Beings as Epithets: The Planetary Invocations of Giordano Bruno’s Cantus Circaeus – Part I

Cantus Circaeus, or The Song of Circe, was a work on the art of memory published by Giordano Bruno in Paris in 1582, toward the beginning of his career as an author. Intended as a briefer introduction and application of the art of memory (a complex though practical mnemonic system involving the method of loci, aka the use of memory palaces) for his students, the work was a follow-up to De Umbris Idearum (On the Shadow of Ideas), Bruno’s first and quite well-known work.

At a practical and mundane level, we thought these invocations were worthwhile to share more broadly as a later Renaissance example of planetary invocation. We suspect they could be quite practically useful in planetary ritual, either as-is or as templates for composing one’s own similar invocations. English translations and the original Latin text are included in this first part of this post.