Art of memory

For the 1966 non-fiction book, see The Art of Memory.The art of memory (Latin: ars memoriae) is any of

a number of a loosely associated mnemonic principlesand techniques used to organize memory impressions,improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'inven-tion' of ideas. An alternative and frequently used term is“Ars Memorativa” which is also often translated as “artof memory” although its more literal meaning is “Mem-orative Art”. It is sometimes referred to as mnemotech-nics.[1] It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is tosay a method or set of prescriptions that adds order anddiscipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of humanbeings.[2] It has existed as a recognized group of princi-ples and techniques since at least as early as the middleof the first millennium BCE,[3] and was usually associ-ated with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of theart were employed in other contexts, particularly the re-ligious and the magical.Techniques commonly employed in the art include the as-sociation of emotionally striking memory images withinvisualized locations, the chaining or association of groupsof images, the association of images with schematicgraphics or notae (“signs, markings, figures” in Latin),and the association of text with images. Any or all ofthese techniques were often used in combination with thecontemplation or study of architecture, books, sculptureand painting, which were seen by practitioners of the artof memory as externalizations of internal memory imagesand/or organization.Because of the variety of principles and techniques, andtheir various applications, some researchers refer to “thearts of memory”, rather than to a single art.[2]

1 Origins and history

It has been suggested that the art of memory originatedamong the Pythagoreans or perhaps even earlier amongthe ancient Egyptians, but no conclusive evidence hasbeen presented to support these claims.[4]

The primary classical sources for the art of memorywhich deal with the subject at length include theRhetoricaad Herennium (Bk III), Cicero's De oratore (Bk II 350-360), and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria (Bk XI). Addi-tionally, the art is mentioned in fragments from earlierGreek works including the Dialexis, dated to approxi-mately 400 BCE.[5] Aristotle wrote extensively on thesubject of memory, and mentions the technique of the

placement of images to lend order to memory. Passagesin his works On The Soul and On Memory and Reminis-cence proved to be influential in the later revival of the artamong medieval Scholastics.[6]

The most common account of the creation of the art ofmemory centers around the story of Simonides of Ceos,a famous Greek poet, who was invited to chant a lyricpoem in honor of his host, a nobleman of Thessaly. Whilepraising his host, Simonides also mentioned the twin godsCastor and Pollux. When the recital was complete, thenobleman selfishly told Simonides that he would only payhim half of the agreed upon payment for the panegyric,and that he would have to get the balance of the paymentfrom the two gods he had mentioned. A short time later,Simonides was told that two men were waiting for himoutside. 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 were so disfiguredthat they could not be identified for proper burial. But,Simonides was able to remember where each of the guestshad been sitting at the table, and so was able to identifythem for burial. This experience suggested to Simonidesthe principles which were to become central to the laterdevelopment of the art he reputedly invented.[7]

He inferred that persons desiring to trainthis faculty (of memory) must select places andform mental images of the things they wish toremember and store those images in the places,so that the order of the places will preserve theorder of the things, and the images of the thingswill denote the things themselves, and we shallemploy the places and the images respectivelyas a wax writing-tablet and the letters writtenupon it.[8]

The early Christian monks adapted techniques commonin the art of memory as an art of composition andmeditation, which was in keeping with the rhetorical anddialectical context in which it was originally taught. It be-came the basic method for reading and meditating uponthe Bible after making the text secure within one’s mem-ory. Within this tradition, the art of memory was passedalong to the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance (orEarly Modern period). When Cicero and Quintilian wererevived after the 13th century, humanist scholars under-stood the language of these ancient writers within the con-text of themedieval traditions they knew best, which wereprofoundly altered by monastic practices of meditativereading and composition.[9]

