Magia bianca, magia nera nel Rinascimento (review)
while ignoring its metaphysical dimension. Saiber finds his “peculiar mathematics” a necessary prerequisite for an understanding of the metaphysical and physical relationships that underlie his treatment of magic, of maxima and minima, of memory, and of language (47). She explains that for Bruno geometrical figures are merely representations of truth, mental constructs that are not meant to correspond exactly to nature itself. Space, too, does not yield to empirical measurement. Eternal, infinite, and unchanging, it contains infinite possibilities of forms, of substances and properties. Entities may come to be and pass away, but space will remain. “All that is and can be thought to be, then, is part of the continuum of space-matter-time.” (51). The three chapters that follow offer Saiber’s analyses of individual works. “Lines” proposes linearity as the dominant rhetorical motif at work in Candelaio. In this play Bruno satirizes pedantry with characters whose rigid, rectilinear thinking is evinced through brachylogia, short words in lists, multiple adjectives, and repetition showing extension of thought but little depth. Countering this, Bruno introduces a host of characters who change and exchange personas, indulge in plots and subplots, diversions intended to capture the value of multiplex thought. In chapter 4, “Angles,” which treats De gli eroici furori, Saiber’s reading brilliantly exposes the depth of meaning in Bruno’s dialogue that depicts the soul’s attempt to reach God. The attraction and impossibility of the quest is shown through angular tropes, oxymoron, synoeciosis, chiasmus, syllepsis: all reflect contraries, either in terms or in syntax. Contradiction, Bruno thought, is the motive force of progress. The hero triangulates, drawn by God’s reflection in the beloved, but unable to go beyond to reach the source of light itself. Chapter 5, “Curves,” finds La cena de le Ceneri replete with “curvilinear rhetoric” — hyperbole, ellipsis, and circumlocution — as the Nolan explores the infinitude of the universe, circling the topic, “concealing and revealing” (137). In the final chapter, “Point,” Saiber singles out the seminal idea in Bruno’s work as the minima, the source and end of the universe and of all philosophy. He tried to explain that “all things could be measured, evaluated and interpreted through the use of minima (circles, triangles, spheres, and pyramids), which are, ultimately, nothing other than extensions from a point” (144). Saiber demonstrates convincingly that Bruno’s metaphysical geometry generated his choice of figures, and her fecund interpretation of his work will surely lead to further explorations. JEAN DIETZ MOSS The Catholic University of America