armando maggi - the dialogue between the living and the dead in cardano's thought

8/19/2019 Armando Maggi - The dialogue between the living and the dead in Cardano's thought

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THE DIALOGUE

BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE DEADIN CA RD AN O’ S TH OU GHT

A r m a n d o M a g g i

S u m m a r y

This short essay brings to the fore the multifarious significance that the dead emb ody

in Girolamo Cardano’s thought, with a particular emphasis on his fundamental trea-

tise on oneiric communications. If for Cardano to see means to understand, the im-

ages of deceased relatives and acquaintances visiting the philosopher in dreams are

harbingers o f intellectual insights on essential activities o f the mind and the soul.

W r i t i n g to the poet Ugolino Verini whose young son had recently

died, Ficino reminds him that Plotinus, along with many other phi-

losophers of antiquity, held that «gl’animi in questa vita da Iddio come ad

una comedia o ad una tragedia siano mandati», because all things of this

world are fictional («fabulose »), including our own birth and death («simil

men te i nascimenti e le morti finte siano »).1 Th e actors wh o play their role

according to the writer’s intentions and whose presence on the stage is

short are the best and the luckiest ones, since longer stories end up mixing

up comical and tragic moments. « Piangerete adunque voi quel gentilissimo

giovine », Ficino writes to his friend, who how ever must bear in mind that

God w as in fact his son’s ultimate father. 2Verini was only meant to teach his

child how to play his short role on the world’s stage. In this epistle, Ficino

minimizes the relationship between a father and his son by emphasizing

the distance between the living and the dead, whose presence seems to co-

incide with the ‘lines’ they are supposed to recite on this stage for God’s

private amusement. It is, however, a tenet of Ficinian Neoplatonism that,

in contrast to Christian orthodoxy, «l’anime de i morti sciolte da i lacci de icorpi hanno qualche cura de le cose humane», as Ficino writes in an epistle

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1 M. Ficino, Tomo secondo de le lettere di Marsilio F icino tradotte in lingua tos can ape rM . F elice

Fig liu cci senese, Venice, Giolito, 1548, viii, f. ii3r. Plotinus , On Providence, in Ennea ds III, ed. A.H. Armstrong, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1999, 17, pp. 98107. In particular,pp. 103105: «the soul, coming on the stage in this universal poetic creation and making itselfa part of the play, supplies of itself the good or the bad in its acting ». Cfr. M. Ficino, In Pl at i-

num, in Opera omnia, ii.ii, Turin, Bottega d’Erasmo, 1959, 5, pp. 17051706.2 Ficino, Tomo secondo de le lettere di Marsilio Ficino, f. 113V.

« b r u n i a n a & c a m p a n e l l i a n a » , x v i , 2, 2 01 0

mailto:[email protected]

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474 a r m a n d o m a g g i

to M atteo C ors ini.1 As ev idence o f this hypothesis, Ficino reports two as-

tonishing events, bo th oc curred after the death o f his grand m other Angela.

W h il e A ngela w as in Flore nce , her husb and and her daughte r Aless an dra ,

Ficino's mother, received a letter from Angela who reassured them of hergoo d health. T hat night, however, both her husband and her daughter had a

dream in which A ngela to ok leave from them. Alessandra dream ed that her

m other refused to embrace her, whereas her husband heard her say « O G io-

vanni mio , quanto mi doglio della tu a fo rtu na. Sta sano e fa pre gar e Iddio

per m e ». 2W akin g up from these disturbing images, bo th father and dau gh-

ter rightly thou ght that Ang ela had died that very night. Ang ela app eared to

her daug hter again o ne night and co nsoled he r (« N on ti voler piu affligere

figliuola m ia »).3Th e followin g day, Alessandra received the trag ic new s that

the w et nurse, to w ho m she had entrusted her baby, had suffocated him. Let

us remember that, according to Catholic teaching, souls' apparitions occur

very ra re ly and only th rou gh th e in term edia ry act io n o f angels. In D e cu ra

p ro m o rtu is g er e n d a , A ugu stine m akes it clear that death severs every possible

conn ection be tw een the living and the deceased. 4 But it is a fact, Au gustine

admits, that at times images of dead persons visit us with requests or sug-

gestions. According to Augustine, wh at we see is not the imag e o f the dead

person's soul, wh ich is forever detached from the realm o f the living. We see

a «simile» ( s i m i l i t u d i n e m ) o f the person w e kn ew . 5 Un bek now nst to the soul