1

2 1 ORIGINS AND HISTORY

Graphical memory devices from the works of Giordano Bruno

Saint Thomas Aquinas was an important influence in pro-moting the art when he defined it as a part of Prudenceand recommended its use to meditate on the virtues andto improve one’s piety. In scholasticism artificial mem-ory came to be used as a method for recollecting the

whole universe and the roads to Heaven and Hell.[10] TheDominicans were particularly important in promoting itsuses,[11] see for example Cosmos Rossellius.The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci - who from 1582 un-til his death in 1610, worked to introduce Christianity toChina - described the system of places and images in hiswork, A Treatise On Mnemonics. However, he advancedit only as an aid to passing examinations (a kind of rotememorization) rather than as a means of new composi-tion, though it had traditionally been taught, both in di-alectics and in rhetoric, as a tool for such compositionor 'invention'. Ricci was apparently trying to gain favourwith the Chinese imperial service, which required a no-toriously difficult entry examination.[12]

One of Giordano Bruno’s simpler pieces

Perhaps following the example of Metrodorus of Scep-sis, vaguely described in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria,Giordano Bruno, a defrocked Dominican, used a varia-tion of the art in which the trained memory was basedin some fashion upon the zodiac. Apparently, his elabo-rate method was also based in part on the combinatoricconcentric circles of Ramon Llull, in part upon schematicdiagrams in keeping with medievalArs Notoria traditions,in part upon groups of words and images associated withlate antique Hermeticism,[13] and in part upon the clas-sical architectural mnemonic. According to one influen-tial interpretation, his memory system was intended to fillthe mind of the practitioner with images representing allknowledge of the world, and was to be used, in a magicalsense, as an avenue to reach the intelligible world beyondappearances, and thus enable one to powerfully influence

2.2 Order 3

events in the real world.[14] Such enthusiastic claims forthe encyclopedic reach of the art of memory are a featureof the early Renaissance,[15] but the art also gave rise tobetter-known developments in logic and scientificmethodduring the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[16]

However, this transition was not without its difficulties,and during this period the belief in the effectiveness ofthe older methods of memory training (to say nothing ofthe esteem in which its practitioners were held) steadilybecame occluded. In 1584, a huge controversy over themethod broke out in England when the Puritans attackedthe art as impious because it was thought to excite ab-surd and obscene thoughts; this was a sensational, but ul-timately not a fatal skirmish.[17] Erasmus of Rotterdamand other humanists, Protestant and Catholic, had alsochastised practitioners of the art of memory for makingextravagant claims for its efficacy, although they them-selves believed firmly in a well-disposed, orderly memoryas an essential tool of productive thought.[18]

One explanation for the steady decline in the importanceof the art of memory from the 16th to the 20th centuryis offered by the late Ioan P. Culianu, who argued thatit was suppressed during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation when Protestants and reactionary Catholicsalike worked to eradicate pagan influence and the lushvisual imagery of the Renaissance.[19]

Whatever the causes, in keeping with general develop-ments, the art of memory eventually came to be de-fined primarily as a part of Dialectics, and was assim-ilated in the 17th century by Francis Bacon and RenéDescartes into the curriculum of Logic, where it survivesto this day as a necessary foundation for the teachingof Argument.[20] Simplified variants of the art of mem-ory were also taught through the 19th century as usefulto public orators, including preachers and after-dinnerspeakers.

2 Principles

2.1 Visual sense and spatial orientation

Perhaps the most important principle of the art is thedominance of the visual sense in combination with theorientation of 'seen' objects within space. This princi-ple is reflected in the early Dialexis fragment on memory,and is found throughout later texts on the art. Mary Car-ruthers, in a review of Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalion,emphasizes the importance of the visual sense as follows:

Even what we hear must be attached toa visual image. To help recall something wehave heard rather than seen, we should attach totheir words the appearance, facial expression,and gestures of the person speaking as wellas the appearance of the room. The speaker

should therefore create strong visual images,through expression and gesture, which will fixthe impression of his words. All the rhetoricaltextbooks contain detailed advice on declam-atory gesture and expression; this underscoresthe insistence of Aristotle, Avicenna, and otherphilosophers, on the primacy and security formemory of the visual over all other sensorymodes, auditory, tactile, and the rest.[21]

This passage emphasizes the association of the visualsense with spatial orientation. The image of the speakeris placed in a room. The importance of the visual sensein the art of memory would seem to lead naturally to theimportance of a spatial context, given that our sight anddepth-perception naturally position images seen withinspace.

