Art of memory

Examines the medieval trope of poetic composition as analogous to building, linking it to method of memory art as an art, not of rote retention, but an instrument of composition. The essay discusses this trope as used in Chaucer's 'House of Fame', Geoffrey of Vinsauf 'Poetria nova', and other medieval poems.

Redazione, Segreteria di redazione e ricerca iconografica: Luca Ramin Segreteria organizzativa: Patrizia Fiori Grafica: Studio Bosi, Verona L'arte della memoria. Retorica, metodo, enciclopedia marco matteoli L'invenzione dell'arte della memoria e le fonti classiche Nella sezione del De oratore dedicata alla memoria, ultima parte dell'ars rhetorica, Cicerone narra un episodio accaduto al poeta greco Simonide di Ceo che segna, in qualche modo, l'atto di nascita della mnemotecnica. 1 Invitato a un banchetto fu chiesto a Simonide di declamare alcuni versi in onore del padrone di casa, vincitore di un'importante competizione sportiva. Tuttavia il poeta, nella sua lode, si soffermò troppo a decantare i divini Castore e Polluce, provocando il disappunto del suo ospite che lo riprese davanti ai convitati. Quando ormai lo sgradevole episodio sembrava superato, Simonide si assentò dal banchetto perché, gli fu detto, due giovani chiedevano di lui; appena fu fuori il tetto crollò sui presenti ed egli fu l'unico a sopravvivere alla strage. In seguito il poeta capì che i misteriosi giovani che gli avevano salvato la vita erano le due divinità a cui aveva dedicato il poema, attirando le ire del defunto padrone di casa. A Simonide toccò il triste compito di riconoscere le vittime della violenta tragedia ed ebbe modo, in questa sfortunata occasione, di mettere in pratica un espediente mnemonico per ricordarsi dei presenti: visualizzò dentro di sé l'ordine e la successione dei posti occupati dagli invitati, così facendo i loro nomi, assieme ai vol-1. L'episodio è riportato da F.A. Yates in apertura della sua fondamentale monografia L'arte della memoria, trad. it. Torino 1972 (1993 2 ); questo e il lavoro di P. Rossi, Clavis universalis. Arte della memoria e logica combinatoria da Lullo a Leibniz, Firenze 1960 -entrambi pubblicati per la prima volta negli anni Sessanta -costituiscono i due testi più importanti e completi sull'arte della memoria. Per ulterio-ri approfondimenti, cfr. L. Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria. Modelli letterari e iconografici nell'età della stampa, Torino 1995; M.J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory. A Study in Medieval Culture, Cambridge 1990; Ead., Machina memorialis: meditazione, retorica e costruzione delle immagini (400-1200), Pisa 2006; U. Eco, Alla ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea, Roma-Bari 1993.

("For sample chapter and browsing see: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=530423).  In this project I reflect on how the Southern Cone postdictatorship generations reshape the collective memory of the dictatorial past through political activism and forms of artistic expression (cinema, literature, comics and photography). I situate their work at the intersection of the individual and the collective: it helps artists and activists elaborate traumatic events individually but it also has a profound impact at the collective level, and it is enabled by changes in the political context. Collective memory and intergenerational transmissions are key concepts for understanding these generations' emergence and contributions.
The first part of my study focuses on Argentina, where this generation’s public interventions have broadened social involvement in remembering the past and encouraged learning from it for the sake of the present. In that respect, this generation’s participation is instrumental in achieving an “exemplary memory” in Todorov’s terms: a memory that allows us to draw lessons from the past in order to actively deal with abuses and social conflict in the present, and deciding which kind of society we want to live in.
In the second part, I compare the exemplary achievements in Argentina with Chile and Uruguay, where political conditions are less conducive to genuine debate. The book is written for teaching, research and a non-academic readership."

The aim of the present study is to consider the possible influence of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script on the formation of the art of memory in Greece. In the course of the search for the origins of the art of memory, the study considers the nature of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script as well as of its more complex and elaborate Ptolemaic variant, Greek encounters with Egypt and conceptions of Egyptian writing, as well as the connection of the art of memory and literacy. The art of memory is seen as an immaterial, individual logophonetic mnemography, and as such it is compared to the Egyptian writing.

