Giambattista della Porta (Italian: [dʒambatˈtista della ˈpɔrta]; 1535 – 4 February 1615), also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar, polymath and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution and Counter-Reformation. Giambattista della Porta spent the majority of his life on scientific endeavours. He benefited from an informal education of tutors and visits from renowned scholars. His most famous work, first published in 1558, is entitled Magia Naturalis (Natural Magic). In this book he covered a variety of the subjects he had investigated, including occult philosophy, astrology, alchemy, mathematics, meteorology, and natural philosophy. He was also referred to as "professor of secrets".
Childhood Giambattista della Porta was born at Vico Equense, near Naples, to the nobleman Nardo Antonio della Porta. He was the third of four sons and the second to survive childhood, having an older brother Gian Vincenzo and a younger brother Gian Ferrante. Della Porta had a privileged childhood including his education. His father had a thirst for learning, a trait he would pass on to all of his children. He surrounded himself with distinguished people and entertained the likes of philosophers, mathematicians, poets, and musicians. The atmosphere of the house resembled an academy for his sons. The members of the learned circle of friends stimulated the boys, tutoring and mentoring them, under the strict guidance of their father. In addition to having talents for the sciences and mathematics, all the brothers were also extremely interested in the arts, music in particular. Despite their interest, none of them possessed any sort of talent for it, but they did not allow that to stifle their progress in learning theory. They were all accepted into the Scuola di Pitagora, a highly exclusive academy of musicians. More aware of their social position than the idea that his sons could have professions in science, Nardo Antonio raised the boys more as gentlemen than as scholars. Therefore, the boys struggled to learn to sing, as that was considered a courtly accomplishment of gentlemen. They were taught to dance, ride, perform well in tournaments and games, and dress well. The training gave della Porta, at least earlier in his life, a taste for the finer aspects of privileged living. "From approximately 1563 to 1566 Della Porta travels to other parts of Italy, France and Spain, collecting secrets and meeting with learned men. Indeed he presented to Philip II his book on ciphers De Furtivis Literarum Notis (1563). The second edition of his Magia Naturalis (1561) also contains a brief dedication to the Spanish Philip"
Scientific disciplines
In 1563, della Porta published De Furtivis Literarum Notis, a work about cryptography. In it, he described the first known digraphic substitution cipher. Charles J. Mendelsohn commented:
He was, in my opinion, the outstanding cryptographer of the Renaissance. Some unknown who worked in a hidden room behind closed doors may possibly have surpassed him in general grasp of the subject, but among those whose work can be studied he towers like a giant. Della Porta invented a method which allowed him to write secret messages on the inside of eggs. Some of his friends were imprisoned by the Inquisition. At the gate of the prison, everything was checked except for eggs. Della Porta wrote messages on the eggshell using a mixture made of plant pigments and alum. The ink penetrated the eggshell which is semi-porous. When the eggshell was dry, he boiled the egg in hot water and the ink on the outside of the egg was washed away. When the recipient in prison peeled off the shell, the message was revealed once again on the egg white. De Furtivis Literarum Notis also contains one of the earliest known examples of music substitution ciphers. In 1586 della Porta published a work on physiognomy, De humana physiognomonia libri IIII (1586). This influenced the Swiss eighteenth-century pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater as well as the 19th-century criminologist Cesare Lombroso. Della Porta wrote extensively on a wide spectrum of subjects throughout his life – for instance, an agricultural encyclopedia entitled "Villa" as well as works on meteorology, optics, and astronomy.
In 1589, on the eve of the early modern Scientific Revolution, della Porta became the first person to attack in print, on experimental grounds, the ancient assertion that garlic could disempower magnets. This was an early example of the authority of early authors being replaced by experiment as the backing for a scientific assertion. Della Porta's conclusion was confirmed experimentally by Thomas Browne, among others. In later life, della Porta collected rare specimens and grew exotic plants. His work Phytognomonica lists plants according to their geographical location. In Phytognomonica the first observation of fungal spores is recorded, making him a pioneer of mycology. His private museum was visited by travellers and was one of the earliest examples of natural history museums. It inspired the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher to begin a similar, even more renowned, collection in Rome.
Pioneering scientific society Della Porta was the founder of a scientific society called the Academia Secretorum Naturae (Accademia dei Segreti). This group was more commonly known as the Otiosi, (Men of Leisure). Founded sometime before 1580, the Otiosi were one of the first scientific societies in Europe and their aim was to study the "secrets of nature." Any person applying for membership had to demonstrate they had made a new discovery in the natural sciences. The Academia Secretorum Naturae was compelled to disband when its members were suspected of dealing with the occult. Della Porta was summoned to Rome by Pope Gregory XIII. Though he personally emerged from the meeting unscathed, the Academia Secretorum Naturae disbanded. Despite this incident, della Porta remained religiously devout and became a lay Jesuit brother. Della Porta joined The Academy of the Lynxes in 1610.
Technological contributions
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