o f a dead person, an angelic being m ay sum m on a « phantasm», a mem ory,

to con vey a war ning, a reassurance, or a threatening message to the living.6

The spiritual figure that speaks to us has nothing to do with the person we

remember. The simile (larva, imago) o f a loved one w ho suddenly presents

itself to us comes from some one else, an angel or demon , wh o is unk now n

to us and uses the imag e o f the dead because it is familiar to us. 7

If, as Ficino says in his epistle, the w orld is a thea ter m eant to enter tain the

divine w ith o ur com ic and tragic vicissitudes, the death o f Verini's youn g

son has not brou gh t to an end the boy 's part in this universal play. His im -

age is still active either as a mas k available to oth er actors (dem ons or angels

according to C hristian the ology ) or as the visible m anifestation o f the boy's

spiritual existence. But the malleability of the deceased boy's image tran-scends a strict theological view, because his visible presence may return to

his father also as an oneiric representation, which greatly amplifies the son's

i M. Ficino, Tomo primo delle divine lettere del gran Ma rsilio Ficino tradotte in lingua toscana

pe r M . Felice F igliu cc i senese, Venice, Giolito, 1546, i, f. i4v. 2 Ibidem, f. i4r.3 Ibid em, f. i4v.4 Augustine, D e cura pro mortuis gerenda, in pl 40, coll. 591610.5 Ibidem , col. 601. 6 Ibidem , col. 604.7 Cfr. A. Maggi, In the Company o f De mons, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006,

p. 9 7 .



role in his father’s existence, given the multiplicity of its possible meanings.

It is true that the image of the dead usually visits the living as a warning, as

a sign of anxious concern, but the nature of that warning is far from being

univocal, as Cardano contends.In the first b oo k o f S o m n io r u m S y n es io ru m li br i q ua tu or, Cardano contends

that there are three types o f signs or o neiric com m unications : particular

(propria), c o m m o n ( c om m u n i a ) , and conjectural signs (coniectural ia) . 1 A c -

cording to Cardano, the first kind can occur both when we are awake and

w h en w e are asleep. This sort o f clear vis ib ility usually takes place w hen

ou r mind is overw helm ed by a visual insight. Th e second kind is defined ac-

cording to the person’s age, actions, character, habits, the time of the year

w h en th e sign occ urr ed, etc . 2 Finally, conjectural dreams are the ones that

vis it som eone in dan ger an d tr ig ger a dee p se ns e o f an xiety . For Card ano,

the essential goal of the interpreter is to determine the truthfulness of a

given dream. The problem is to define what ‘true’ means. Cardano holds

that an oneiric imag e is truthful w he n the dream er recogn izes it as an act o f

memory, that is, when he or she discovers it as an inner intellectual presence

preceding the mental process itself. In D e su b til it a te , Cardano explains that

m e m o r i a and intel lectus are related to each other, since both o f them rely on

imagination. 3

To glean a better understanding o f Ca rdano’s claim, we must read an im -

portant passage from book fourteen of D e su b til it a te where Cardano states

that our min d is divided into fou r areas : « iunctio, iudicium , in tellectus et

voluntas» . 4 F or th is b rie f essay, I w il l fo cus only on th e m eanin g o f intel

lectus . Human intellect, Cardano explains in D e rer um v a rie ta te , is paradoxi-

cally the subject and the object of our mental apprehension. As I will show

later, this definition is of essential importance for a better understanding

of the oneiric visitations of Cardano’s deceased son Giovanbattista, whose

v io le nt death haunte d th e philosopher throu ghou t his life, b u t also o f his

dead friends and acquaintances. Cardan o gives an example o f intel lectus : If

«equ um intelligo, intellectus m eus est form a equi ». 5 Intellect, in Ca rda no ’s

view, is an act o f inner ref lection . In D e su b til it a te , he contend s that, while he

is writing, his intellect is what the reader apprehends through his writing.Intellect is thus a double reflection, because it signifies two inner events:

first, the mirroring of the subject and the receiver of the subject’s reason-

ing; second, the reflection between the subject and his selfawareness in

that specific act of intellectual apprehension. However, as the eye is affected

i G. Card ano, So mniorum Sy nesio rum libri qua tuo r, 2 vol., ed. JeanYves Boriaud, Florence,Olschki, 2008, i, 5, pp. 4247. 2 Ibidem , p. 44.

3 G. Cardano, D e s ub til ita te, in Opera, iii, 14, p. 586b. 4 Ibidem , p. 583b.5 Ibidem.

t h e d i a l o g u e b e t w e e n t h e l i v i n g a n d t h e d e a d 475




b y light an d da rkness, so is th e in te llect in fluenced b y tr uth an d falseness.