2.2 Order

The positioning of images in virtual space leads naturallyto an order, furthermore, an order to which we are nat-urally accustomed as biological organisms, deriving as itdoes from the sense perceptions we use to orient ourselvesin the world. This fact perhaps sheds light on the relation-ship between the artificial and the naturalmemory, whichwere clearly distinguished in antiquity.

It is possible for one with a well-trainedmemory to compose clearly in an organizedfashion on several different subjects. Once onehas the all-important starting-place of the or-dering scheme and the contents firmly in theirplaces within it, it is quite possible to moveback and forth from one distinct compositionto another without losing one’s place or becom-ing confused.[22]

Again discussing Hugh of St. Victor’s works on memory,Carruthers clearly notes the critical importance of orderin memory:

One must have a rigid, easily retained or-der, with a definite beginning. Into this or-der one places the components of what onewishes to memorize and recall. As a money-changer (“nummularium”) separates and clas-sifies his coins by type in his money bag (“sac-culum,” “marsupium”), so the contents of wis-dom’s storehouse (“thesaurus,” “archa”), whichis the memory, must be classified according toa definite, orderly scheme.[23]

2.3 Limited sets

Many works discussing the art of memory emphasize theimportance of brevitas and divisio, or the breaking up of

4 3 TECHNIQUES

a long series into more manageable sets. This is reflectedin advice on forming images or groups of images whichcan be taken in at a single glance, as well as in discus-sions of memorizing lengthy passages, “A long text mustalways be broken up into short segments, numbered, thenmemorized a few pieces at a time.”[24] This is known inmodern terminology as chunking.

2.4 Association

Association was considered to be of critical importancefor the practice of the art. However, it was clearly rec-ognized that associations in memory are idiosyncratic,hence, what works for one will not automatically workfor all. For this reason, the associative values given forimages in memory texts are usually intended as exam-ples and are not intended to be “universally normative”.Yates offers a passage from Aristotle that briefly outlinesthe principle of association. In it, he mentions the impor-tance 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 pur-poses of recollecting. The reason for this is thatmen pass rapidly from one step to the next; forinstance from milk to white, from white to air,from air to damp; after which one recollects au-tumn, supposing that one is trying to recollectthe season.[25]

2.5 Affect

The importance of affect or emotion in the art of memoryis frequently discussed. The role of emotion in the art canbe divided into twomajor groupings: the first is the role ofemotion in the process of seating or fixing images in thememory, the second is the way in which the recollectionof a memory image can evoke an emotional response.One of the earliest sources discussing the art, the AdHerennium emphasizes the importance of using emotion-ally striking imagery to ensure that the images will be re-tained in memory:

We ought, then, to set up images of a kindthat can adhere longest in memory. And weshall do so if we establish similitudes as strik-ing as possible; if we set up images that arenot many or vague but active; if we assign tothem exceptional beauty or singular ugliness;if we ornament some of them, as with crownsor purple cloaks, so that the similitude may bemore distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigurethem, as by introducing one stained with bloodor soiled with mud and smeared with red paint,so that its form is more striking, or by assigningcertain comic effects to our images, for that,

too, will ensure our remembering them morereadily.[26]

On the other hand, the image associated with an emotionwill call up the emotion when recollected. Carruthers dis-cusses this in the context of the way in which the trainedmedieval memory was thought to be intimately relatedwith the development of prudence or moral judgement.

