«Quell'intelletto artefice...». Causa, principio ed intelletto universale nel De la causa di Bruno

This essay will focus on Bruno’s analysis of the concepts of cause, principle and universal intellect contained in the second dialogue of Cause, Principle and Unity. Starting from the distinction between theology and philosophy, which deal, respectively, with God, «first cause and first principle», and nature, the «proximate cause and principle», Bruno chooses to leave aside the theological research, related to faith and concerning «things above the sphere of our intelligence», preferring to explore the nature as «vestige» and «shadow» of the unknowable Deity. After having clarified the difference between the terms ‘cause’ and ‘principle’, Bruno introduces the universal intellect as «first and principal faculty of the world soul», analyzing it as efficient, formal and final cause of natural production. The aim of the article is to examine Bruno’s theory of universal intellect from two different, but complementary, points of view: on the one hand, by means of reconstructing his continuous dialogue with the philosophical tradition, on the other hand, trying to show the philosophical meaning of this concept in the general context of his methaphysics.