The kunst-und-wunderkammer or as it is known now, Cabinet of Curiosities, is a
practice by aristocratic Northern European collectors to create an assemblage of artifacts
from a collector’s travels as well as objects they commissioned for their collections. It is
also important to note that this practice was embraced not only in Northern Europe but
also in Italy, where it was known as a studiolo. The cabinet is best represented in prints as
a way of visualizing the collection. These prints also served as a tool to assist viewers in
learning the organization of the cabinet, allowing them to access the knowledge of the
collector himself. This method was part of a mnemonic practice called the “art of
memory.” It is a memory device that allowed an individual to remember a large amount
of information and retain it. Essentially, the cabinet was a physical manifestation of the
art of memory, the prints serving to outline the kunst-und-wunderkammer for the viewer
to help them understand and mentally organize the collection. This discussion will center
on the use of prints depicting sixteenth-century kunst-und-wunderkammers as visual
representations of mnemonic systems of organization.

In this indirect augmented reality system we have reconstructed about 1 km of the Via Appia Antica with three time periods represented: 320 CE, 71 BCE, and 49 BCE. This situated simulation explores the notion of narrative movement and travel across space and time in a cultural heritage context. The transitions between the temporal phases are triggered by the users active repositioning on location. Included in the system is also a quiz consisting of verbal and image–based alternatives to a variety of questions related to the information provided in the virtual environments. We describe the main elements of the simulation, its technical solution and production, as well as the feedback from real users testing on location. We close with a reflection on the multimodal quiz and how it relates to memory and learning.

Giordano Bruno’s theory of the “shadows of ideas” (De umbris idearum, Paris 1582) exposes a gnoseological paradigm founded on a new equilibrium among the three “worlds” or “degree” of Being: metaphysical, natural and logical. It envolves that human cognition, experience and thought proceed from nature, while the whole physical universe belongs straightly
from divine essence. Then an unique and eternal substance projects itself from natural bodies on human mind through sensory experience and imagination: the fragmentation and scattering of thruth of an infinite variety of raw data of experience makes arise the need for a regulative method, capable of composing them in an vision unified, as close as possible, how the complexity of natural cosmos is.

The juxtaposition of emblematic and allegorical persons with detailed architectural spaces in Francesco Colonna’s 1499 Hypnerotomachia represents an independent Renaissance development of medieval mnemotechnical literature, in a book which declares itself to offer “Things Worthy of Knowledge and Memory.” There are eight chapters of the paper addressing this thesis, summarized as follows:

The first chapter provides a summary of the Hypnerotomachia itself, along with a statement of the central thesis, and a brief review of authors who have previously alluded to the issue of the paper.

The next chapter addresses issues surrounding the authorship of the pseudonymous Hypnerotomachia by the Dominican monk Colonna.

The third chapter reviews some of the overt appeals to the nature and importance of memory in the Hypnerotomachia, and discusses the relationship between memory and mortality.

Following some speculation on the significance of the title “Hypnerotomachia,” a fourth chapter uses paronomasia as a route to discussing the magical and mechanical themes in the text, and how they relate to the art of memory.

The fifth chapter details the mnemotechnical context and features of the Psychomachia of Prudentius (c. 400 C.E.), in order to provide a background and contrast for the Hypnerotomachia.

The sixth chapter examines the ways in which memory arts were applied and demonstrated in the composition of the text of the Hypnerotomachia.

The woodcut illustrations of the Hypnerotomachia have been a great source of interest in the book. The seventh chapter details their relevance to Colonna’s mnemotechny.

The final chapter of the paper addresses the subsequent influence of the mnemonic aspects of the Hypnerotomachia.

One of the attributes of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was his prodigious memory. The humanistic education received at the Roman College enabled him to master the classical art of memory. In China, Ricci discovered that memorization was essential to the learning process required for the civil service examinations to hold posts within the empire, and so he composed the Xiguo Jifa (1596) (Occidental Method of Memory), based on one of the commonest mnemonic systems—the architectural type—to help candidates memorize contents for these examinations. Ricci chose Chinese characters as mnemonic images to be placed in mental structures. This article aims to show how Ricci’s choice of Chinese characters as mnemonic images in China deviated from one of the main functions of an art of memory: to mediate between words and images, creating bridges and modes of translation from one another, thus rendering those images “untranslatable.”