Since each phantasm is a combination notonly of the neutral form of the perception,but of our response to it (intentio) concerningwhether it is helpful or hurtful, the phantasmby its very nature evokes emotion. This is howthe phantasm and the memory which stores ithelps to cause or bring into being moral excel-lence and ethical judgement.[27]

In modern terminology, the concept that salient, bizarre,shocking, or simply unusual information will bemore eas-ily remembered can be referred to as the Von Restorffeffect.

2.6 Repetition

The well-known role of repetition in the common processof memorization of course plays a role in the more com-plex techniques of the art of memory. The earliest of thereferences to the art of memory, the Dialexis, mentionedabove, makes this clear: “repeat again what you hear;for by often hearing and saying the same things, whatyou have learned comes complete into your memory.”[28]Similar advice is a commonplace in later works on the artof memory.

3 Techniques

The art of memory employed a number of techniqueswhich can be grouped as follows for purposes of discus-sion, however they were usually used in some combina-tion:

3.1 Architectural mnemonic

The architectural mnemonic was a key group of tech-niques employed in the art of memory. It is based onthe use of places (Latin loci), which were memorized bypractitioners as the framework or ordering structure thatwould 'contain' the images or signs 'placed' within it torecord experience or knowledge. To use this method onemight walk through a building several times, viewing dis-tinct places within it, in the same order each time. Afterthe necessary repetitions of this process, one should be

3.2 Graphical mnemonic 5

able to remember and visualize each of the places reli-ably and in order. If one wished to remember, for ex-ample, a speech, one could break up the content of thespeech into images or signs used to memorize its parts,which would then be 'placed' in the locations previouslymemorized. The components of the speech could then berecalled in order by imagining that one is walking throughthe building again, visiting each of the loci in order, view-ing the images there, and thereby recalling the elementsof the speech in order. A reference to these techniquessurvives to this day in the common English phrases “inthe first place”, “in the second place”, and so forth. Thesetechniques, or variants, are sometimes referred to as “themethod of loci”, which is discussed in a separate sectionbelow.The primary source for the architectural mnemonic isthe anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, a Latin workon rhetoric from the first century BCE. It is unlikely thatthe technique originated with the author of the Ad Heren-nium. The technique is also mentioned by Cicero andQuintilian. According to the account in the Ad Heren-nium (Book III) backgrounds or 'places’ are like waxtablets, and the images that are 'placed' on or within themare like writing. Real physical locations were apparentlycommonly used as the basis of memory places, as the au-thor of the Ad Herennium suggests

it will be more advantageous to obtainbackgrounds in a deserted than in a populousregion, because the crowding and passing toand fro of people confuse and weaken the im-press of the images, while solitude keeps theiroutlines sharp.[29]

However, real physical locations were not the only sourceof places. The author goes on to suggest

if we are not content with our ready-madesupply of backgrounds, we may in our imagi-nation create a region for ourselves and obtaina most serviceable distribution of appropriatebackgrounds.[30]

Places or backgrounds hence require, and reciprocallyimpose, order (often deriving from the spatial character-istics of the physical location memorized, in cases wherean actual physical structure provided the basis for the'places’). This order itself organizes the images, prevent-ing confusion during recall. The anonymous author alsoadvises that places should be well lit, with orderly inter-vals, and distinct from one another. He recommends avirtual 'viewing distance' sufficient to allow the viewer toencompass the space and the images it contains with asingle glance.Turning to images, the anonymous author asserts that theyare of two kinds: those establishing a likeness based uponsubject, and those establishing a likeness based upon a

word. This was the basis for the subsequent distinction,commonly found in works on the art of memory, between'memory for words’ and 'memory for things’. He providesthe following famous example of a likeness based uponsubject:

