CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Uremovic, Judita |
|---|---|
| Title | Backstage at Camillo's Esoteric Theatre |
| Summary | This thesis is an attempt to give a closer insight into an esoteric purpose behind the Theatre of Giulio Camillo Delminio. Camillo was among those pre-modern scholars who promoted the causal, deductive, and organic scientific approach, which included the central question about the nature of the human soul. The current thesis contains an overview of philosophical streams, ideas, and concepts that, to my understanding, inspired Camillo in the development of his Idea of the Theatre. These include Christian Kabbalism, Hermeticism, and Renaissance Neoplatonism. Camillo’s Theatre had diverse interpretations throughout the centuries, namely rhetorical, encyclopedic, and in recent times iconographic aspects. Yet, his esoteric aspect remains relatively neglected. This thesis aims to make hidden meanings of Camillo’s images in the process of transmutation of the soul more visible. This implies a shift in the interpretation of the Theatre from the Art of Memory to the Art of Recalling, in the Neoplatonic sense. I shed closer light on Neoplatonic sources of Camillo’s archetypes, such as Porphyry, Proclus, and Macrobius. Certain points of similarities are compared regarding supercelestial and celestial influences between Camillo and Camillo’s contemporaries, mainly Francesco Giorgi, Pico della Mirandola, and Henry Cornelius Agrippa. The purpose of these comparisons is to get a better understanding of formative elements in Camillo’s system. Camillo's sources and inspirative elements will lead us to the backstage of Camillo's enterprise, where we could get a clearer view of the esoteric purpose of the Theatre. This thesis is an attempt to contribute to the recent research of this Renaissance thinker. |
| Supervisor | Szönyi György Endre; Marcell Sebök |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/uremovic_judita.pdf |
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