Giovanni Battista Della Porta

La fantasia popolare è stata sempre affascinata dalla possibilità che tra le pagine di antichi manoscritti si celassero arcani segreti, la cui rivelazione potesse conferire poteri occulti. Libri costati enormi sacrifici, che erano stati per i loro autori una ragione di vita e, al tempo stesso, la fonte di mille pericoli. La “Magia Naturalis” di Giovan Battista Della Porta fu uno dei testi più diffusi fra XVI e XVII secolo. Attorno ad esso ruotò per decenni un ampio dibattito, che spaziava dalla magia alla scienza, dalla filosofia alla teologia.

Popular imagination has always been fascinated by the possibility that arcane secrets were hidden among the pages of ancient manuscripts, the revelation of which could confer occult powers. Books that required enormous sacrifices, which had been a reason for living for their authors and, at the same time, the source of a thousand dangers. Giovan Battista Della Porta's “Magia Naturalis” was one of the most widespread texts between the 16th and 17th centuries. A wide debate revolved around it for decades, ranging from magic to science, from philosophy to theology.

This contribution reconstructs the history of movable books, books created for a wide range of different purposes (teaching, mnemonics, play, divining, etc.) including mechanical or paratextual devices demanding or soliciting the interaction of the reader. The investigation runs from hand-written books to the most courageous paper-engineering experiments of the 20th century Avant-Garde, considering some specific editorial genres, including calendars, “libri di sorti”, anatomical books, navigation handbooks etc., and animated children's books. In particular, it demonstrates how the happy season for animated paper production and publishing of the 19th century would not have been possible without the scientific inheritance of optical studies and vision sciences, precursors a short time before the invention of the Lumière brothers (1895). The study also examines some literary works using combinatorial mechanisms, experimenting the semiotic potential of expressive codes and very different techniques and materials: the reference is to books of Futurism and Dadaism, the "artists' book", and other avant-garde texts from the second half of the 20th century.

This paper aims to examine some examples of Diego Velázquez’s oeuvre that could be interpreted as genre violations. From a metapictorial point of view, his Sevillian bodegones will be elucidated neither as “pictures of everyday life” nor as polysemic, emblem-like images, but rather as mimetic “inventions”. Despite its significance for the young Velázquez, still life would decline as an independent genre in his maturity. Yet much of what he learnt from its practice re-emerged purified in his “fables” or “history paintings”. With all these works, Velázquez would surpass the concept of simple imitation to
the extent of developing that of dissimulatio artis as the true end of his painting.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 40.1, Winter / hiver 2017

This article explores the intersections of physiognomic knowledge and drama in the works of Neapolitan naturalist and playwright Giovan Battista Della Porta (1535–1616). It first looks at references to theatre—classical drama in particular—in Della Porta’s writings on physiognomy, thus showing that Latin comic plays provided the naturalist with a gallery of stock characters able to summarize the alleged interdependence of physical and moral traits. The article then analyzes the various ways in which Della Porta—who was a prolific author of comedies—brought his physiognomic expertise into his own experience as a playwright. The study of these two different perspectives on the relation between physiognomy and drama reveals that, far from being a direct translation of physiognomic theories, Della Porta’s dramatic production deploys an ironic and almost paradoxical take on physiognomy that aims to challenge (if not actually subvert) the very
principles of the discipline.

Il seguente intervento mira ad una analisi contenutistica e comparatistica della «Cintia» di Giovan Battista Della Porta,
commedia che rivela, tra le altre, la sana ambizione teatrale dell’autore, attestata su un fronte culturale aperto ad un uditorio
ampio e indifferenziato. L'attività da commediografo di Della Porta fu dapprima un divertimento rispetto alle sue opere di
natura scientifica, ma poi, come dimostra la Cintia, divenne ragionata sperimentazione: Della Porta cerca infatti di ammodernare
il teatro secondo un’invenzione scenica e linguistica tutta nuova, rifacendosi alla Commedia Nuova di Menandro, a Epicarmo e a
Plauto. Oltre a questi modelli evidenti e attestati, la «Cintia» mostra di avere dei legami innegabili con una delle opere più
affascinanti, sebbene incompleta, dell’epoca flavia: l’«Achilleide» di Stazio. Sebbene nasca come un poema epico, il contesto
metrico e contenutistico del poema staziano, molto letto nel ’500, è epillico e alessandrineggiante, e l’intenzione di Stazio fu quella
dichiarata di darsi in quel poema ad un’epica più leggera, slegata da ogni definizione rigida di genere letterario. L’ambiguitas che
in maniera evidente lega le due opere in questione è però la presenza in entrambe di due protagonisti che fingono di avere un sesso
opposto a quello che gli appartiene: nella «Cintia», infatti, Amasio è un giovane ragazzo sotto abiti di donna, mentre Cintia è
una giovane innamorata sotto abiti maschili; allo stesso modo nell’«Achilleide», il giovane Achille è un ragazzo in amore che si
finge donna, mentre Deidamia è una giovane donna vestita di abiti maschili. Nel corso del saggio verranno dunque analizzate le
funzioni di questi singoli personaggi la cui ambiguità sessuale rivela un’ambiguità tutta di genere e cela un gioco di rimandi alla
tradizione greca e latina, non solo limitatamente al genere puro della commedia.