However, given that truth may p roceed both from w hat is false and what is

true, can untruth derive from som ething tru e ? This is not possible, in Ca r-

dano's view. Tru th m ay result from som ething intrinsically false, because allthings contain an elem ent o f truthfulness. This is w hy intellect, the fun da-

mental act o f m ental insight, is accomp anied b y a « non parva voluptate»,

because our div in e esse nce resides in th e in te llect. Voluptas, writes Cardano

in chapter thirteen of the same treatise, is what we perceive as something

visible and beauti fu l, b u t also w hat st im ulate s our desire because it is noble

and marv elous but still un kn ow n to others. i This is the core o f Ca rdano's

concept o f subti l i tas, w hich is thus intrinsically linked to the act o f directing

one's gaze at something in order to apprehend its uniqueness.

W h a t m ak es us fear fu l in th e dark, th e philosopher explains, is not dar k-

ness itself but rather the lack o f sight, the subtlest o f ou r senses. 2 N ot only

do our eyes work as friends who accompany us through unknown places,

their activity closely resembles intellect itself. To prove the im m ense pow er

of our eyes, Cardano make use of two e x p e r i m e n t a (the dimensions and

distance o f a tower, and the depth o f a sea), which , howe ver, require the

additional presence of mirrors . 3 The absolute centrality of mirrors for any

form of visual understanding is also present in Cardano's meditations on

the nature of inner visions. In P a ra li p o m en o n , the philosopher uses the ex-

plicit m etaph or o f the mirror to define the central activity o f the me lan-

cholic hu m or in any divinatory, and thus also oneiric, com mu nication. T his

humor, the philosopher believes, gathers the spirits «in modum speculi»,

that is, it m akes th em «speculares » as to enable th em to reflect the visu al

communications of what is about to happen, as when the eye sees itself

reflected in a mirro r : «non aliter qua m ocu lus sem etipsu m ex specu lo as

picit ». 4 «Speculares» are also the dreams that most forcefully compel the

dreamer to see himself, that is, to reveal himself to himself. In S o m n io ru m

S y n e s io ru m , Cardano holds that in a dream to see m eans to understand.

Given the strict connection betwee n m em ory and intellect, follow ing

Synesius' interpretation of dreams, Cardano holds that a similar quest for

m eaning co nnects the intellectual and oneiric event, also because the inter-pretation o f dreams, like any intellectua l pursuit, is a neverend ing process.

Cardan o distinguishes betw een tw o kinds o f dreams, « idola» and « insom -

nia » or «visa », the form er be ing clear r epresentations that d o no t requ ire

any exegesis, and the latter corresponding to the vast majority of dreams,

w hose obscure significan ce calls fo r an in te rpreta tion. T h rou gh an act o f

exegesis, a v i s u m may approach an i d o l u m , if the dreamer's mind becomes

1 Cardano, D e s ub til ita te, in Opera, iii, 13, p. 572a. 2 Ibidem , p. 570b.2 Ibidem, p. 572ab. 4 Cardano, Pa ral ipo me non , iii, 21, in Opera, x, p. 469a.



transparent like a mirror. This perfect transparence is, however, an almost

impossible occurrence. Let us consider, for example, what Cardano says

about the troubled reflection betwee n the image o f a friend who m one en-

counters in a dream after a long time of no contact, and the same friend w hom one later sees on the street : «Something is missing» (atque i ta def ic it

al iquid) , is Cardano ’s subtle remark. i The two pictures, the friend in the

dream and the friend I meet on the street, do not mirror each other per-

fectly, and the image of the latter (the friend I see when I am awake) af-

fects the image of my friend that I first saw in the dream and then stored in

m y memory. W hen I meet m y friend after dreaming about him, I beco me

aware of those aspects of his body or habitual demeanor that were miss-

ing in the dream, even though in that oneiric vision I may have sensed the

absence of something else in my friend’s image, which however may not

be missing from the image I later see on the street. The same concept o f asmudged or blurred closeup, resulting from the failed superimposition of

two distinct representations, is also present in the fifth chapter of D e p rop ria

vi t a where Cardano claims that he is inclined to be faulty o f memory, and

that his face is « a picture so truly commonplace that several painters who

have come from afar to make my portrait have found no feature by which

they could characterize » him . 2 If, as he states in D e li br is p ro p rii s, a profound

vol u p t a s gets hold o f a writer wh en he sees him self reflected in his own w rit-

ing as in a mirror, Cardano makes it clear that the m irror containing his face

is out of focus. 3

In his complex philosophical system founded on the view of intellectual

apprehension as a form of luminous mirroring, Cardano grants a decisive

role to the symbolic images of his late father Fazio and his executed son

Giovann Battista. Their essential importance is strictly linked to the demon-

ic presences that sustained both Fazio and Girolamo Cardano. In chapter 47

of his autobiography, Cardano defines as ampli f icat io and sp l e n d or the two