Often we encompass the record of an en-tire matter by one notation, a single image. Forexample, the prosecutor has said that the de-fendant killed a man by poison, has chargedthat the motive for the crime was an inheri-tance, and declared that there are many wit-nesses and accessories to this act. If in orderto facilitate our defense we wish to rememberthis first point, we shall in our first backgroundform an image of the whole matter. We shallpicture the man in question as lying ill in bed,if we know his person. If we do not know him,we shall yet take some one to be our invalid, butnot a man of the lowest class, so that he maycome to mind at once. And we shall place thedefendant at the bedside, holding in his righthand a cup, and in his left hand tablets, and onthe fourth finger a ram’s testicles (Latin testi-culi suggests testes or witnesses). In this waywe can record the man who was poisoned, theinheritance, and the witnesses.[31]

In order to memorize likenesses based on words he pro-vides an example of a verse and describes how imagesmay be placed, each of which corresponds to words inthe verse. He notes however that the technique will notwork without combination with rote memorization of theverse, so that the images call to mind the previously mem-orized words.The architectural mnemonic was also related to thebroader concept of learning and thinking. Aristotle con-sidered the technique in relation to topica, or conceptualareas or issues. In his Topics he suggested

For just as in a person with a trained mem-ory, a memory of things themselves is imme-diately caused by the mere mention of theirplaces, so these habits too will make a manreadier in reasoning, because he has his pre-misses classified before his mind’s eye, eachunder its number.[32]

3.2 Graphical mnemonic

Because of the influence of the pioneering work ofFrances Yates, the architectural mnemonic is often char-acterized as the art of memory itself. However, primarysources show that from very early in the developmentof the art, non-physical or abstract locations and/or spa-tial graphics were employed as memory 'places’. Perhapsthe most famous example of such an abstract system of

6 4 METHOD OF LOCI

'places’ is the memory system of Metrodorus of Scepsis,who was said by Quintilian to have organized his memoryusing a system of backgrounds in which he “found threehundred and sixty places in the twelve signs of the zodiacthrough which the sun moves”. Some researchers (L.A.Post and Yates) believe it likely that Metorodorus orga-nized his memory using places based in some way uponthe signs of the zodiac.[33] In any case Quintilian makes itclear that non-alphabetic signs can be employed as mem-ory images, and even goes on to mention how 'shorthand'signs (notae) can be used to signify things that would oth-erwise be impossible to capture in the form of a definiteimage (he gives “conjunctions” as an example).[34]

This makes it clear that though the architecturalmnemonic with its buildings, niches and three-dimensional images was a major theme of the artas practiced in classical times, it often employed signsor notae and sometimes even non-physical imaginedspaces. During the period of migration of barbariantribes and the transformation of the Roman empire thearchitectural mnemonic fell into disuse. However theuse of tables, charts and signs appears to have continuedand developed independently. Mary Carruthers hasmade it clear that a trained memory occupied a centralplace in late antique and medieval pedagogy, and hasdocumented some of the ways in which the developmentof medieval memorial arts was intimately intertwinedwith the emergence of the book as we understand ittoday. Examples of the development of the potentialinherent in the graphical mnemonic include the lists andcombinatory wheels of the Majorcan Ramon Llull. TheArt of Signs (Latin Ars Notoria) is also very likely adevelopment of the graphical mnemonic. Yates mentionsApollonius of Tyana and his reputation for memory,as well as the association between trained memory,astrology and divination.[35] She goes on to suggest

It may have been out of this atmospherethat there was formed a tradition which, go-ing underground for centuries and sufferingtransformations in the process, appeared in theMiddle Ages as the Ars Notoria, a magical artof memory attributed to Apollonius or some-times to Solomon. The practitioner of the ArsNotoria gazed at figures or diagrams curiouslymarked and called 'notae' whilst reciting mag-ical prayers. He hoped to gain in this wayknowledge, or memory, of all the arts and sci-ences, a different 'nota' being provided for eachdiscipline. The Ars Notoria is perhaps a de-scendant of the classical art of memory, orof that difficult branch of it which used theshorthand notae. It was regarded as a particu-larly black kind of magic and was severely con-demned by Thomas Aquinas.[36]

3.3 Textual mnemonic

Carruthers’s studies of memory suggest that the imagesand pictures employed in the medieval arts of memorywere not representational in the sense we today under-stand that term. Rather, images were understood to func-tion “textually”, as a type of 'writing', and not as some-thing different from it in kind.[37]

If such an assessment is correct, it suggests that the use oftext to recollect memories was, formedieval practitioners,merely a variant of techniques employing notae, imagesand other non-textual devices. Carruthers quotes PopeGregory I, in support of the idea that 'reading' pictureswas considered to be a variation of reading itself.

