art of memory - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Page 1f memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

28-Dec-10 15:07:58en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory

Graphical memory devices from the

works of Giordano Bruno

rt of memorym Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Art of Memory orArs Memorativa ("art of memory" in Latin) is a general term used to designate a loosely

ociated group of mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and

st in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. It is sometimes referred to as mnemotechnics.[1] It is an 'art' in the

stotelian sense, which is to say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic,

ural activities of human beings.[2] It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least

arly as the middle of the first millennium BCE,[3] and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic,

variants of the art were employed in other contexts, particularly the religious and the magical.

hniques commonly employed in the art include the association of emotionally striking memory images within

ualized locations, the chaining or association of groups of images, the association of images with schematic

phics ornotae ("signs, markings , figures" in Latin), and the association of text with images. Any or all of these

hniques were often used in combination with the contemplation or study of architecture, books, sculpture and

nting, which were seen by practitioners of the art of memory as externalizations of internal memory images and/or

anization.

ause of the variety of principles and techniques, and their various applications, some researchers refer to "the arts

memory", rather than to a single art.[2]

Contents

1 Origins and history

2 Principles

2.1 Visual sense and spatial orientation

2.2 Order

2.3 Limited sets2.4 Association

2.5 Affect

2.6 Repetition

3 Techniques

3.1 Architectural mnemonic

3.2 Graphical mnemonic

3.3 Textual mnemonic

4 Method of loci

5 Practitioners and Exponents

6 Notes

7 References

rigins and history

as been suggested that the art of memory originated among the Pythagoreans or perhaps even earlier among the ancient Egyptians, but no conclusive

dence has been presented to support these claims.[4]

primary classical sources for the art of memory which deal with the subject at length include the Rhetorica ad Herennium (Bk III), Cicero's De oratore

II 350-360), and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria (Bk XI). Additionally, the art is mentioned in fragments from earlier Greek works including the Dialexis,

ed to approximately 400 BCE.[5]

Aristotle wrote extensively on the subject of memory, and mentions the technique of the placement of images to lend

er to memory. Passages in his works On The Soul and On Memory and Reminiscence proved to be influential in the later revival of the art among medieval

olastics.[6]

most common account of the creation of the art of memory centers around the story of Simonides of Ceos, a famous Greek poet, who was invited to

nt a lyric poem in honor of his host, a nobleman of Thessaly. While praising his host, Simonides also mentioned the twin gods Castor and Pollux. When

recital was complete, the nobleman selfishly told Simonides that he would only pay him half of the agreed upon payment for the panegyric, and that he

uld have to get the balance of the payment from the two gods he had mentioned. A short time later, Simonides was told that two men were waiting for him

side. He left to meet the visitors but could find no one. Then , while he was outside the banquet hall, it collapsed, crushing everyone within. The bodies

e so disfigured that they could not be identified for proper burial. But, Simonides was able to remember where each of the guests had been sitting at the

e, and so was able to identify them for burial. This experience suggested to Simonides the principles which were to become central to the later

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e so disfigured that they could not be identified for proper burial. But, Simonides was able to remember where each of the guests had been sitting at the

e, and so was able to identify them for burial. This experience suggested to Simonides the principles which were to become central to the later

elopment of the art he reputedly invented.[7]

He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty (of memory) must select places and form mental images of the things they wish to remember and

store those images in the places, so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things will denote the

things themselves, and we shall employ the places and the images respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the letters written upon it. [8]

early Christian monks adapted techniques common in the art of memory as an art of composition and meditation, which was in keeping with the

orical and dialectical context in which it was originally taught. It became the basic method for reading and meditating upon the Bible after making the text

ure within one's memory. Within this tradition, the art of memory was passed along to the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance (or Early Modern

od). When Cicero, and Quintilian were revived after the 13th century, humanist scholars understood the language of these ancient writers within the

text of the medieval traditions they knew best, which were profoundly altered by monastic practices of meditative reading and composition.[9]

nt Thomas Aquinas was an important influence in promoting the art when he defined it as a part of Prudence and recommended its use to meditate on the

ues and to improve one's piety. In scholasticism artificial memory came to be used as a method for recollecting the whole universe and the roads to

aven and Hell.[10] The Dominicans were particularly important in promoting its uses ,[11] see for example Cosmos Rossellius.

Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci - who from 1582 until his death in 1610, worked to introduce Christianity to China - described the system of places and

ges in his work, A Treatise On Mnemonics. However, he advanced it only as an aid to passing examinations (a kind of rote memorization) rather than as a

ans of new composition, though it had traditionally been taught, both in dialectics and in rhetoric, as a tool for such composition or 'invention'. Ricci was

arently trying to gain favour with the Chinese imperial service, which required a notoriously difficult entry examination.[12]

haps following the example of Metrodorus of Scepsis, vaguely described in Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, Giordano Bruno, a defrocked Dominican, used

ariation of the art in which the trained memory was based in some fashion upon the zodiac. Apparently, his elaborate method was also based in part on the

mbinatoric concentric circles of Ramon Llull, in part upon schematic diagrams in keeping with medieval Ars Notoria traditions, in part upon groups of

ds and images associated with late antique Hermeticism, [13] and in part upon the classical architectural mnemonic. According to one influential

rpretation, his memory system was intended to fill the mind of the practitioner with images representing all knowledge of the world, and was to be used,

magical sense, as an avenue to reach the intelligible world beyond appearances, and thus enable one to powerfully influence events in the real world.[14]

h enthusiastic claims for the encyclopedic reach of the art of memory are a feature of the early Renaissance,[15]but the art also gave rise to better-known

elopments in logic and scientific method during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[16]

wever, this transition was not without its difficulties, and during this period the belief in the effectiveness of the older methods of memory training (to say

hing of the esteem in which its practitioners were held) steadily became occluded. In 1584, a huge controversy over the method broke out in England when

Puritans attacked the art as impious because it was thought to excite absurd and obscene thoughts; this was a sensational, but ultimately not a fatal

mish.[17] Erasmus of Rotterdam and other humanists, Protestant and Catholic, had also chastised practitioners of the art of memory for making extravagant

ms for its efficacy, although they themselves believed firmly in a well-disposed, orderly memory as an essential tool of productive thought.[18]

e explanation for the steady decline in the importance of the art of memory from the 16th to the 20th century is offered by the late Ioan P. Culianu, who

ued that it was suppressed during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation when Protestants and reactionary Catholics alike worked to eradicate pagan

uence and the lush visual imagery of the Renaissance. [19]

atever the causes, in keeping with general developments, the art of memory eventually came to be defined primarily as a part of Dialectics, and was

milated in the 17th century by Francis Bacon and Ren Descartes into the curriculum of Logic, where it survives to this day as a necessary foundation for

teaching of Argument.[20] Simplified variants of the art of memory were also taught through the 19th century as useful to public orators, including

achers and after-dinner speakers.

rinciples

sual sense and spatial orientation

haps the most important principle of the art is the dominance of the visual sense in combination with the orientation of 'seen' objects within space. This

nciple is reflected in the early Dialexis fragment on memory, and is found throughout later texts on the art. Mary Carruthers, in a review of Hugh of St.

tor's Didascalion, emphasizes the importance of the visual sense as follows:

"Even what we hear must be attached to a visual image. To help recall something we have heard rather than seen, we should attach to their words the

appearance, facial expression, and gestures of the person speaking as well as the appearance of the room. The speaker should therefore create strong

visual images, through expression and gesture, which will fix the impression of his words. All the rhetorical textbooks contain detailed advice on

declamatory gesture and expression; this underscores the insistence of Aristotle, Avicenna, and other philosophers, on the primacy and security for

memory of the visual over all other sensory modes, auditory, tactile, and the rest."[21]

s passage emphasizes the association of the visual sense with spatial orientation. The image of the speaker is placed in a room. The importance of the


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s passage emphasizes the association of the visual sense with spatial orientation. The image of the speaker is placed in a room. The importance of the

ual sense in the art of memory would seem to lead naturally to the importance of a spatial context, given that our sight and depth-perception naturally

ition images seen within space.

der

positioning of images in virtual space leads naturally to an order, furthermore, an order to which we are naturally accustomed as biological organisms,

ving as it does from the sense perceptions we use to orient ourselves in the world. This fact perhaps sheds light on the relationship between the artificial

the naturalmemory, which were clearly distinguished in antiquity.

