Francesco Giorgi Veneto was a Venetian Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

 friar, and author of the work De harmonia mundi totius from 1525. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy describes him as 'idiosyncratic'. He wrote also In Scripturam Sacram Problemata (1536).

Giorgi is extensively discussed in Frances Yates

Frances Yates

Dame Frances Amelia Yates DBE was a British historian. She taught at the Warburg Institute of the University of London for many years.She wrote extensively on the occult or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance...

, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (1979). In Chapter 4 she states
In Chapter 12 she discusses Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...

in the light of the theory of Daniel Banes that Shakespeare was familiar with Giorgi's and related writings on the Cabala

Cabala

Cabala may refer to one of several systems of Mysticism:* Kabbalah, the religious mystical system of Judaism...

.
A copy of De harmonia mundi is listed as once in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne

Library of Sir Thomas Browne

No single document gives better evidence of the erudition of Sir Thomas Browne, physician, philosopher and encyclopedist than the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of the Library of Sir Thomas Browne...

. It is possible that Browne's copy was bequeathed to him from Arthur Dee

Arthur Dee

Arthur Dee , the eldest son of Dr John Dee, was a physician and alchemist.He was the eldest son of John Dee, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of Bartholomew Fromond of East Cheam, Surrey, and was born at Mortlake on 13 July 1579. He accompanied his father in travels through Germany, Poland, and...

. John Dee

John Dee

John Dee was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.John Dee may also refer to:* John Dee , Basketball coach...

is also known to have possessed a copy of Giorgi's work.

External links

• De harmonia mundi totius cantica tria, Venetiis, in aedibus Bernardini de vitalibus chalcographi, 1525. Digitized version of the copy at the National Library of Finland, perhaps the only known uncensored copy.