LES HEBDOMADES DE FABIO PAOLINI : MAGIE, ARITHMOLOGIE ET TENSION ENTRE SECRET ET RÉVÉLÉ DANS L’ACADÉMIE DU XVIE SIÈCLE

Humanist, philosopher and doctor, Fabio Paolini (1550-1604) was the main animator of the Academy of the Uranici, founded in 1587 in Venice. Two years later, in 1589, Paolini published the Hebdomades, a collection of discourses he had delivered to the Uranici. Divided into seven books, Paolini’s work is based on the numerological interpretation of the number seven, starting with the analysis of a famous verse by Virgil about Orpheus (Aeneid VI, 646). In the Hebdomades, the centrality of the number seven represents the relationships between the powers of the celestial and terrestrial creatures, linked to the existence of principles of harmony, semina harmoniae, in all things. This concept, which reveals the influence of Ficino’s thought, combines the search for connections with the universal soul, or Anima mundi, which has the ability to animate everything. The action of the universal soul is determined by harmonic consonances; therefore, arithmology, or the study of the qualities of numbers, is well suited to discover these relationships, as the author’s frequent calculations and remarks show. In the chapters of the Hebdomades dedicated to the theory of magic, we feel the constant tension between the secret and the revealed, or between references to magical and astrological doctrines and the pronouncements of the ecclesiastical authorities. However, despite this precarious balance between censorship and secrecy, these pages reveal the strong interest of Paolini and the Uranici in planetary magic, aimed at capturing the influences of the Anima mundi.