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JOHANN HOST VON ROMBERCH (fl. 1485-1532)
Congestorium
Artificiose Memorie.
[Venice, Melchiorre Sessa, 1533]
Originally
published in 1520, Host von Romberch's work draws on a wide variety of sources,
including the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian, Francesco
Petrarch (1304-1374), and Peter of Ravenna (b. 1448). He gives to the
usual use of memory loci (mental places for storing data) a novel
twist, that of employing Dante's Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. In
discussing mental images or symbols of information to be recalled, he
offers the reader a section on visual alphabets, in which the images used
resemble the shape of letters. The final portion of Congestorium
deals with the memorization of grammar and of abstract concepts from the
sciences and theology. This portion has been much influenced by Thomas
Aquinas (1225?-1274). (BMC Italian books p. 335; NUC 255:600 (NH
0537275); Young p. 164)
RAMON LULL (d. 1315)
Opera.
Strassburg, Lazer Zetzner,
1609.
A contemporary of Thomas
Aquinas, Lull developed his memory system at a time when the mediaeval
mneumonic techniques derived from rhetoric were at their height. Up to his
time, mneumonics aimed solely at facilitating the immediate recall of
data. Lull introduced a new dimension by making his Art, as he called it,
a means to an end, the discovery of truth. This was possible, he claimed,
because his Art was based upon the divine attributes (goodness, wisdom,
and the like) and thus reflected the highest truth, the Trinity. Another
feature of his system is the use of letter notation rather than corporeal
images, then customary in memory systems, to designate concepts. Finally,
Lull introduced the use of movement into mneumonics. The most important
instance of this is the combinatory wheel, made up of moving concentric
circles marked with figures. By revolving the wheels mentally, various
combinations of the concepts represented by the figures were
possible.
This edition of Lull's works includes a commentary
by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486?-1535), better known
for his work on Hermetic and cabalist magic, De Occulta Philosophia
(Paris, 1531). Appended also is a piece on Lull by Giordano Bruno
(1548-1600), whose work on memory as a Hermetic secret, De Umbris
Idearum (Paris, 1582), freely adopts Lull's combinatory wheel
technique. (Bibliothèque Nationale CI:831; Young p. 217)
JACOPO PUBLICO (15th cent.)
Ars Oratoria. Ars Epistolandi
supra Scriptones Epistolarum. Et Ars Memorativa.
[Augsburg, Erhard
Ratdolt, 1490] A work written sometime prior to 1460, the
Ars
Oratoria is primarily a piece on rhetoric. Faithful to mediaeval
tradition, it has appended to it a brief treatise on memory. Following
the methods of mnemonist as corporeal similitudes of the items to be
remembered. Publicius uses the heavenly spheres -- planets, stars,
paradise -- as memory loci. First published separately at Cologne
in 1480, Ars Memorativa is the earliest printed treatise on
memory. (BMC 15th cent. II:384 (IA 6700); Galland p. 151; Polain (B)
3278; Young p. 171)
RHETORICA AD HERENNIUM
M. T. Ciceronis Rhetoricorum Libri
recenter Castigati Interpretibus.
[Milan, Giovanni Angelo
Scinzenzeler, 1511] This anonymous work, written ca. 86-82 B.
C.,
is the only surviving Latin rhetorical treatise describing in detail the
classical art of memory. It was attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero
during the Renaissance, but this attribution is highly unlikely. With
the exception of Lullism, the Ad Herennium formed the basis of all
memory systems developed during the middle ages. The author's mnemonic
system involves the use of loci, such as buildings, in which the
mind puts symbolic pictures, or images, of data to be remembered. To
recollect material, the person would mentally walk through the memory
building and "see" the items to be recalled. Edited by Freancesco
Maturanzio (d. 1518) and others, the volume includes a genuine work of
Cicero, De Inventione, often printed or bound with the Ad
Herennium.
This volume, in a contempory vellum binding, is
clearly a composite, dating from 1511. Differing types are used for the Ad Herennium
and De Inventione. The foliation, although continuous, is an
Arabic and Roman numerals respectively for each work. The title page
bears a woodcut like that in several Leonard Pachel issues of the Ad
Herennium. The register on the verso of the last leaf of the volume
includes only the De Inventione. Below this register there is the
printer's mark of Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler. Apparently Scinzenzeler
has taken excess signatures of the Ad Herennium from the 1411
Pachel edition of both works, and bound them with his own printing of
Scinzenzeler's own complete printing of the two works appeared in 1512.
No other copies of this composite issue are known. The following
citations have reference only to complete editions of the two works
appearing in 1509, 1511,and 1512. (Balsamo 105; Bibliothéque
Nationale XXIX:290 (no. 2684); BMC 39:600; Orelli OT I:219-220; Panzer
XI:462)
COSMAS ROSSELLIUS (d. 1578)
Thesavrvs Artificiosae
Memoriae.
Venice, Antonio Padovani, 1579. Published posthumously,
Thesaurus is in the mediaeval tradition of memory systems.
Particularly favorable to the Dantesque type of memory loci,
Rossellius encourages the mnemonist to picture in his mind Hell and
Paradise with the vividness of a Renaissance painting. He also advoates
the use of the constellations as loci. The usual visual alphabet
is given extensive treatment. In this context Rossellius describes a
digital alphabet, or sign manual, for the fingers. Accompanying the
description are five woodcuts containing the earliest known
representation of a digital sign language. Together with Host von
Romberch, Rossellius became one of the most widely read and influential
writers of the sixteenth century on the art of memory. (Adams R803; BMC
Italian books p. 588; Young p. 307)
JOHN WILLIS (d. 1628?)
Mnemonica; sive, Reminiscendi
Ars.
London, Nathaniel Browne, 1618. Mnemonica is
interesting
chiefly because of its use of the Elizabethan theater as a memory
locus. Dividing a theater in half, lengthwise, Willis produces
what he terms a memory repository having two rooms, designed for very
simple mnemotechnic, such as shopping lists or prices. The importance of
Willis' work lies in its probable influence on Robert Fludd (1574-1637).
In the second part of his Utriusque Cosmoi Maioris scilicet et
Minoris, Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia (Oppenheim,
1619), Fludd develops this use of the theater as a memory locus
along Hermetic-cabalist lines. Frances Yates points out that Fludd uses
as his model locus the famous Globe Theater in London. Willis may
also be the inspiration behid Fludd's theaters of Night and Day in the
zodiac, parts of an occult memory system. Mnemonica was translated
into English by Leonard Sowersby in 1661. (Carlton (Pepys) p. 21; Galland
p. 203; STC 25748; Young p. 378)
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