"It is possible for one with a well-trained memory to compose clearly in an organized fashion on several different subjects. Once one has the all-

important starting-place of the ordering scheme and the contents firmly in their places within it, it is quite possible to move back and forth from one

distinct composition to another without losing one's place or becoming confused."[22]

ain discussing Hugh of St. Victor's works on memory, Carruthers clearly notes the critical importance of order in memory:

"One must have a rigid, easily retained order, with a definite beginning. Into this order one places the components of what one wishes to memorize

and recall . As a money-changer ("nummularium") separates and classifies his coins by type in his money bag ("sacculum," "marsupium"), so the

contents of wisdom's storehouse ("thesaurus," "archa"), which is the memory, must be classified according to a definite, orderly scheme."[23]

mited sets

ny works discussing the art of memory emphasize the importance ofbrevitas and divisio, or the breaking up of a long series into more manageable sets.

s is reflected in advice on forming images or groups of images which can be taken in at a single glance, as well as in discussions of memorizing lengthy

sages, "A long text must always be broken up into short segments, numbered, then memorized a few pieces at a time ."[24]

sociation

ociation was considered to be of critical importance for the practice of the art. However, it was clearly recognized that associations in memory are

syncratic, hence, what works for one will not automatically work for all. For this reason, the associative values given for images in memory texts are

ally intended as examples and are not intended to be "universally normative". Yates offers a passage from Aristotle that briefly outlines the principle ofociation. In it, he mentions the importance of a starting point to initiate a chain of recollection , and the way in which it serves as a stimulating cause.

"For this reason some use places for the purposes of recollecting . The reason for this is that men pass rapidly from one step to the next; for instance

from milk to white, from white to air, from air to damp; after which one recollects autumn, supposing that one is trying to recollect the season."[25]

fect

importance of affect or emotion in the art of memory is frequently discussed. The role of emotion in the art can be divided into two major groupings: the

t is the role of emotion in the process of seating or fixing images in the memory, the second is the way in which the recollection of a memory image can

ke an emotional response.

e of the earliest sources discussing the art, the Ad Herennium emphasizes the importance of using emotionally-striking imagery to ensure that the images

erts that both 'textual' activities (picturing and reading) have as their goal the internalization of knowledge and experience in memory.

use of manuscript illuminations to reinforce the memory of a particular textual passage, the use of visual alphabets such as those in which birds or tools

resent letters, the use of illuminated capital letters at the openings of passages, and even the structure of the modern book (itself deriving from scholastic

elopments) with its index, table of contents and chapters reflect the fact that reading was a memorial practice, and the use of text was simply another

hnique in the arsenal of practitioners of the arts of memory.

ethod of loci

Main article: Method of loci

'method of loci' (plural of Latin locus for place or location ) is a general designation for mnemonic techniques that rely upon memorized spatial

tionships to establish, order and recollect memorial content. The term is most often found in specialized works on psychology, neurobiology and memory,

ugh it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on Rhetoric, Logic and Philosophy.[38]

Keefe and Nadel refer to "'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romans and described by Yates (1966) in her book

art of memory as well as by Luria (1969). In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or

geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject literally 'walks' through these

and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by

lking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968,

vitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use."[39]

designation is not used with strict consistency. In some cases it refers broadly to what is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are

ted, according to tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos and the collapsing banquet hall discussed above. [40] For example, after relating the story of

w Simonides relied on remembered seating arrangements to call to mind the faces of recently deceased guests, Steven M. Kosslyn remarks "[t]his insight

to the development of a technique the Greeks called the method of loci, which is a systematic way of improving one's memory by using imagery." [41]

yles and Sagan indicate that "an ancient technique of memorization called Method of Loci, by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial maps"

ginated with the story of Simonides.[42] Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee Williams mentions, "One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was

eloped by Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC"[43] Loftus cites the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances

es) and describes some of the most basic aspects of the use of space in the art of memory. She states, "This particular mnemonic technique has come to be

ed the "method of loci".[44] While place or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no designation equivalent to "method

oci" was used exclusively to refer to mnemonic schemes relying upon space for organization. [45]

ther cases the designation is generally consistent, but more specific: "The Method of Loci is a Mnemonic Device involving the creation of a Visual Map of

s house."[46]

s term can be misleading: the ancient principles and techniques of the art of memory, hastily glossed in some of the works just cited, depended equally

n images and places. The designator "method of loci" does not convey the equal weight placed on both elements. Training in the art or arts of memory ashole, as attested in classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and comprehensive in the treatment of this subject.

ractitioners and Exponents

itutional:

Lodge Mother Kilwinning[47]

ividual:

Thomas Bradwardine

Giordano Bruno

Robert Fludd

Giovanni Fontana

William Fowler

Johannes Romberch


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