RENAISSANCE MEMORY 1: THE MEMORY THEATRE OF GIULIO CAMILLO

Giulio Camillo was a sixteenth-century Italian philosopher, most notable for his idea of the “Theatre of Memory.” The following passage comes from chapter 6 of The Art of Memory by Yates Francis)

The theatre is based on the Roman Vitruvian theatre, a half-circle with seats receding up; only the spectator stands on the stage and observes the seats, which reflect back information. Of course Camillo's wooden memory palace was shaped like a Roman amphitheater, but instead of the spectator sitting in the seats looking down on the stage, he stood in the center and looked up at a round, seven-tiered edifice. All around the theater were paintings of Kabbalistic and mythological figures as well as endless rows of drawers and boxes filled with cards, on which were printed everything that was known, and--it was claimed--everything that was knowable, including quotations from all the great authors, categorized according to subject.

Seven essential measures

On each of its seven gangways are seven gates or doors. These gates are decorated with many images. On our plan, the gates are schematically represented and on them are written English translations of the descriptions of the images. For in Camillo's Theatre the normal function of the theatre is reversed. There is no audience sitting in the seats watching a play on the stage. The solitary ‘spectator’ of the Theatre stands where the stage would be and looks towards the auditorium, gazing at the images on the seven times seven gates on the seven rising grades. Camillo never indicates the stage. In a common Vitruvian theater the back of the stage, the frons scaenae, has five completed entryways through which the on-screen characters make their courses out and their entryways. Camillo is trading the possibility of the improved gateway from those in the frons scaenae to these whimsical planned portals over the sections in the gathering corridor which would make it hard to arrange an audience.The whole course of action of the venue rests basically upon seven segments, the seven pillars of Solomon's Place of Insight. By these segments, suggesting most stable everlastingly, we could understand the seven Sephiroth of the super-celestial world. Here Camillo clears up the most lifted of the across the board measures. Camillo sets up his Theater basedon the seven Governors of the Hermetic Pimander . To show the importance of the Sun he addresses the Sun on the essential survey by the photo of a pyramid, putting the photo of the planet, an Apollo, over this on the second grade.In his auditorium each one of the seven entryways has an examining on its best for example dependent upon the period of creation ,as he relates the assessments of the execution focus with the methodology and periods of formation of the universes and the general population

§ The second grade of the theatre is really the first day of creation.

the second grade of the Theatre is really the first day of creation, imaged as the banquet given by Ocean to the gods, the emerging elements of creation, here in their simple unmixed form.

§ The third grade will have depicted on each of its gates a Cave, which we call the Homeric Cave to differentiate it from that which Plato describes in his Republic.
In the cave of the Nymphs described in the ‘Odyssey,’ nymphs were weaving and bees were going in and out, which activities signify, says Camillo, the mixtures of the elements to form the elementata ‘and we wish that each of the seven caves may conserve the mixtures and elementata belonging to it in accordance with the nature of its planet.’ The Cave grade thus represents a further stage in creation, when the elements are mixed to form created things or elementata. …

§ The fourth stage is associated with the figure of man.

With the fourth grade we reach the creation of man, or rather the interior man, his mind and soul. … this grade (has) as the leading image to be depicted on all its gates the Gorgon Sisters, the three sisters described by Hesiod who had only one eye between them…

§ On the fifth grade, the soul of man joins his body.

This is signified under the image of Pasiphe and the Bull which is the leading image on the gates of this grade. ‘For she (Pasiphe) being enamoured of the Bull signifies the soul which, according to the Platonists, falls into a state of desiring the body.’ The soul in its downward journey from on high, passing through all the spheres, changes its pure igneous vehicle into an aerial vehicle through which it is enabled to become joined to the gross corporeal form. This junction is symbolised by the union of Pasiphe with the Bull.

§ ‘The sixth grade of the Theatre has on each of the gates of the planets, the Sandals, and other ornaments, which Mercury puts on when he goes to execute the will of the gods, as the poets feign.

§ ‘The seventh grade is assigned to all the arts, both noble and vile, and above each gate is Prometheus with a lighted torch.’
The image of Prometheus who stole the sacred fire and taught men knowledge of the gods and of all the arts and sciences thus becomes the topmost image, at the head of the gates on the highest grade of the Theatre. The Prometheus grade includes not only all the arts and sciences, but also religion, and law.

To finish up I can state that, Camillo's Theater shows a noteworthy change of the craft of memory. The principles of the craftsmanship are obviously noticeable in it. The creative means through which the awesome microcosm can mirror the perfect world, can get a handle on its significance from above, from that heavenly review. The specialty of memory has turned into a mysterious workmanship, a Hermetic mystery, which this craftsman knew how to implant into his function and clearly has a comment us.