Giordano Bruno - Hermetic Trinity, “Articuli Centum et Sexaginta Adversus Huius Tempestatis Mathematicos Atque Philosophos”, 1588. These three figures are said to be most ‘fecund’, not only for Geometry but for all sciences and for contemplating and operating. Figura Mentis - There is a ‘Supernal Triad’, consisting of the Father, or Mind, or plenitude; of the Son, or the Primal Intellect; of Light which is the Spirit of all things, or the Anima Mundi. Ancient theologians understand by the Father, or Mind, who generates Intellect, or the Son, between them being fulgor, or Light (Love). Hence one may contemplate in the Father, the Essence of Essences; in the Son the Beauty and Love of generating; in fulgor, or Light, the Spirit pervading and vivifying all. Thus a Triad may be imagined; ‘Pater, Mens; Filium Verbum; et per Verbum, Universa sunt Producta’. From Mens proceeds Intellectus; from Intellectus proceeds Affectus or Love. Mens sits above all; Intellectus sees and distributes all; Love makes and disposes all. This last is Light or fulgor which fills all things and is diffused through all. Whence it is called the Anima Mundi and Spiritus Universorum, and is that of which Virgil spoke when he said ‘Spiritus Intus Alit’. Figura Intellectus - A remarkable feature of Bruno’s “De Monade” is the use which he makes in it of Cecco d’Ascoli‘s Necromantic commentary on the Sphere of Sacrobosco. The longest quotation from Cecco comes when Bruno is discussing ten, the number sacred to the ten Sephiroth. He mentions these, but later describes orders of Demons or Spirits whose hierarchies can be contemplated in the intersection of Circles. These (the orders of Demons) are contemplated in the intersection of Circles, as Astophon says in “Libro Mineralium Constellatorum”. “O how great is the power in the intersection of Circles”. This is Cecco’s quotation from the “Astophon” who is to be heard of nowhere else and was probably invented by Cecco. It throws Light on why intersecting Circles are such a prominent feature in the Diagrams by which Bruno represents his Hermetic Trinity. Figura Amoris - Light is the vehicle in the Inner World through which the Divine images and intimations are imprinted, and this Light is not that through which normal sense impressions reach the eyes, but an Inner Light joined to a most profound contemplation, of which Moses speaks, calling it ‘Primogenita’, and of which Mercurius also speaks in “Pimander”. Here the Genesis-Pimander equation, so characteristic of the Hermetic-Cabalist tradition, is applied by Bruno to Creation of the Inner World.
