J. F. Niceron : perspective and artificial magic

The essay deals with the perspectival and artistic work of minim Father Jean François Niceron (1613- 1646), whose life was expressed in a very short period of time - just 33 years - but full of political and cultural events, reflected in works offered today to the eyes of the contemporary observer as extraordinary charades, in perfect ballance between mathematical rigor and taste for the wonderful and amazing. Author of two treaties (the second of which published posthumously) that have become milestones in studies of Seventeenth-century perspective - La perspective curieuse (Paris 1638) and the Thaumaturgus opticus (Paris 1646) -, Niceron developed from an early age his expressive world which he translated in acutely deceptive works: catoptric anamorphoses, refractive games and murals in accelerated perspective (the only one survived, depicting St. John the Evangelist writing the Apocalypse in Patmos, it is now visible at the Convent of SS. Trinita dei Monti, Rome), to name a few types. The biography of the author outlines a life, suspended between France and Italy, engaged not only in debates that developed in the most important scientific and cultural circles of the two countries, but also in theological and religious duties required by his religious Order. The author was fascinated throughout its existence from the idea that in the nature was hiding a divine secret code of which mathematics, and primarily optics, could become interpreters, creating an expressive vocabulary that through the artificial magic re-produces its absolute configurative secret nature, the laws of its making and of its development. His epistemological journey has crossed the paths of Cartesian and Hobbesian thought, his works often becoming a true reflection of contemporary philosophical positions, while nevertheless preserving their stylistic autonomy, both in content and in form.