For a Mnemotechnical Reading of Guido Casoni’s Della Magia d’amore

Abstract

In Della Magia d’Amore (1591) the poet Guido Casoni showed a deep philosophical awareness, although the treatise has been mostly read as a mere divertissement. Indeed, in those years, Casoni attended to the refoundation of the Accademia Veneziana, which presented the heterodox aim to reorganize the system of knowledge through mnemotechnical strategies. The aim of this work is to focus on the mnemotechnical tools in Della Magia d’Amore to restore its philosophical design, in coherence with the cultural aim of the Academy. The memory and practical application of love theories are reinterpreted according to a particular declination of Neoplatonic anamnesis.