In the introduction, Saiber describes Bruno as a 16th century polymath who was a philosopher, poet, playwright, mnemonist and magus but at his core an architect of ideas. Saiber further adds that "Many among the educated class familiar with esoteric learning, like Bruno, looked to locate and empower themselves through spacial manipulation and symbloic permutation, such as memory theaters. encyclopedias, kabbalah, natural magic, alchemy, and searches for the 'perfect language.' Bruno's writing indeed contains verbal patterns that signal an unusual sensibility to the shape of of space - whether of the heavens, between people, on a page, or of one's mind." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.