sun series, symbolizes the disclosure of things. On every level

10 "This noble image will preserve for us choice, judgment and counsel. And this image is given to Jupiter because it, as a planet, is restful, kindly, and of a composed mind." Original from the edition of L'Idea del Theatro (Florence, 1550) by Lorenzo Torrentino, p. 65. All translations are our own.

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and within every planetary series the various images acquire height- ened and enriched meanings.

In the tradition of Florentine Neo-platonism Camillo interprets pagan myths in an allegorical fashion. Thus the figure of Endymion asleep on a mountain and kissed by Diana is viewed as an allegory of death through the communion between a mortal and a goddess in a loving kiss: "... dico, che questa innamorata di Endimione, cioe dell'anima nostra, la quale si aspetta la su, desiderosa di poterlo basciare mentre fugge, l'addormenta di sonno perpetuo sopra un mon- te, e havendolo addormentato, puo nel basciarlo satiar le sue voglie. I1 quale sonno perpetuo significando la morte; questa imagine conte- nera l'esser mortale, la morte, e tutti gli anelli 'a lei appartenenti come la pompa funebre." 11 Camillo traces the "kiss of death" to the Kabalists, the Song of Songs, St. Paul, and Petrarch. The most influential discussion on the "mors osculi" theme was in Pico's Com- mento sopra una canzona de amore composta da Girolamo Benivieni, which spoke of the rapture of Old Testament prophets and patriarchs in being elevated to God. Camillo locates this image of Endymion and the enamoured goddess under the door of Saturn on the tier of Pasiphae and the Bull since that level deals with the relationship of man's body and soul. Through the kiss of divinity the soul is liberated from the prison of the body. 12

Both Neo-platonic and Stoic sources account for the symbolism of the Three Graces in the Jupiter series. Pico della Mirandola once had a medal struck with the picture of the Graces and the inscription "Pulchritudo-Amor-Voluptas" to represent the three phases in the circle of divine love, which starts in beauty and ends in delight. But Camillo especially draws his image from the Stoical philosophy of Seneca, who in the treatise De Beneficiis described the triple

11 "... I say, that this beloved of Endymion, that is to say our soul, which waits there above (eager for the chance to kiss him) while he flees, puts him to sleep forever atop a mountain. And after putting him to sleep, she is able to satisfy her wishes by kissing him. That perpetual sleep signifies death; this image will contain mortal being, death, and all the intermediate steps that belong to it like funeral services." (p. 75).

12 Wind, Pagan Mysteries, pp. 130-131, discusses the "morte di bacio" and the appearance of Endymion and Diana in the central panels of Renaissance sarcophagi.

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rhythm of generosity in giving, accepting and returning kindnesses as the Three Graces interlaced in a charitable dance. Camillo lo- cates the Graces in the Jupiter series, and he attributes to each one an individual pose. One Grace keeps her face hidden to signify the modesty of one who gives without ostentation. The second Grace shows her full countenance to reveal her gratitude for kindness re- ceived. The return of a favor is figured by the third Grace, who reveals only a part of herself. On the Cave level of the "great theatre" the Graces stand for useful things; under Pasiphae, a beneficent nature; and under Mercury's winged sandals, granting favor, bene- ficence and assistance. Although Camillo gives credit for his picturing of the Graces to the ancients, his depiction is highly original and was to be imitated by later writers. 13

Although the overwhelming number of the images in the theatre are derived from pagan mythology or from Hermetic and Kabalistic texts, there are a few which are Camillo's own creation. Within the Cave tier he introduces two opposing figures: a Young Girl with hair raised toward the Heavens, under the door of Mars; and a Young Girl with her hair cut, under Saturn's door. The Girl with hair raised at once recalls the usual Renaissance emblem of Fortune or Occasion, with her head bald except for a long forelock blowing above her face; since Fortune flies by in a hurry, the man who wants to profit by her must immediately seize hold of the strand of hair. Camillo relates the image of the raised hair to a passage in Plato's Timaeus where man is called a tree upside down, for man's spiritual substance is drawn down from the Heavens while trees extract their nour- ishment from the ground. The author also explains that the reference to hair should be understood in a metaphorical sense: "Et Origene e Hieronimo suo seguace vogliono che quando la scrittura fa mention di capelli o di barba non si habbia ad intendere di capelli ne di bar- ba del corpo ma dell'anima, la quale per metaphora ha capelli e barba

13 Wenneker, pp. 126-128, shows how Celio Agostino Curione plagiarized the image of the Three Graces from Camillo and included it along with other thefts from the Idea del Theatro in the two volumes of added com- mentaries for the 1567 Basel edition of Pierio Valeriano's Hieroglyphica. Wind, pp. 31-56, examines the Stoic and Neo-platonic interpretations of the Three Graces and the appearance of the figures in Renaissance art.

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e occhi, e altre parti corrispondenti al corpo." 14 Man's roots are in Heaven; the hair raised to the skies brings celestial nurture to the soul. Under the Cave of Mars, the Girl with raised hair represents things strong or trustworthy; under Pasiphae, a nature which is vigorous, strong and true; under the winged sandals, imparting strength or working toward the truth. The opposing image of the Girl with shorn hair stands for weaknesses, fatigue, false and deceitful character, bringing about weakness or lying. Camillo establishes a parallel between the biblical story of Samson's hair and the classical accounts of the deaths of Alcestis, Nisus, and Dido through cutting a lock of hair. The Bible is joined with Greek drama, mythology and the Latin epic to provide antecedents for Camillo's image of the debilitating act of cutting the hair. From these two antithetical figures one can easily appreciate the dynamic quality of Camillo's emblems; through the presence of opposing images, the task of memorizing the knowledge preserved in the theatre become greatly facilitated. 15

It has only been in recent years that the importance of Giulio Camillo's "great theatre" has gained scholarly recognition. In his own lifetime Camillo was either regarded as a wondrous sage pos- sessing an astounding memory or as a charlatan making claims for a wisdom that no man could ever acquire. Although it is necessary to admit that Camillo failed to realize his dream to bring together all the knowledge of his times in a cosmic organization, his Idea del Theatro not only contributed to the history of theatre construction in the Renaissance but also inspired artists like Titian and authors of emblem texts with the powerful visual images that were to adorn the esoteric volumes of the great theatre. Giulio Camillo's goal was too vast for one man, but he has left a record of a grand scheme to preserve and control the wisdom of Antiquity and the Renais- sance.

14 "Both Origen and Jerome, his disciple, desire that when Scriptures mention hair or beard, one ought not interpret the hair or beard to be that of the body but of the soul, which metaphorically has hair, beard, and eyes as well as other corresponding parts of the body." (p. 41).

15 Rosemary Freeman, English Emblem Books (London, 1948), p. 120, mentions the attributes of Fortune and Occasion.

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