The entire book can be ordered here:
http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=50496
And here:
https://www.amazon.fr/memory-medieval-central-Europe-Hungary/dp/2343082529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461180500&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+memory+late+medieval

The aim of this article is to present a succinct review and evaluation of the main areas of contention in the false memory debate and, from this basis, to suggest ways in which the best from both sides can be utilized. We examine the potential pitfalls of therapy in terms of the fallibility and suggestibility of autobiographical memory and therapists and therapeutic techniques as the architects of false memories. We then evaluate the case for false memory formation examining if some researchers hold misconceived views of psychotherapy, if experimental studies lack ecological validity, and the effect of trauma on memory. Finally, we explore how the potential pitfalls of therapy can be avoided in practice, reflecting on the usefulness of British Psychological Society guidelines, how clinicians can implement research findings, and how research on the false memory debate can be improved. We conclude that the way forward is researcher–clinician collaboration in the development of ecologically valid research paradigms.

This article analyses 'Project 1990' (2010–2014) as an example of 'art of memoriali-sation'. The project included twenty temporary artistic interventions on the empty pedestal of the former statue of Lenin in Bucharest. The author compares this example of art of me-morialisation to other memory strategies found in the Romanian public space after 1990. Building on James Young's concept of anti-monument, 'Project 1990' questioned the ways in which communism is remembered in Romania, and how the transition to democracy, in the opinion of many of the exhibiting artists, failed. This curatorial project is a good example of the aestheticisation of memory—that is the anti-nostalgic and ironic treatment of symbols of the past, among which Lenin himself. Caterina Preda is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Bucharest. In the last decade, Romania has registered an increasing number of artistic productions dealing with its communist legacy. These productions have covered different topics, various media, and a plurality of perspectives. An interesting example is 'Project 1990' curated by Ioana Ciocan between 2010 and 2014, which included twenty artistic interventions on an important site of memory in Bucharest: the empty pedestal of the former Lenin statue. The tone of these artworks was ironic and anti-nostalgic, simultaneously using and evoking an aestheticised version of the communist past. This article investigates 'Project 1990' as an anti-monument, situating it within the Romanian art of memoria-lisation. Furthermore, the article questions how Ciocan's work, including the curated installations, wanted to incite memorialisation. These works of anti-monumentality stand in an interesting contrast to other memorial strategies found in the Romanian public sphere after 1990, namely: the strategy of official forgetting; public and private initiatives to promote a history and memory of victimhood; and personal as well as socially networked nostalgia. The space occupied by 'Project 1990', which was previously physically empty but emotionally fraught, provides an interesting window into the way communism is

In seventeenth-century Europe, theories of knowledge were developed in symbiosis with the growth of new architectural types, themselves devised for the practices of science, collecting and ordering of knowledge. The period’s intellectual endeavours, so the project argues, have subsequently been unsurpassed in utilising the built environment and mental architecture systematically for cognitive processes, and in ordering theory by means of spatial, architectural and urban structures. Theories of memory and knowledge continued to be practised and developed parallel to the progress and consolidation of new scientific ideals. The project studies the growth of the architecture for collections and science in Sweden in the mid- and late seventeenth century, and the theory imported and developed in context with them. Central to the project is the argument that the collecting schemes of the seventeenth century were not premature undertakings that evolved into late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century museums, but cultural forms of collecting that only in part survived in subsequent practices.

A study of the semantic field around the word memoria in Dante's Convivio, which points out to the convergence of multiples meaning of the word memory. Dante used the rhetorical concept of memory, as well as a philosophical memory, and even a more theological memory, derived from Augustine's works.

The classical art of memory, based on the Ciceronian system of loci and imagines, after its vigorous revival in the Renaissance, highly developed during the course of the Sixteenth century to satisfy various demands of the times. Toward the end of the century, then, this art reached the limit becoming almost impracticable just because of its extremely refined regulations that overloaded the mind. This process, in a certain sense, invited the intellectuals to abandon the purely mental based method of traditional mnemonic and to utilize the so-called secondary memories such as commonplace books, index cards and Ramistic dichotomic diagrams. From this point of view the Dutch mnemonist Lambertus Thomas Schenkelius (1547–c.1630), author of De memoria (1593), represents an emblematic figure (position?) that symbolizes on one hand the summit of the development of the art of memory, and on the other hand a transformation (or, even a  collapse) of this intellectual device. Illustrating how to construct the nearly unrealizable memory palaces consist of millions of loci, Schenkelius introduces at a certain point a kind of “methodus studiendi”, based on the division of materials and the dichotomic diagrams, to learn by heart quickly all the scholastic disciplines. By analysing this apparently ‘hybrid’ system, this article aims at assessing the delicate moment in the history of scholarly knowledge management in which the art of memory ‘in decline’ and the humanist methods of learning ‘in rise’ fuse inextricably and collaborate creatively to assist the realization of the ideal encyclopedic knowledge in our mind.

