Si igitur secreta evulgentur, cum communia fiunt, decorem et nobilitatem amittunt : Il De secretis di Girolamo Cardano

This article examines the path that leads girolamo cardano (1501-1576) to write and publish the De secretis ( basel 1562) and it discusses some philosophical issues that emerge in this work, such as the nature of the wise-man and the question of demons. This historical analysis allows to consider the book related to the alchemy and natural philosophy of the r enaissance. e specially, this article regards as deci - sive the existence of a dialectical relationship between cardano and conrad gesner (1516-1565): in the Thesaurus Euonymi Philiatrii (Zürich 1552) the Swiss naturalist cites alchemical ideas of the De subtilitate ( n ürnberg 1550), in the De rerum varietate ( b asel 1557) c ardano reports and compares practices of distillation extracted from the Thesaurus of g esner. t hese complex relationships return in the De secretis where the only secret ‘revealed’ is the recipe, obtained with distilled water, for the care of the calculi. l astly the article compares the De secretis with the r enaissance books of secrets. T he work of c ardano can not be included in this literature: the esoteric nature of secret and the fact that only the wise-man can learn the secrets are elements that differentiate Cardano t his article examines the path that leads g irolamo c ardano (1501-1576) to write and publish the De secretis ( b asel 1562) and it discusses some philosophical issues that emerge in this work, such as the nature of the wise-man and the question of demons. This historical analysis allows to consider the book related to the alchemy and natural philosophy of the r enaissance. e specially, this article regards as deci - sive the existence of a dialectical relationship between c ardano and c onrad g esner (1516-1565): in the Thesaurus Euonymi Philiatrii (Zürich 1552) the Swiss naturalist cites alchemical ideas of the De subtilitate ( n ürnberg 1550), in the De rerum varietate ( basel 1557) c ardano reports and compares practices of distillation extracted from the Thesaurus of gesner. These complex relationships return in the De secretis where the only secret ‘revealed’ is the recipe, obtained with distilled water, for the care of the calculi. l astly the article compares the De secretis with the r enaissance books of secrets. the work of c ardano cannot be included in this literature: the esoteric nature of secret and the fact that only the wise-man can learn the secrets are elements that differentiate c ardano from the r enaissance authors of libri secretorum .