Premise

This text serves as the author's premise to the open-access volume collecting the proceedings of the International Conference “Hunting Secrets. Giovan Battista Della Porta and the Invention of Experimental Magic” (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2025). The author contextualizes the publication as a core deliverable of the EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie project SECRETS, emphasizing how its open-access model aligns with modern principles of open science and global academic collaboration. Furthermore, the premise outlines the volume's core editorial objective: to introduce a multidisciplinary reappraisal of Della Porta’s Magia naturalis libri XX (1589). By highlighting the diverse perspectives examined in the collection—ranging from epistemology and experimental science to art, music, and gender studies—the author frames the volume as a crucial stimulus for deeply reevaluating Della Porta's role in the reform of magic and the dawn of early modern European knowledge.