It is one thing to worship a picture, it isanother by means of pictures to learn thor-oughly the story that should be venerated. Forwhat writing makes present to those reading,the same picturing makes present to the unedu-cated, to those perceiving visually, because in itthe ignorant see what they ought to follow, in itthey read who do not know letters. Wherefore,and especially for the common people, pictur-ing is the equivalent of reading.[37]

Her work makes clear that for medieval readers the act ofreading itself had an oral phase in which the text was readaloud or sub-vocalized (silent reading was a less commonvariant, and appears to have been the exception ratherthan the rule), then meditated upon and 'digested' hencemaking it one’s own. She asserts that both 'textual' activ-ities (picturing and reading) have as their goal the inter-nalization of knowledge and experience in memory.The use of manuscript illuminations to reinforce thememory of a particular textual passage, the use of visualalphabets such as those in which birds or tools representletters, the use of illuminated capital letters at the open-ings of passages, and even the structure of the modernbook (itself deriving from scholastic developments) withits index, table of contents and chapters reflect the factthat reading was a memorial practice, and the use of textwas simply another technique in the arsenal of practition-ers of the arts of memory.

4 Method of loci

Main article: Method of loci

The 'method of loci' (plural of Latin locus for place or lo-cation) is a general designation for mnemonic techniquesthat rely upon memorized spatial relationships to estab-lish, order and recollect memorial content. The term ismost often found in specialized works on psychology,neurobiology and memory, though it was used in the

7

same general way at least as early as the first half ofthe nineteenth century in works on Rhetoric, Logic andPhilosophy.[38]

O'Keefe andNadel refer to "'the method of loci', an imag-inal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romansand described by Yates (1966) in her book The Art ofMemory as well as by Luria (1969). In this technique thesubject memorizes the layout of some building, or the ar-rangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entitywhich is composed of a number of discrete loci. Whendesiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks’through these loci and commits an item to each one byforming an image between the item and any distinguish-ing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activatethe desired items. The efficacy of this technique has beenwell established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969,1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), asis the minimal interference seen with its use.”[39]

The designation is not used with strict consistency. Insome cases it refers broadly to what is otherwise knownas the art of memory, the origins of which are related,according to tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceosand the collapsing banquet hall discussed above.[40] Forexample, after relating the story of how Simonides re-lied on remembered seating arrangements to call to mindthe faces of recently deceased guests, Steven M. Koss-lyn remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of atechnique the Greeks called the method of loci, whichis a systematic way of improving one’s memory by us-ing imagery.”[41] Skoyles and Sagan indicate that “an an-cient technique of memorization called Method of Loci,by which memories are referenced directly onto spatialmaps” originated with the story of Simonides.[42] Refer-ring to mnemonic methods, Verlee Williams mentions,“One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was devel-oped by Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixthcenturies BC”[43] Loftus cites the foundation story of Si-monides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) anddescribes some of the most basic aspects of the use ofspace in the art of memory. She states, “This particularmnemonic technique has come to be called the “methodof loci”.[44] While place or position certainly figuredprominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no desig-nation equivalent to “method of loci” was used exclu-sively to refer to mnemonic schemes relying upon spacefor organization.[45]

In other cases the designation is generally consistent, butmore specific: “The Method of Loci is a MnemonicDevice involving the creation of a Visual Map of one’shouse.”[46]

This term can be misleading: the ancient principles andtechniques of the art of memory, hastily glossed in someof the works just cited, depended equally upon imagesand places. The designator “method of loci” does notconvey the equal weight placed on both elements. Train-

ing in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attestedin classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and compre-hensive in the treatment of this subject.

