The art of memory. 2nd edition, fixed. Yates F.A.

Ancient Greeks, for which, as well as for all subscription crops, trained memory was incredibly important, created a complex system of mnemonic techniques. Inherited and recorded by the Romans, this art of memory passed into European culture and was revived (largely thanks to Jordano Bruno) in the occult form in the Renaissance.

The book Francis Yates, first published in 1966, served as the basis for all subsequent studies on the history of philosophy, science and literature. The author traces the history of memory from the ancient Greek poet Simonid and the ancient Roman treatises, through the Middle Ages, where the memory gains a theological perspective, through the already mentioned Renaissance magical memory to the universal language of the “innocent Kabbalah”, the project of which was developed by G. V. Leibnitsa in the 17th century. In addition to this main topic, Yates also touches on issues related to ancient architecture, the “divine comedy” of Dante and the Shakespearean theater.

The reader offers the second, substantially modified translation of this book. Francis Amelia Yates (1899-1981) is an outstanding English cultural historian of the Renaissance.