main traits of his intellectual process of understanding, which has greatly

benefited from his personal dem on’s support/ S p le n d or is the intellectual

clarity that Cardano has always pursued in his studies, as he also writes in

chapter 38 of the same text, but ‘splendor’ is also a wellknown term in Ficino’s theory of love. In the second speech in S op ra lo am ore, Ficino contends

that the lover desires the ‘splendor’ that shines through his beloved’s body. 5

1 Cardano, So mniorum Syne sio rum, ii, 18, p. 478.2 G. Cardano, De propria vita, 5, in Opera, i, p. 5a. I quote from : G. Cardano, The Book of

M y Life, trans. J. Stoner, New York, New York Review of Books, 2002, p. 19.3 G. Cardano, D e libris propriis, in Opera, i, p. 77a.4 Cardano, De propria vit a, p. 45a.5 Ibid em, p. 30b. M. Ficino, Sopra lo amore, ed. S. Niccoli, Florence, Olschki, 1987, ii, 9, pp.

4 4 4 5 .

t h e d i a l o g u e b e t w e e n t h e l i v i n g a n d t h e d e a d 4 7 7




The lover's longing for the beloved originates from this intrinsic luminos-

ity.

Moreover, in chapter 23 of Paralipomenon, analyzing the names of the dif-

ferent kinds of demons, Cardano holds that lemur indicates a demon that is«velut facies nostra in speculo visa ».i This cryptic definition beco mes ex-

tremely enlightening if we bear in mind that, according to Apu leius' De deo

Socratis, lemur was the name given to the souls of the dead. Lemur, writes

Apuleius, « is the human soul, after it has perform ed its duties in the present

life, and quitted the bo dy » . 2 If, as he clearly states in De subtilitate, a human

being's face is the quintessential expression o f nature's subtilitas, which we

could envision as the main goal o f C ardano's philosophical quest, it is para-

doxical to say the least that the demon who most resembles our own face

reflected in a mirror is also the one in charge of the dead. If to comprehend

is for Cardano an act of selfmirroring, it is not farfetched to conclude thatin his thought the dead come to identify with the core of that intellectual

process. On e could go so far as to say that, for Cardano, the dead possess the

key to the essence of subtilitas.

Th e violen t death o f his most beloved son Giovanni Battista, executed in

prison, is an obsessive theme of Cardano's oeuvre and finds its most moving

expression in De utilitate ex adversis capienda, where the philosopher writes

that a son is the effigies (the image, the portrait) of his father's soul and the

father has always his son before his eyes . 3 According to Cardano, his dearest

son (Giovanni Battista was the oldest of the philosopher's three sons) close-

ly resembled his deceased father, as if the impossible portrait o f the philos-

opher (due to the indistinct or impersonal features of his face) were com-

pleted, or better yet, clarified and enlightened by the reflection betw een the

images of the deceased grandfather Fazio and the executed grandson Gio-

vanni Battista. Remember, Cardano writes in Somniorum Synesiorum, that

in a dream «pater significat filium», also because of the essential principle

of similarity/dissimilarity regulating the structure of all oneiric commu-

nications, as we also read in the Dialogus that reports Cardano's imaginary

conversation with his dead father. 4 Moreover, Cardano is convinced that

a fundamental biological sympathia keeps father and son connected with

1 Cardano, Paralipom eno n, p. 476a.2 Apuleius, The God o f Socrates, in The Works o f Apuleius, trans. M. Tighe and H. Gurney,

London, G. Bell and sons, 1878, p. 364 («species daemonum animus humanus emeritis stipendiis vitae corpore suo abiurans. Hunc vetere Latina lingua reperio Lemurem dictitatum »).

3 Cardano, D e u ti lit at e ex adversis capie nda, iii, 16, in Opera, ii, p. 202b. I analyze this passa-ge in Il sig nif ica to del concetto di figlio nel pensiero di Gir ola mo Carda no, «Bruniana & Campanelliana», xv, 2009/1, pp. 81100.

