Pietro Bongo

Numerorum mysteria , 1591

Pietro Bongo (also Petrus Bungus , Pietro Bungo ) (* 1st half of the 16th century in Bergamo , Republic of Venice ; † September 24, 1601 ibid) was an Italian polymath who stood out in particular with a monumental work on number symbolism (numerology) .

Life

Pietro Bongo came from the formerly influential Guelf noble family of the Bonghi.

Bongo studied the four mathematical arts of the quadrivium : arithmetic and geometry , music theory and astronomy , as well as philosophy and theology , as well as classical poetry and the secret sciences of magic and Kabbalistic studies . He mastered the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages.

He received a position as preacher and cantor and a canon at the Cathedral of S. Alessandro in his hometown. He had special relationships with the cardinals Ludovico Madruzzo and Gian Girolamo Albani . He was in contact with the poet Camillo Camilli, the author Publio Fontana, who was also very interested in numerology, and the mathematician and philosopher Giuseppe Unicorni.

meaning

Bongo's main interest was the Pythagorean speculation of numbers, which, according to his understanding, was almost entirely based on Jewish tradition, an arcane science that has nothing in common with ordinary "commercial" arithmetic, but which could help the Platonic knowledge of the divine archetype of numbers. This knowledge would not only offer adequate explanations for the structure of the world , but also for otherwise unsolvable problems in the interpretation of the Bible .

Its importance lies primarily in the fact that it has systematically compiled the numerical symbolism taught by 400 authors, without which the important symbolic prerequisites of antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance cannot be researched in a historically sound manner.

Bongo's numerological work appeared in ever larger editions under the following titles:

• De mystica quaternarii numeri significatione , Bergamo 1583
• De mystica numerorum significatione , Bergamo 1584; Venice 1585
• Mysticae numerorum significationis liber , Bergamo 1585 and so on.
• Numerorum mysteria , Bergamo 1591
• Numerorum mysteria , Bergamo 1599 (thereafter all other editions)

Modern edition

• Numerorum mysteria , reprint of Bergamo 1599 edition, ed. and introduced by Ulrich Ernst, Hildesheim a. a. 1983

literature

• Donato Calvi, Scena letteraria de gli Scrittori Bergamaschi, I, Bergamo 1664, 436–439 ( digitized , with portrait)
• Valerio Valeri:  Bongo, Pietro. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 12:  Bonfadini – Borrello. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1970.
• Introduction by Ulrich Ernst to the reprint Hildesheim 1983 (see above)

Web links

• Numerorum mysteria, Paris edition 1618 ( digitized )