Giulio Camillo’s Theatre of Knowledge Revisited

Abstract

In the Sixteenth Century, the Italian humanist Giulio Camillo built a ‘Theatre of Knowledge’ for the French King Francis I. Previous scholarship has debated whether this theatre was a physical place, a mental (mnemonic) space, or both. New archival evidence that has been overlooked in previous scholarship on Camillo, and his theatre, unequivocally proves for the first time that Camillo’s theatre had in fact been built in Paris. This invites a reconsideration of past reconstructions of the theatre and allows for the formulation of a new one. In this article, I have explored the hypothesis that Camillo’s theatre resembled an anatomy theatre. I have used 3D modelling and virtual reality in order to reconstruct some of the spatial features of Camillo’s theatre and explore how these insights further our understanding of his theatre in terms of historical and current practices surrounding the presentation of information and the invention of new knowledge.