This study examines a group of late sixteenth-century embroideries by Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) and the English countess "Bess of Hardwick" (ca. 1527-1608). While scholars have tended to regard these textiles as status-driven proclamations of rank and power, Nicole LaBouff argues that they functioned as aids for self-instruction in natural history, the wisdom of the ancients, and the art of discourse. Recent histories have shown "information overload" to be a pervasive problem among Renaissance male intellectuals. These embroideries reveal women also struggled with it. Bess and Mary found their solution in embroidered cabinets of curiosity , needlework notebooks, and stitched mnemonic devices. keywords: sixteenth-century embroidery designs; Conrad Gesner; emblems in needlework; art as memory device; early modern mnemonic devices  In 1569 the exiled Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) was placed under the protection of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, at Tutbury Castle in Stafford-shire under suspicion of treason and plotting against her cousin Queen Elizabeth. Shrewsbury's wife, Elizabeth (ca. 1527-1608), came in close contact with the royal prisoner, whom she would later serve in a conflicting set of roles: prison warden, friend, embroidery companion, and relative by marriage.

La structure énigmatique du décor de la Galerie François 1er de Fontainebleau repose sur inventions relevant du serio ludere, très prisé au début du 16e siècle pour ses différentes fonctions qui induisent les fonctions secrètes du décor, réservées aux princes Valois-Angoulême.

An argument is made in this article for the need to take into account in political science analyses of the Chilean contemporary art of memory that critically invokes matters, and issues connected to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989), and which have not been solved in democracy. Chilean art of memory– composed of those artistic expressions stemming from different artistic disciplines that problematize issues connected to the dictatorial past – questions democratic consolidation by these topics still present, advancing a new perspective on this same reality, a different outlook, otherwise absent from the official renderings that privilege consensus and democratic consolidation. In this sense, this article discusses the specific case of the disappeared of the dictatorship through the analysis of the artworks of eight Chilean contemporary visual artists, and with a focus on their distinct points of view that tackle three topics, the permanency of absence, the sites of memory, and the torturers. The conclusion of this brief article is that memory art presents perspectives absent from the institutional study preferred by political science’ analyses, and that analyzing these artistic expressions helps form a better understanding of the relation to the traumatic past.

This study explores the manuscript transmission of three anonymous 15th century treatises, with the incipit “Memoria fecunda”, “Nota hanc figuram” and “Alphabetum Trinitatis”, and their textual relationship to each other. Arguably, both the Nota hanc figuram and the Alphabetum Trinitatis are derived from an idea expounded in the art of memory called Memoria fecunda. The interrelation of these texts clearly shows the close connections between the art of memory and the meditative literature in the 15th century.

Il vero filosofo è un cacciatore: si spinge nei recessi più oscuri e umbratili della foresta, in traccia della sua preda. Inseguimento, milizia, bisogno costante di cacciare oltrepassando sé stessi. Necessario, in primo luogo, liberarsi dal sonno, dall'incantamento di Circe che imprigiona la grande parte dell'umanità. L'uomo crede di essere desto, crede di avere occhi per vedere, ma la sua anima è in stato di oblio.

From the Art of the Imagination to the Science of the Mind. Some Considerations on the Concept of Memory in Malebranche and Vico. The topic of the psychology of memory is rather marginal in the contemporary debate about the imagination in early modern philosophy, despite the evident fact that without memory imagining is impossible. This question moves from the rhetoric domain to the “scientific” analysis of the mind, and occurs both in Malebranche and Vico, but via different paths in each of the two thinkers: Vico studies the mythological thought, whereas Malebranche builds a new psychology and a new critique of the Aristotelian mentality, that is to say the mentality of every man who is not enlightened by divine grace and who has not read and understood Descartes. But they both share the rejection of the art of memory – which was the most thorough knowledge about memory until then – and more generally they formulate many congruent analyzes on the subject of memory.

