Giordano Bruno — De Magia

Translated by Paul Summers Young
Cover design by Alice Rocchetti
 
Giordano Bruno (1548 - 1600) is at once significant and enigmatic; a 16th-century Wittgenstein whose far-reaching interests and passionate investment in his subject matter carried him far beyond his contemporaries conceptually. By the same token, his commitment to what he considered valid, and his inability to read the room, led him into continuous conflict with his peers, and ultimately spelled his end.
Our edition is focused on his magical literature, and is a new translation based on the Tocco and Vitelli research:
 
Lampas Triginta Statuarum
De Magia Mathematica
De Magia Naturali
Theses De Magia
De Rerum Principiis et Elementis et Causis
De Vinculis in Genere
 
Giordano Bruno is more often spoken of than actually read. While his work has been translated and published, and very widely discussed, much of that material is out of print, or accessible only in scarce academic publications. And yet he casts a literal shadow across the subject; his monument in the Campo de' Fiori has become an icon of philosophical, and especially esoteric, free thought.
We hope our new translation of Giordano's Latin magical texts will make him more accessible to a general readership, and as with all our projects, stimulate our reader's interest and imagination in the field as a whole.