Abstract

This volume makes a bold and successful attempt to trace the historical roots of memory-art from the Greek era to the Middle Ages where the Art's role was central to all other arts—literary, architectural, etc. Yates concentrates on the Renaissance period with a detailed study of the memory theater of Giulio Camillo, the continuation of Lullism as an Art of Memory, the influence of Giordano Bruno and Peter Ramus. Several chapters are devoted to the Theatre Memory system of Robert Fludd and the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre. A final chapter indicates that although the gradual birth of a new way of thinking—the scientific method of Bacon, Kepler, et alio—would seem to quiet forever mnemonic arts, this latter art played no small influence on the more scientific thinkers, especially Leibniz and his "dissertation on the art of combining." The book is supplemented with numerous plates and charts of antiquity which illustrate the forgotten art of memory.—J. J. R.