In Magic and Memory in Giordano Bruno Manuel Mertens unravels the enigmatic knot between the mnemonic treatises and the magical writings of the sixteenth-century Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno. Since long the magical orientation of the Brunian art of memory has been a preoccupation for Bruno scholars (like Paolo Rossi, Frances Yates and Rita Sturlese). This serious study of the philosophical underpinnings of both Bruno’s mnemonic treatises and his writings on magic shows that Bruno believed his mnemonic method could prevent demons from corrupting the cognitive process. Mertens’s focus on Bruno’s idea of deification through memory and the philosopher’s view on fiery heroic spirits points to a surprisingly literal reading of the heretic’s last words.

Instrumentos Matemáticos complexos permitiram realizar com sucesso tarefas tão distintas como a programação de um voo a Marte, a previsão de resultados eleitorais, a explicação do funcionamento de alguns mecanismos do sistema nervoso, ou a abordagem crítica de obras de arte e de textos literários. Da Ciência à Sociedade, dos grandes avanços técnicos à solidez de uma argumentação lógica, a Matemática constrói Teias de uma imensa flexibilidade resultante do carácter universal da sua linguagem. Neste livro personalidades de diferentes universos dão o seu testemunho sobre a forma como usam as Teias Matemáticas para tecer a sua própria visão do mundo.

Measured Words explores the rich commerce between computation and writing that proliferated in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy. In this captivating and generously illustrated work, Arielle Saiber studies the relationship between number, shape, and the written word in the works of four exceptional thinkers of the time: Leon Battista Alberti, Luca Pacioli, Niccolò Tartaglia, and Giambattista Della Porta. Although these Renaissance humanists came from different social classes and practised the mathematical and literary arts at varying levels of sophistication, they were all guided by a sense that there exist deep ontological and epistemological bonds between computational and verbal thinking and production. Their shared view that a network or continuity exists between the literary arts and mathematics yielded extraordinary results, from Alberti’s treatise on cryptography and Pacioli’s design calculations for the Roman alphabet to Tartaglia’s poetic solutions of cubic equations and Della Porta’s dramatic applications of geometry. Through lively, cogent analysis of these and other related texts of the period, Measured Words presents, literally and figuratively, brilliant examples of what interdisciplinary work can offer us.

Recull dels textos de les conferències donades al Curso de Verano que, sota el títol "400 años de matemáticas en torno al último teorema de Fermat" va organitzar la Universidad Complutense de Madrid a El Escorial (Madrid), durant el mes d'agost de 1994.