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Giovan Battista Della Porta and the Invention of Experimental Magic: Collaborative Empiricism and the Dialectic of Disclosure and Secrecy

  • Donato Verardi

This chapter explores Giovan Battista Della Porta’s Magia naturalis as a pivotal site for the development of experimental approaches to natural philosophy in Renaissance Naples. Focusing on the expanded twenty-book edition (Magiae naturalis libri XX), it examines how Della Porta combined a Peripatetic framework with empirical inquiry to investigate medicine, alchemy, optics, and mechanics, positioning the magus as both coordinator and guarantor of collective knowledge. The study highlights the collaborative dimension of his work, exemplified by the Academia Secretorum Naturae, and situates it within broader Neapolitan intellectual networks that fostered shared experimentation and practical innovation. It also emphasizes Della Porta’s commitment to disseminating knowledge, including through vernacular publications, as part of a moral and ethical vision that linked empirical research to public benefit. By analyzing the interplay of openness, secrecy, collaboration, and guiding authority in Della Porta’s methodology, the paper argues that Magia naturalis illuminates the transitional epistemology of early modern science, revealing the complex processes through which natural magic engaged with empirical and experimental practices.

  • Keywords:
  • natural magic,
  • natural philosophy,
  • academia secretorum naturae,
  • secrets,
  • secrecy,
  • collective knowledge,
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Donato Verardi

Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-3625-1181

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  • Publication Year: 2025
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Giovan Battista Della Porta and the Invention of Experimental Magic: Collaborative Empiricism and the Dialectic of Disclosure and Secrecy

Authors

Donato Verardi

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0836-9.03

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Hunting Secrets

Book Subtitle

Giovan Battista Della Porta and the Invention of Experimental Magic

Editors

Donato Verardi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

168

Publication Year

2025

Copyright Information

© 2025 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0836-9

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0835-2

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0836-9

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-0837-6

Series Title

Knowledge and its Histories

Series ISSN

3035-5974

Series E-ISSN

3035-5923

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