Described by the editor, Eglin, who was with Bruno at Zurich, and afterwards became Professor of Theology at Marburg, as Bruno’s “Metaphysical remains.” It represents the fruit of the lectures given by Bruno at Zurich in 1591,[148] and is one of the earliest philosophical dictionaries extant. It is on the model of the Fifth Book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, now known to have been intended by Aristotle as a separate work, but differs in its choice and arrangement of the terms of philosophy which are discussed. The first part of the work, which was published by itself in Zurich, may best be described as a handbook to philosophy generally, the main reference being to Aristotle’s system, as was natural: with it Bruno writes for the most part in agreement. The second part, however, which was not published until the Marburg Edition (p. 73 ff. of the State Edition), is an “application” of the several terms already defined to the Neoplatonist philosophy: in its first section (De Deo seu Mente) they are applied and illustrated by reference to God as the source of the world, of whom all things are emanations, in a graduated scale of being; in the second (Intellectus seu Idea) to the world of Ideas—God in the world, the soul in all things and in everything; and a third section (Amor seu pulchritudo) should have followed, dealing with God as the end and goal of things, but is awanting.[149] The document on the Predicates of God which Mocenigo presented to the Court at Venice was probably the second part of the Summa, or perhaps only its first section (Brunnhofer, p. 106).
2. Artificium perorandi traditum a Jordano Bruno Nolano Italo, communicatum a Johan. Henrico Alstedio. In gratiam eorum qui eloquentiae vim et rationem cognoscere cupiunt. Frankfort, 1612. (Also in Gfrörer, and State Edition, vol. ii. pt. 3, No. 3).—A summary of, or a commentary on, the spurious Rhetoric of Aristotle (ad Alexandrum), with the addition of a second part by Bruno, on which he himself lays no great stress, on elocution or adornment; he refers his readers, however, to the orators themselves for complete instruction. It contains chiefly lists of heads of arguments and of synonyms for rhetorical use. Apparently the work is printed from notes of Bruno’s lectures in Wittenberg (1587), which came into the hands of the editor, Alsted, in 1610.
3. Lampas Triginta Statuarum.—First published in the State Edition, vol. iii. pp. 1–258, from MSS. of the Noroff collection at Moscow. This is in the hand of Besler, Bruno’s pupil and copyist, and was done at Padua in the autumn of 1591, although Besler had received the original, which he copied, in April 1590 at Helmstadt. Another MS. is in the Augustan Library, and is both more obviously correct and of earlier date than the copy of Besler (1587); in all probability the work was dictated by Bruno at Wittenberg, and is that referred to as Lampas Cabalistica in the letter of dedication prefixed to the De Specierum Scrutinio (Prague, 1588), and as shortly to be published.[150]
It contains a finished study of philosophy from Bruno’s standpoint, arranged under thirty and more headings, “Types,” “Statues and Images,” “Fields,” etc. Under each heading are thirty “articles,” “conditions,” “descriptions,” “contemplations.” For example, we have first the two triads—Chaos, Orcus, Nox; and Pater, Intellectus Primus, Lux—typifying the lowest and the highest principles of things: the first three are Vacuum, Potency in Appetite, and Matter; the second three Mind or Reason, Understanding or Soul, and Love or Spirit. At the close of the Statuae there follows the practical application of them to the scale of Nature—the outflow of the highest towards the lowest, the gradual transition from lowest to highest; an account of the thirty predicates of Substance and of “Nature” in the universal sense; and a logical or methodological illustration of the uses of the Art under the headings of Definition, Verification, Demonstration. The general purpose of the whole is to give an instrument for discovery (“Invention”) of truth, after the model of the Lullian Art, just as some of the earlier works (e.g. De Umbris) contain a similar instrument for remembering knowledge acquired.[151] Unfortunately the work is entirely marred by the artificial distinctions drawn, and the tying down (or expansion) of the ideas treated therein to the thirty fundamental notions and thirty applications of each. Thus subjects and predicates are thirty in number each, and the modes of predication are in classes of fifteen. It is impossible not to agree with Tocco’s verdict, that “However fine the analysis employed in distinguishing the subtlest shades of concepts, however great the number of elevated philosophical thoughts scattered throughout, expounded with vigour and felicity of imagery, the tractate as a whole has little value, just as the ars inventiva itself has little—more fit to blunt than to sharpen the inventive powers.”[152] One gladly re-echoes Bruno’s words at the close: “Itaque gratias deo agentes, Artem Inventivam per triginta statuas perfecimus.”
4. Animadversiones circa Lampaaem Lullianam (State Edition, vol. ii. pt. 2).—From the Augustan MSS., dated 13th March 1587. Notes dictated in Wittenberg, on the Lullian art as a universal instrument for the discovery of truth.
5. Libri Physicorum Aristotelis, a clariss. Dn. D. Jordano Bruno Nolano explanati.—From two codices in the Erlangen Library, the second of which is in the hand of Besler, and was written, presumably, at Helmstadt. The earlier MS. in a German handwriting points to the commentaries having been dictated by Bruno during his stay at Wittenberg.[153] The books of Aristotle treated are the five books of the Physica, the De generatione et corruptione, the Meteorologica, Book IV. There is an introduction on the methods of the sciences, and other matters, by Bruno himself; the remainder follows closely the text of Aristotle, except in the fourth and fifth books, where Bruno is much less exact.
6. De Magia, et Theses de Magia.—The MS. of this work is in the Erlangen Codex, by Besler, and also in the Moscow (Noroff) collection, by the same hand; the former is a copy of the latter, which was dictated by Bruno in the early part of 1590 at Helmstadt.
It deals with one of the three divisions of Magic, viz. Natural or Physical Magic (the others being Divine, Metaphysical or Supernatural, and Mathematical—that of symbols, numbers, etc.). Physical magic is shown to be a natural consequence, first, of the fact that the same soul, the soul of the world, is in all things, of which the individual finite soul of each thing is a temporary mode or phase; hence all things are linked one with another, through their spiritual identity, in a bond of sympathy; secondly, of the hierarchy of beings—the principle that all finite things are emanations, in increasing degree of imperfection, from the Divine. The Theses represent a summary of the De Magia, and in the latter the headings of the former are referred to throughout, except in two episodes or excursus not strictly connected with natural magic (on spirit-charms and spirit-analogies): the work is referred to in the De Minimo, i. 3. 210 (re the magical influences of bodies newly dead; “the soul everywhere recognises the matter of its own body, as we have shown in the book on physical magic”).
7. De Magia Mathematica.—Merely a collection of excerpts from writers on Magic—Tritemius, Agrippa, Pietro Di Abano, the (Pseudo-) Albertus Magnus. (Noroff MSS. The title is that of the Italian editors.)
8. De Rerum Principiis et Elementis et Causis.—(Noroff MSS. The writing was begun on the 16th of March 1590, in Helmstadt, by Besler, to Bruno’s dictation.)