5 See also

6 Notes[1] In her general introduction to the subject (The Art ofMem-

ory, 1966, p4) Frances Yates suggests that “it may be mis-leading to dismiss it with the label 'mnemotechnics’" and“The word 'mnemotechnics’ hardly conveys what the arti-ficial memory of Cicero may have been like”. Further-more, “mnemotechnics”, etymologically speaking, em-phasizes practical application, whereas the art of memorycertainly includes general principles and a certain degreeof 'theory'.

[2] Carruthers 1990, p. 123

[3] Simonedes of Ceos, the poet credited by the ancients withthe discovery of fundamental principles of this art, was ac-tive around 500 BCE, and in any case a fragment known asthe Dialexis, which is dated to about 400 BCE contains ashort section on memory which outlines features known tobe central to the fully developed classical art. Frances A.Yates, The Art of Memory, University of Chicago Press,1966, pp 27-30. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ThirdEdition, Ed. Hornblower and Spawforth, 1999, p1409.

[4] Yates, 1966, pp. 29

[5] Yates, 1966, pp. 27-30

[6] Aristotle’s assertion that we cannot contemplate or un-derstand without an image in the mind’s eye representingthe thing considered was also highly influential. Aristo-tle, De Anima 3.8 in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed.Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1984)

[7] Yates, 1966, pp. 1-2

[8] Cicero, De oratore, II, lxxxvi, 351-4, English translationby E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham from Loeb Classics Edi-tion

[9] Carruthers 1990, 1998

[10] Carruthers & Ziolkowski 2002

[11] Bolzoni 2004

[12] Spence 1984

[13] Bruno’s use of groups of words may also be associatedwith the use of shorthand, or with techniques associatedwith shorthand in antiquity. Yates (1966) mentions thepossibility of a relationship between shorthand notae andthe art(s) of memory (p15 footnote 16) and the possi-ble role of shorthand notae in 'magical' memory training(p43). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third Edition,1999, in the article “tachygraphy”) discusses the formal

8 7 REFERENCES

characteristics of late Hellenistic shorthand manuals, not-ing “These show a fully organized system, composed ofa syllabary and a (so-called) Commentary, consisting ofgroups of words, arranged in fours or occasionally eights,with a sign attached to each, which had to memorized.”This can be compared with Bruno’s atria in De Imag-inum, Signorum, et Idearum Compositione (1591) in whichgroups of 24 words are each associated within an atriumwith Atrii Imago (e.g. Altare, Basili, Carcer, Domus, etc.)

[14] Frances Yates, The Art ofMemory, 1966;Giordano Brunoand the Hermetic Tradition, 1964

[15] e.g. the “Memory Theater” of Giulio Camillo discussedby Yates (1966, pp 129-159)

[16] Yates 1966

[17] Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, 1966, Ch. 12

[18] Carruthers & Ziolkowski 2002; Rossi 2000

[19] Culianu 1987

[20] Rossi 2000 p102; Bolzoni 2001

[21] Carruthers 1990, pp. 94-95

[22] Carruthers 1990, p. 7

[23] Carruthers 1990, pp. 81-82

[24] Carruthers 1990, p. 82

[25] Dememoria et reminiscentia, 452 8-16, cited in Yates, TheArt of Memory, 1966, p34

[26] Ad Herrenium, III, xxii

[27] Carruthers, 1990, pp. 67-71

[28] from the excerpt of this work available in Yates, The Artof Memory, 1966, p29

