Giambattista della Porta

1535–1615

Giambattista della Porta was an Italian polymath, playwright and natural philosopher of the Renaissance. His interests ranged from optics and natural magic to cryptography and theatre, placing him within the experimental and learned culture of early modern Italy.

For Historical Bookshelf, this entry is best treated as a historical or literary figure rather than a fictional character. It can support pages where novels refer to writers, playwrights, philosophers or scholars as part of a period’s intellectual background.

In S. J. Parris’s The Academy of Secrets, the young Dominican Giordano Bruno is invited into the private academy of Giambattista della Porta, where scholars test new ideas in natural philosophy, memory and the hidden properties of the world.

Series

Series featuring Giambattista della Porta (1 series)

Giordano Bruno Novels in Order

by S. J. Parris 10 books 4.3

The Giordano Bruno novels follow the historical Italian philosopher through a fictional career as investigator and intelligence agent. Beginning with his youth in Dominican Naples and continuing through exile in Elizabethan England, France and Prague, the series combines murder mysteries with Reformation conflict, court politics, espionage and Renaissance…

All books in this series