Under the gaze of Ulysses –

Species, words and other landscapes

a TRAVEL NOTEBOOK by Manuel Valente Alves


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Memoria and inventio

“Zeuxis, the painter, painting the inner images of memory, introduces a comparison of painting with poetry. To painters and poets, says Bruno, there is distributed an equal power. The painter excels in imaginative power (phantastica virtus); the poet excels in cogitative power to which he is impelled by an enthusiasm, deriving from a divine afflatus, to give expression. Thus the source of the poet's power is close to that of painter: 'Whence philosofers are in some ways painters and poets; poets are painters and philosophers; painters are philosophers and poets. Whence true poets, true painters, and true philosophers seek one another out and admire one another. [Giordano Bruno]” –– Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (1966)