[29] Book III, xix, 31, Loeb Classics English translation byHarry Caplan

[30] Book III, xix, 32, Loeb Classics English translation byHarry Caplan

[31] Book III, xix, 33, Loeb Classics English translation byHarry Caplan

[32] Aristotle, Topica, 163, 24-30 (translated by W.A.Pickard-Cambridge in Works of Aristotle, ed. W.D.Ross, Oxford, 1928, Vol. I), cited in Yates, The Art ofMemory, 1966, p. 31

[33] Yates, 1966, pp. 39-42

[34] Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, XI, ii, 23-26, Loeb EditionEnglish translation by H. E. Butler

[35] Yates 1966, pp. 42-43

[36] Yates 1966, p. 43

[37] Carruthers 1990, p. 222

[38] e.g. in a discussion of “topical memory” (yet an-other designator) Jamieson mentions that “memorial lines,or verses, are more useful than the method of loci.”Alexander Jamieson, A Grammar of Logic and Intellec-tual Philosophy, A. H. Maltby, 1835, p112

[39] John O'Keefe & Lynn Nadel, The Hippocampus as a Cog-nitive Map, Oxford University Press, 1978, p389-390

[40] Frances Yates, The Art ofMemory, University of Chicago,1966, p1-2

[41] Steven M. Kosslyn, “Imagery in Learning” in: Michael S.Gazzaniga (Ed.), Perspectives in Memory Research, MITPress, 1988, p245; it should be noted that Kosslyn fails tocite any example of the use of an equivalent term in periodGreek or Latin sources.

[42] John Robert Skoyles, Dorion Sagan, Up From Dragons:The Evolution of Human Intelligence, McGraw-Hill, 2002,p150

[43] Linda Verlee Williams, Teaching For The Two-SidedMind: A Guide to Right Brain/Left Brain Education, Si-mon & Schuster, 1986, p110

[44] Elizabeth F. Loftus, Human Memory: The Processing ofInformation, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1976, p65

[45] For example, Aristotle referred to topoi (places) in whichmemorial content could be aggregated - hence our mod-ern term “topics”, while another primary classical source,Rhetorica ad Herennium (Bk III) discusses rules for placesand images. In general Classical andMedieval sources de-scribe these techniques as the art or arts of memory (arsmemorativa or artes memorativae), rather than as any pu-tative “method of loci”. Nor is the imprecise designationcurrent in specialized historical studies, for example MaryCarruthers uses the term “architectural mnemonic” to de-scribe what is otherwise designated “method of loci”.

[46] Sharon A. Gutman, Quick Reference Neuroscience For Re-habilitation Professionals, SLACK Incorporated, 2001,p216

[47] Second Schaw Statutes, 1599

7 References

• Yates, Frances A. (1966). The Art of Memory.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN071265545X.

• Spence, Jonathan D. (1984). The Memory Palaceof Matteo Ricci. New York: Viking Penguin. ISBN0-14-008098-8.

• Carruthers, Mary (1990). The Book of Memory(first ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38282-3. (limited preview on Google Books)

• Carruthers, Mary (1998). The Craft of Thought.Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58232-6.

9

• Rossi, Paolo (2000). Logic and the Art of Memory.University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-72826-9.

• Bolzoni, Lina (2001). The Gallery of Memory. Uni-versity of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-4330-5.

• Bolzoni, Lina (2004). The Web of Images. AshgatePublishers. ISBN 0-7546-0551-5.

• Dudai, Yadin (2002). Memory from A to Z. OxfordUniversity Press. ISBN 0-19-850267-2.

• Small, Jocelyn P. (1997). Wax Tablets of the Mind.London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-14983-5.

• Carruthers, Mary; Ziolkowski, Jan (2002). The Me-dieval Craft of Memory: An anthology of texts andpictures. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN0-8122-3676-9.

• Culianu, Ioan (1987). Eros and Magic In The Re-naissance. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-12316-2.

• Foer, Joshua (2011). Moonwalking with Einstein:The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420-229-2.

8 External links• TED talk: Joshua Foer on feats of memory anyonecan do

10 9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

9 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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