Alexander Dicsone

Alexander Dicsone (also Dicson and Dickson, Italian: Alessandro Dicsono) (1558–by 1604) was a Scottish writer and political agent. He is known also as the leading British disciple of Giordano Bruno. He used the pseudonym Heius Scepsius.^[1]

Life

Dicsone was born in Perthshire, and studied at the University of St Andrews.^[2] He became a follower and personal friend of Bruno, who was in England during the years 1583 to 1585. It is considered probable that they met in this period, though not certain. Dicsone in any case was then in England, and became the outstanding disciple of Bruno in England and Scotland.^[3][4] He is mentioned in Bruno's dialogues, along with another British disciple ("Smith") who remains unidentified.^[5] Bruno and Dickson were part of the intellectual circle of Sir Philip Sidney.^[6]

Dicsone opposed Ramism, and was attacked in the Antidicsonus by "G.P." Now considered to be by William Perkins, it has also been attributed to Gerard Peeters.^[7][8] Walter Ong considered this dispute one of the major controversies over Ramism.^[9] Frances Yates argued that it should be considered as "over-lapping" with the debate of Bruno with the Aristotelians at Oxford, also in 1584.^[10] Perkins represented the Puritan view of mnemonic techniques based on images, which considered them tainted with idolatry, heresy, Catholicism and obscenity.^[11] With Bruno and Dicsone, Perkins mentioned in his dedicatory epistle Metrodorus of Scepsis and Cosma Rosselli.^[12]

The memory technique taught by Dicsone was questioned by Hugh Plat in 1594.^[13] It has been suggested that Dicsone was led to Bruno's memory theory by the requirement for memorable textbooks.^[14]

By 1588 Dicsone was working for Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll. Hay was a Catholic and rebel, and Dicsone acted as a go-between for his master and the Scottish Kirk. He was mixture of spy and double agent, a position eventually untenable.^[15]

Dicsone was in trouble with James VI of Scotland for carrying letters from Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, an English Catholic in exile. He declared himself a Catholic by the same year, 1591. He went on further continental travels, in the Catholic interest, with Peter Lowe. In the later 1590s James VI recruited him, and Dicsone wrote in James's causes. He is last heard of trying to bring John Davidson to heel, in 1603.^[15]

Dicsone had died by the time an elegy on him by Thomas Murray appeared in 1604.^[15] His hermetic interests are considered an influence on Scottish "mason craft" (the precursor of freemasonry).^[16]

Works

• De umbra rationis et judicii (1583). The Philological Museum; Alexander Dickson, De Umbra Rationis et Iudicii (1584), Online text
• Defensio pro Alexander Dicsono Arelio (1584).^[17] This work was under the pseudonym "Heius Scepsius", implying Dicsone was prepared to identify with (Metrodorus of) Scepsis, and accepted the "criticism" of using the signs of the Zodiac in memory technique.^[15]

Dicsone dedicated his books to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.^[18]

Notes

1. R. P. H. Green; P. H. Burton; Deborah J. Ford (2012). Scottish Latin Authors in Print Up to 1700: A Short-title List. Leuven University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-90-5867-899-7.
2. David Stevenson (20 September 1990). The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590–1710. Cambridge University Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-521-39654-7.
3. William Boulting (15 February 2013). Giordano Bruno: His Life, Thought, and Martyrdom. Routledge. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-415-63826-5.
4. David Stevenson (20 September 1990). The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590–1710. Cambridge University Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-521-39654-7.
5. Frances A. Yates (14 April 2011). John Florio: The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare's England. Cambridge University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-521-17074-1.
6. The Philological Museum; Alexander Dickson, De Umbra Rationis et Iudicii (1584), Introduction
7. Marsha Keith Schuchard (1 January 2002). Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture. BRILL. p. 204. ISBN 978-90-04-12489-9.
8.  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). "Peeters, Gerard". Dictionary of National Biography 44. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
9. Walter J. Ong (5 October 2012). Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture. Cornell University Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-8014-6632-8.
10. Frances A. Yates (31 October 2011). The Art of Memory. Random House. p. 272. ISBN 978-1-4481-0413-0.
11. James B. Worthen; R. Reed Hunt (20 May 2011). Mnemonology: Mnemonics for the 21st Century. Psychology Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-136-84797-4.
12. Paolo Rossi (3 January 2006). Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language. Continuum. p. 280 note 8. ISBN 978-1-84714-461-4.
13. William E. Engel (1995). Mapping Mortality: The Persistence of Memory and Melancholy in Early Modern England. Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 243 note 16. ISBN 978-0-87023-998-4.
14. Alexander Broadie (2009). A History of Scottish Philosophy. Edinburgh University Press. p. 103 note 5. ISBN 978-0-7486-1628-2.
15. Beal, Peter. "Dicsone, Alexander". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73792. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
16. Donald R. Dickson (1998). The Tessera of Antilia: Utopian Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in the Early Seventeenth Century. BRILL. p. 285. ISBN 978-90-04-11032-8.
17. Lawrence D. Green; James Jerome Murphy (1 January 2006). Renaissance Rhetoric Short Title Catalogue, 1460–1700. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-7546-0509-6.
18. Christopher Hill (1991). Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford, Clarendon Press. pp. 134–5 note 7.