“A monumental and passionate introduction to Giordano Bruno, in which literature intertwines with painting, philosophy with science, and through this dimension, the past is united with the present.” – ILYA PRIGOGINE, Nobel Prize winner

From the Candle-Maker (1582) to the Passions (1585), the coexistence of philosophy, literature, and painting forms one of the most significant theoretical cores of Giordano Bruno's (1548-1600) thought. The series of seven works he wrote in Italian begins with a comedy featuring a philosopher-painter and concludes with a dialogue in which a philosopher-painter illustrates and comments on images.

For the Nolano, to philosophize and paint primarily means to start from a shadow and make a desperate attempt to cross its threshold: this is demonstrated by both the myth of the cave in Plato and among the Neoplatonists as well as the myth of the origins of painting, beloved by Pliny and Quintilian, Alberti and Vasari.

The theme of the shadow – fundamental during the Renaissance – serves here as a guiding line for a clear and careful analysis (enriched with a rich iconographic ensemble) of Bruno's Italian works. While outlining their birth and evolution, Nuccio Ordine demonstrates the deep unity that connects the Parisian play with the London dialogues.

These are works that belong to a perfectly specific, organic program: in the Candle-Maker, which serves as a true overture, the themes that will be developed in the subsequent six movements of “the new philosophy” are already shaped. In short, Bruno rewrites, in the name of the infinite, the relationships between man and nature and knowledge, with language and literature.

He unites earth and sky, matter and form, religion and worldly life, dialogue and comedy, serious and comic genres. He seeks to “show” what others do not see. Moreover, considering the original re-signification of the myths of Actaeon and Narcissus, he does so fully aware that every violation leads to a transformation, giving rise to a new consciousness of ourselves and the world around us.

It is no coincidence that the knowledge-loving philosopher would demonstrate through his own life the indissoluble coexistence of knowledge and life, of word and thought, of biography and philosophy. Daring to take responsibility for all the consequences of his cosmology, further adding unforeseen extensions to images and myths (such as those of Actaeon and Narcissus), Bruno proved to be profoundly innovative; this daring would cost him his life. He was led to the stake in Rome by the Inquisition in 1600.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“Nuccio Ordine aptly demonstrates, thanks to his extensive education, how Bruno's fascinating ideas about the poet and philosopher are fully applicable to the painters of his time.” – ÉDUARD POMMIER

“A model of interdisciplinary research, this invaluable book cannot be missing from the library of an art historian.” – VICTOR STOICHITA

“In this work, Nuccio Ordine offers us a remarkable model of approach to the theory of philosophical interpretation.” – PIERRE HADOT

COVER WORK BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBÁN MURILLO The Origin of Painting. Bucharest, National Museum of Art.

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS NUCCIO ORDINE (Diamante, Italy, b. 1958) is a professor of Italian literature at the University of Calabria. He has written three studies on Giordano Bruno that have been translated into eleven languages, including Chinese, Japanese, and Russian: La caballa dell’asino (1996), La soglia dell’ombra (2009), and Contro il Vangelo armato (2009).

He has also published Teoria della novela e teoria del riso nel Cinquecento (2009), Les rendez-vous des savoirs (2009), Trois couronnes pour un roi (2011, Bompiani, 2014), Les portraits de Gabriel García Márquez (2012). He is a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies and the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, and a visiting professor at various research centers and universities in the U.S. (Yale, NYU) and Europe (EHESS, ENS, Paris-IV Sorbonne, CESR in Tours, IEA Paris, Warburg Institute in London, Max-Planck Berlin).

In 2010, he was appointed an honorary member of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and has been honored honoris causa by seven major universities since 2012. In 2009, he was awarded the Academic Phoenix in France and in 2012 the President of the French Republic awarded him the Legion of Honor.

In France, he directs three series of classics (Les Belles Lettres) with Yves Hersant and in Italy the series “Classics of European Literature” (Bompiani). He writes for Corriere della Sera and El País. In Greece, his works Η χρησιμότητα του άχρηστου (2014), Η χρησιμότητα των άχρηστων γνώσεων (2015/2016), and Οι κλασικοί στη ζωή μας (2016) have been published by Agra Publications.