in Florence. Fêtes, spectacles et politique à l'époque de la Renaissance,
Manziana, Vecchiarelli editore, 2008, pp. 285-296. ISBN: 88-8247-219-1
Publié précédemment in Silvia Carandini, éd., Teatri barocchi: tragedie, commedie pastorali nella drammaturgia europea fra '500 e '600, Roma, Bulzoni, 2000, pp. 261-276.ISBN: 88-8319-436-5

Il dibattito sulla magia naturale nel Rinascimento è tra i più vivi e complessi. Il presente libro ha l'obiettivo di sondare i fondamenti della magia naturale di uno dei più celebri protagonisti del dibattito filosofico italiano del XVI secolo, Giovan Battista Della Porta (1535-1615).

Lucid Dreaming, or the ability to become aware that one is in a dream state, has been the subject of a growing scientific inquiry since the late 1970s. Empirical research heralded by prominent researchers such as Ogilvie, Hunt, Sawicki ,McGowan and later by LaBerge, demonstrates that this phenomenon occurs during the REM sleep cycles and can be entered either from the ordinary dream state itself or directly from a state of wakefulness.  In addition to the experience itself, certain techniques have been developed and refined over the years in order to help induce this state for further study. This paper explores the connection between lucid dreams and the ecstatic experience as depicted in mystical and esoteric texts. Initially, accounts by prominent western esoteric thinker Giovanni Baptista della Porta (1535-1615) will demonstrate that certain ecstatic states experienced by practitioners can be viewed as sleep-like states to an onlooker. Moreover, During a Wake Induced Lucid Dream (WILD), as described by LaBerge, certain visual, auditory and somatic effects such as visual lights, loud noises and somatic vibrations are experienced. While these characteristics are believed to occur universally when one enters the sleep state, it can only be perceived and remembered by people who are conscious during the transition into the dream state. These occurrences also appear to coincide with certain depictions of mystical accounts where the practitioner enters an altered state of consciousness.  For example, in the works of Abraham Abulafia (1239-1291), the father of ecstatic kabbalah, the sensations that surface during the mystical experience, as analyzed by Moshe Idel, one of the foremost authorities in Jewish mysticism, are described as vision of lights, tumults and bodily tremors.  In prophetic kabbalistic literature, these manifestations are correlated to the biblical account of Ezekiel’s chariot and are represented as encounters with the Klipot (shells), which come from the demonic realm in kabbalistic cosmology. These act as perceptual barriers which the mystic has to overcome in order to reach the state of Hashmal (The Speaking Silence) – the state of prophecy. Furthermore, this paper argues that certain mystical or theurgical procedures designed to influence the divine realm are similar to the techniques which were developed to induce the lucidity effect by the disruption of the sleep cycle. One example of such method is the wake-back-to-bed technique (WBTB), which was developed by LaBerge, where one awakes and then returns to the sleep state within a certain interval of time.  The kabbalistic practice of Tikkun Hatzot (The Midnight Repair) appear to follow the same principles. This ritual, which was developed by Isaac Luria (1534-1572), the father of Lurianic Kabbalah, involves waking up at midnight to recite certain prayers, meditate until dawn and then return to sleep. The idea behind this method is that through the intentionality of the kabbalist, certain sefirot, or divine qualities, will be repaired – slowly recovering from the divine catastrophe of the shattering of the vessels. The paper concludes by proposing that our current understanding of certain mystical experiences needs to expand and allow for their interpretation as dream-like states even though they are implicitly or explicitly reported as being experienced in wakefulness.

Scopo dell’intervento è quello di illustrare i primi risultati della ricognizione volta a un commento de Lo Astrologo di Giovan Battista Della Porta, commedia posta cronologicamente al confine tra due secoli (pubblicata nel 1606, fu composta prima del 1591) e testo di grande interesse non solo nel corpus dellaportiano per più motivi. Analizzando innanzitutto le distanze e le corrispondenze tra l’Astrologo, opere cruciali come la Magia naturalis e le pratiche divinatorie dello stesso Giovan Battista insieme al fratello Giovan Vincenzo, è possibile tracciare le coordinate della progressiva «demagificazione» operata da Della Porta, non solo verso un’ortodossia che ben testimonia il mutato clima dell’epoca ma anche in direzione del giovane Federico Cesi, dei Lincei e della polemica sull’invenzione del telescopio; il tutto, sotto una prospettiva stilistica e formale, in dialogo stretto con le opere cinquecentesche che trattavano temi simili, dal Negromante dell’Ariosto alla Calandria, per concludere con le innovazioni del Candelaio bruniano. Ma ad emergere sono anche i tratti più moderni del teatro dellaportiano che alludono a forme e soluzioni ibridate già secentesche, e che nell’Astrologo si concretizzano in una personale ripresa del tema del doppio dall’Amphitruo, la tragicomoedia plautina per eccellenza.