He studied philosophy and jurisprudence at the University of Padua in the years around 1500, and subsequently taught eloquence and logic at San Vito, an academy in Friuli.
[citation needed] Around the first decade of the sixteenth century Camillo lived in Venice, where he was in close contact with some of the most influential writers and artists of Europe.
He stayed near the house of the famous printer, Aldus Manutius, in the Sestiere di San Polo, in the centre of the city.
During this time, Camillo spent considerable care in charting regional differentiations in the Friulian dialect and was a champion of the local use of Italian, rather than Ladin.
L'Idea del theatro (The Idea of the Theater),[2] opens with a warning concerning an ancient tradition of esoteric writing: The most ancient and wisest of writers have always been accustomed to recommending to their writings the secrets of God under obscure veils, so that they be not intended, unless by those who (as says Christ) have ears to hear--i.e. who by God are elected to intend his own most saintly mysteries.
In Camillo's "Theatro" each "image...will signify for us intelligible things that cannot fall under the senses, but that we can only imagine or intend illuminated by the acting intellect".
Camillo argues against "philosophers ignorant of God" who identify the "active intellect" with human reason, insofar as this one is usually absent from men, who are merely capable of it.
As other ancient mythic "images" or "symbols," that of the three "Gorgoni" is used to protect the verities of the mind, or "the mystery of truth" ("il mistero della verita") from being profaned.
Camillo thought that by reducing knowledge into its constituent parts, you could come closer to comprehending hyle, the original essence, and consequently understand what makes the world tick.
The ‘idea of the Theatre’ was fundamentally a structure of conceptual relationships rather than a building of wood or stone, and it is on that level that Camillo's work bears most fruit.
Arranged in an ascending order from the planets, and affected by their influence, are a further six levels, which, broadly speaking, represent a gradual development from nature to art.
Erasmus was scathing of Camillo's work, and in a letter dated 5 July 1532 talks about the Theatre in terms of it being able to excite as great a "tragedy in study" as that which "Luther produced in religion".
[7] Giulio Camillo, posthumously, was referred to by a number of artists and writers, including Achille Bocchi, Ludovico Ariosto and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.