This paper will reflect on the Ars Memoria tradition by establishing new knowledge in the way in which mnemonic rhetoric can be integrated into video installation evidenced through the significant 'Memory Palace 2017' (Wilson, 2017) installation. It will position these traditions in relation to the different ways of thinking about memory which will begin with the Greek place and object memory system and end with Matteo Ricci's late Renaissance Chinese memory palace. One of the key values in the wider Ars Memoria tradition was to locate objects and images into specifically imagined spaces which represented a cognitive way to recall memories through a categorised, cognitive database. These databases were established through specific guidelines located in several key texts that when considered shall first, inform a method by which the video installation can be later developed and second, to attest new knowledge in the ways we might ought to come to terms with the integration of spatialising memory through studio practice.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz presenta su primera gran obra de erudición ante el público en 1680: el Neptuno alegórico, océano de colores, simulacro político... Es un texto que describe y justifica el programa iconográfico elaborado en el arco triunfal erigido a costas del Cabildo ante la entrada catedralicia en la Ciudad Imperial de México, para la entrada el treinta de noviembre del mismo año del virrey Tomás Antonio de la Cerda y Aragón, Conde de Paredes y Marqués de la Laguna. A dicho arco acompañó otro costeado por la ciudad y realizado por don Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora. Este artículo demuestra que si el concepto con el que se elaboraban los arcos se basa en la agudeza de ingenio popularizada por Gracián, esta agudeza tenía varias dimensiones además del de notoriedad vanidosa, o puro ingenio en el caso de sor Juana, buscando una efectividad práctica de carácter hermético gracias a la arquitectura imaginística y verbal que desarrolla.

In the long tradition of the Western rhetoric, there has been an original method that utilizes maximally the cognitive or "heuristic" power that physical spaces generate. Specifically, it is called the art of memory or the "architectural" mnemonic that is based on the combination of the spatial order and the compressibility of the images. By building sumptuous palace, gardens, and squares as virtual containers of information in his mind, the artist of the memory behaves as an "architect of the mind". This paper therefore aims to analyze this peculiar art from an architectural point of view first, then go on to examine its applicative aspects using the analysis of the 16th century encyclopedic treatise entitled Tipocosmia, which proposed a grand architectural framework based on the ars memorativa.

This article aims to analyse a little known, yet extremely important, phenomenon of reception of
Сlassical antiquity and its legacy in the Middle Ages. It deals with the Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi, a biblical anthology created at the end of the 12th
century by Peter of Poitiers, theologian and teacher at the Cathedral school of Paris. In
the prologues, Peter himself declared that the purpose of his work was to help his students to fix in memory the complex
biblical material. For this reason the text was written in a simplified and resumptive way, and it was also accompanied by an unusual apparatus of images that visualized the main concepts which the students should learn and remember. Peter seems to have derived the figurative system from Greek and Roman mnemonic treatises. Through selected case
studies, I aim to demonstrate how
Сlassical antiquity and its legacy made a contribution in the creation of that specific art
system, tracing the connections between ancient theory and mediaeval practice.

In this paper I will address museum architecture as mnemonic device. I will draw on observations made in an interview with a curator at Norway’s National Gallery and make a theoretical speculation. I will argue that museum buildings gives rise to corresponding spatial constructs in the mind of professionals and are used to organise and locate cultural artefacts and collections. The architectural order, when internalised in memory, serves as a way-finding tool; its role for the thinking mind is akin to that of chapters and sections in books. Classifications of art according to periods, genres, and artists, or to collections, exhibitions, and discourses, and affiliations with the spaces may be used to bring to mind other artworks or associated sources of information: books, periodicals, sketches, manuscripts, photographs, films, etc. By analogy with the antique art of memory, an art in which arguments for speeches were memorised by placing suggestive images in spaces already committed to memory, I suggest to regard the use of museum architecture as an art of cultural memory.

This article considers several issues regarding the art of memory (ars memorativa) that can be observed in printed treatises composed by early German humanists. It seems that between about 1474 and 1530 it was fashionable for some German scholars to compose, compile and publish mnemonic treatises of their own. There is evidence that the treatises by, e.g., Matheolus Perusinus, Jacobus Publicius, Conrad Celtis, Petrus de Ravenna, Jodocus Wetzdorf, Conrad Umhauser, Hermann von dem Busche or Johannes Cusanus were widely read and spread at the turn of the 16 th century. The characteristic features of the treatises, their structure and the format from this period, such as the quantitative analysis of the treatises printed till the end of the 15 th century, are considered in the article. The other part of the text focuses on the environment of the German humanists who used to read and write mnemonic treatises, exchange ideas and, sometimes, even thieve them from one another.