4 Cardano, So mniorum Sy nesio rum, iii, 14, p. 534 ; Cardano, Dialog us Hieronym i Ca rdani et

Fa ci i Ca rdani, ips ius pa tris, in Opera, i, p. 637b.



each other to the point that they may even receive the same dream, which

ho we ver m ay signify two opposite outco m es. In the first b oo k o f his treatise

on dreams, Cardano reports that, after the birth of his son Giovanni Bat-

tista, he often dreamt that his father was dying, although at the time Faziohad already passed away. Du ring these dreams, the ph ilosopher felt an over-

w h elm ing sorrow fo r his ill father, b u t in rea lity th at pity fo resh adow ed the

despair that wo uld haun t Cardan o after his ow n son’s im m ature death. 1 In

other words, the grandfather appeared to his son to announce the future

death of his grandson. In his autobiography, Cardano came to the conclu-

sion that Fazio w as his «tutelary spirit», after dream ing that his solitary soul

w as in th e «H ea ven o f th e M oon » an d all o f a su dden Fazio ’s voic e reas-

sured him that, even if his son couldn’t see him, he as spirit was there for

him, and that eventually Girolamo w ou ld reach the kingdom o f God . 2

Other human beings with whom we shared our l ife take part of the pe-

rennial mirroring between father and son, between the one who is still

alive (and thus in the darkness of this obscure world) and the other who

vis its th e livin g as a reflection o f th e livin g’s lo n gin g for th at in te llect ual

splendor that only the departed is able to grant. Tw o m arvelous and com -

plex dreams, which occupy the final part of S o m n io r u m S y n es io ru m , revolve

around the image of the late Prospero Marinoni, one of Cardano’s dearest

friends. Alt ho ug h in the first dream (O cto be r 2nd, 1537) Carda no kn ow s that

his friend is dead, he nonetheless lets him kiss him on the lips and then asks

Marinoni a series of questions about the afterlife. «Do you remember who

you w ere ? », Cardano asks M ar in oni. 3 Yes, he does. Is there pain in death?

O ne does n’t die until it is over (« D um perac ta est, no nd um m oritu r »), is his

friend’s cryp tic reply. W h at does death feel like ? « Like a high fever », M arin o-

ni explains. Is death sim ilar to sleep ? No, it is not, M arinon i says befo re leav -

ing the philosopher alone with a deep sadness. Although Cardano’s official

interpretation of this dream was that it announced a radical change in his

life, during the oneiric dialogue with his dead friend Cardano understood

Marinoni’s replies as literal explanations about what happens to the soul

after the body’s death. During the dream, Cardano interprets the ‘high fe-

ver’ o f th e soul as th e in ner fire o f its necessary purificat io n, although th esephysical symptoms could also mean that the death of our identity doesn’t

occur abruptly, but rather as a slow and final process of withdrawal from

life. Ca rdano’s vie w o f the imm ortality o f the soul is notoriously comp lex

and cannot be discussed in detail in this short essay. In his fine analysis of

Cardano’s D e im m o rta li ta te , Jose M anuel Garcia Valverde infers that «Carda-

1 Cardano, So mniorum Synesio rum, i, 14, p. 90.2 Cardano, The Book o f My Life, 37, p. 140.3 Cardano, So mniorum Synesio rum, iv, 4, p. 604.

t h e d i a l o g u e b e t w e e n t h e l i v i n g a n d t h e d e a d 4 79



48o a r m a n d o m a g g i

no’s theory of the immortality of the soul [is] based on the survival of only

the active intellect, which by its nature is impassive » and thus « rules out the

possibility o f kno wle dge o f particulars after death». 1 In the fifth section of

De sapientia, Cardano holds that, given the harsh vicissitudes of life, institu-tionalized religion protects people from despair. 2

In a subsequent dream, Marinoni refused to touch Cardano’s hand, turned

around, and left without saying a word. This time, however, Marinoni did

not depart alone. Giovanni Battista followed the dead friend and his father

followed his son. T he philosopher lost track o f them and then found his son

in the entrance of a solitary house. At that point, he dreamt of waking up

and rejoicing that what he had just experienced was only a dream and thus

no harm would befall his dear son. Seeing a bright light entering from a

window, the philosopher dreamt o f getting up and shaking o ff the anguish

he had felt in the dream. Still dreaming, he saw that the door of his room was wide open and death stood there waiting for him.

1 J. M. Garcia Valv erd e, Th e arguments against the immor tality o f the soul in De imm ortali

tate animorum o f Girolamo Cardano, «Bruniana & Campanelliana », xiii, 2007/1, pp. 5777: 73.2 G. Cardano, D e sa pientia libri quinq ue , ed. M. Bracali, Florence, Olschki, 2008, p. 259.

See Bracali’s important remarks in the introduction to his edition. For Bracali, Cardano be-lieves that «l’idea di immortalita e, si, radicata nell’uomo, ma come errore, innata illusionedell’animo» (p. xxvii).

armando maggi - the dialogue between the living and the dead in cardano's thought

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