RENAISSANCE MEMORY1: THE MEMORY THEATRE OF GIULIO CAMILLO

 In this lecture the talked about Giulio Camillo, his life and the building of the memory theatre that he build  in the 16 century.
The structure of the thatre was wood the building was not that large, constructed like a Vitruvian amphitheatre. The Theatre rises in seven steps, which are divided by seven ways representing the seven planets. The student of it is to be as it were a spectator before whom are placed the seven measures of the world in a theatre. The theatre resembles the ancient theatres. In ancient theatres the most sublime people sat in the lowest seat, also in this theatre the greatest and the most important things will be placed in the lowest seat. Then in  second grade of the theatre is really the first day of creation, imaged as the banquet given by Ocean to the gods, the emerging elements of creation, here in their simple unmixed form.         Thirdly will have depicted on each of its gates a Cave, which we call the Homeric Cave to differentiate it from that which Plato describes in his Republic.    And in fourth stage is associated with the figure of man. This grade as the leading image to be depicted on all its gates as the Gorgon Sisters, the three sisters described by Hesiod who had only one eye between them.

       On fifth, the soul of man joins his body. This is signified under the image of Pasiphe and the Bull which is the leading image on the gates of this grade.      The sixth grade of the Theatre has on each of the gates of the planets, the Sandals, and other ornaments, which Mercury puts on when he goes to execute the will of the gods, as the poets pretend.  

Though the Ficinian influence is everywhere present in Camillo’s Theatre, it is in the great central series of the Sun that it is most apparent. Most of Ficino’s ideas on the sun are set out in his De sole, though they also appear in his other works. On the Banquet grade of the Sun series, Camillo places the image of a pyramid, representing the Trinity.he seventh grade is assigned to all the arts, both noble and vile, and above each gate is Prometheus with a lighted torch. The Prometheus grade includes not only all the arts and sciences, but also religion, and law.

 Camillo become very famous and was classified as the divine camillo beacuse of his skills and this theatre made him famous even these times beacause he bought up  new rules and the art of memory.