This article examines the status of shadows, in particular in Giordano Bruno's ars memorativa. As 'traces of light', shadows not only embody the universal substrate of an infinitely extended material universe, but human action, thought and communication also necessarily depend on the medium of the shadow. Bruno's mnemonics teaches the targeted, deliberately steered – if not even deceitful – handling of the shadows. In contrast to the Platonic tradition, he ascribes shadows a status that is independent of Platonic ideas. This article argues that Bruno thus develops out of a Platonic dialectic a specifically Promethean poetics, a universal art of the shadow. This, in turn, enables the embodied individual to shift the boundaries of knowledge and to arrange the things of this world.