Turning Traditions Upside Down: Rethinking Giordano Bruno's Enlightenment

Bruno’s Cabala: Satire of Knowledge and the Uses of the Dialogue Form

HENNING HUFNAGEL Bruno’s Cabala: Satire of Knowledge and the Uses of the Dialogue Form SAULINO: […] Or credo che passarà l’occasione de far molti altri raggionamenti sopra la cabala del detto cavallo. Perché qualmente veggio , l’ordine de l’universo vuole che, come questo cavallo divino nella celeste regione non si mostra se non sin all’umbilico (dove quella stella che v’è terminante, è messa in lite e questione se appartiene alla testa d’Andromeda o pur al tronco di questo egregio bruto), cossì analogicamente accade che questo cavallo descrittorio non possa venire a perfezione: Cossì Fortuna va cangiando stile. Ma non per ciò noi doviamo desperarci; perché, s’avverrà che questi tornino ad cominciar d’accoppiars’insieme un’altra volta, le rinchiuder ò tutti tre dentro del conclave, d’onde non possano uscire sin tanto ch’abbiano spacciata la creazion d’una Cabala magna del cavallo Pegaseo. Interim, questi doi dialogi vagliano per una Cabala parva, tironica, isagogica, microcosmica. E per non passar ociosamente il presente tempo che mi supera da spasseggiarmi in questo atrio, voglio leggere questo dialogo che tegno in mano. Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo, third dialogue.1 Ass and Academy Giordano Bruno’s fifth and shortest dialogue—Cabala del cavallo pegaseo con l’aggiunta del asino cillenico—may be best understood if we begin with its end, putting the cart before the horse (or rather before the ass): The dialogue ends with the Asino cillenico, a short dialogue within the dialogue . In this text, an ass demands to be admitted to the Pythagorean academy. When asked why he has this strange desire—strange even for a talking ass—, he replies that he wants the excellence of his philosophy recognized “a fin che non siano attesi gli miei concetti, e ponderate le mie 180 Forms of Non-Conformity paroli, e riputata la mia dottrina con minor fede” (744) as if these thoughts had been professed by a human being. The president of the academy, however, rejects him. First of all, he says, a candidate has to pass many levels of study and initiation. And secondly, the academy does not accept asses at all. A rather surprising reaction for a Pythagorean, who ought to profess the doctrine of transmigrating souls, and all the more so as the president himself is of strange—not entirely human—descent: He is called “micco” (‘monkey’) and, who knows, perhaps he is even a donkey in disguise. Just add one letter to his name—an ‘i’—, and you get the Tuscan word for ass, “miccio.” Bruno’s orthography is notoriously idiosyncratic; the missing letter could be easily ascribed to a caprice of his pen. The ass tries to overcome Micco’s resistance, haranguing extensively in his defense. Nevertheless, Micco remains unimpressed by his erudition and rhetorical ability. So the ass starts to attack Micco and his fellow Pythagoreans . He reproaches them for being inconsistent: on the one hand, teaching the transmigration of souls and, on the other, refusing his candidacy because he is an animal. He goes on to praise the divine wisdom, which can be learned in the academies of the asses. He even denies the human academicians the authority to judge the validity of his ‘asinine’ thoughts. All this is in vain: Micco does not change his mind; the dialogue reaches a dead end. Only a deus ex machina can resolve the situation. And indeed, the god Mercury appears, greeted by the jubilant ass, and pushes the doors of the academy wide open for him. With divine authority, Mercury appoints him as “Academico e Dogmatico generale” (750), while the bystander Micco begrudgingly accepts the god’s decision. What is the message of this fable? Apparently, it is dealing with the problem of validity and validation of claims. Bruno’s short text—his Asino cillenico del Nolano counts no more than ten pages—thus poses a fundamental philosophical question: How are knowledge claims recognized as true? As Cabala only discusses flawed and false ways of cognition, this question is answered, if it is answered at all, only ex negativo. It, therefore, seems to hint at Bruno’s next (and last) Italian dialogue, De gli eroici furori, in which Bruno explicitly develops an epistemology.2 Looking more closely at Cabala, one realizes that Bruno has specified the question. Actually, the text puts it like this: in which form does a claim have to be presented in a dialogue in order to be regarded as true? The question gets this self-reflexive spin...