Abstract

The paper focuses on the following points:1. A survey of the characteristics of the philosophic book during the XIIIthcentury, with a special attention to the standard book-format developed for the Scholastic philosophy.2. The innovations introduced by Ramon Llull, going beyond the standard model of the Scholastic book. Llull is a merchant and, because of his education, he is not able to write a book of philosophy; but he has been inspired by God, who asked him to write a book which will be able to convert all the World. This will change his life: the key for the conversion will not be an interpretation of the Bible, but an explaination of the potentials of any human languages. Inside the human language it is possible to find the evidence of the reality of God, and especially of the God of the Christians. The new book will explain this, spreading the inner power of language itself.3. The philosophic book of Llull as a multi-cultural linguistic laboratory; survey of the graphic features enabling this complex interaction among different languages and writing systems.4. The organization of Llull’s scriptorium.5. After the death of Llull: why did his method for global conversion did not work?6. The modern tradition: copying Llull / loving Llull / inventing Llull.7. The transformations of the book designed for the Ars combinatoria and his relationships with modern culture. Philosophy and science. Book and laboratory. Philologists do not like Llull’s friends, but probably he would have loved them