Art of memory

For the 1966 non-ction book, see The Art of Memory.

The art of memory (Latin: ars memoriae) is any of
a number of a loosely associated mnemonic principles
and techniques used to organize memory impressions,
improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. An alternative and frequently used term is
Ars Memorativa which is also often translated as art
of memory although its more literal meaning is Memorative Art. It is sometimes referred to as mnemotechnics.[1] It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is to
say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and
discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of human
beings.[2] It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle
of the rst millennium BCE,[3] and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of the
art were employed in other contexts, particularly the religious and the magical.

placement of images to lend order to memory. Passages

in his works On The Soul and On Memory and Reminiscence proved to be inuential in the later revival of the art
among medieval Scholastics.[6]
The 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 chant 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 the recital was complete, the
nobleman selshly told Simonides that he would only pay
him half of the agreed upon payment for the panegyric,
and that he would 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
outside. He left to meet the visitors but could nd no one.
Then, while he was outside the banquet hall, it collapsed,
crushing everyone within. The bodies were so disgured
that they could not be identied for proper burial. But,
Simonides was able to remember where each of the guests
had been sitting at the table, and so was able to identify
them for burial. This experience suggested to Simonides
the principles which were to become central to the later
development of the art he reputedly invented.[7]

Techniques commonly employed in the art include the association of emotionally striking memory images within
visualized locations, the chaining or association of groups
of images, the association of images with schematic
graphics or notae (signs, markings, gures in Latin),
and the association of text with images. Any or all of
these techniques were often used in combination with the
contemplation or study of architecture, books, sculpture
and painting, which were seen by practitioners of the art
of memory as externalizations of internal memory images
and/or organization.

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]

Because of the variety of principles and techniques, and

their various applications, some researchers refer to the
arts of memory, rather than to a single art.[2]

Origins and history

The early Christian monks adapted techniques common

in the art of memory as an art of composition and
meditation, which was in keeping with the rhetorical 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 secure within ones memory. Within this tradition, the art of memory was passed
along to the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance (or
Early Modern period). When Cicero and Quintilian were
revived after the 13th century, humanist scholars understood the language of these ancient writers within the context of the medieval traditions they knew best, which were
profoundly altered by monastic practices of meditative
reading and composition.[9]

It has been suggested that the art of memory originated

among the Pythagoreans or perhaps even earlier among
the ancient Egyptians, but no conclusive evidence has
been presented to support these claims.[4]
The 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 (Bk II 350360), and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria (Bk XI). Additionally, the art is mentioned in fragments from earlier
Greek works including the Dialexis, dated to approximately 400 BCE.[5] Aristotle wrote extensively on the
subject of memory, and mentions the technique of the
1

1 ORIGINS AND HISTORY

whole universe and the roads to Heaven and Hell.[10] The
Dominicans were particularly important in promoting its
uses,[11] see for example Cosmos Rossellius.
The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci - who from 1582 until his death in 1610, worked to introduce Christianity to
China - described the system of places and images 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 means 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 apparently trying to gain favour
with the Chinese imperial service, which required a notoriously dicult entry examination.[12]

One of Giordano Brunos simpler pieces

Graphical memory devices from the works of Giordano Bruno

Saint Thomas Aquinas was an important inuence in promoting the art when he dened it as a part of Prudence
and recommended its use to meditate on the virtues and
to improve ones piety. In scholasticism articial memory came to be used as a method for recollecting the

Perhaps following the example of Metrodorus of Scepsis, vaguely described in Quintilians Institutio oratoria,
Giordano Bruno, a defrocked Dominican, used a variation 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 combinatoric
concentric circles of Ramon Llull, in part upon schematic
diagrams in keeping with medieval Ars Notoria traditions,
in part upon groups of words and images associated with
late antique Hermeticism,[13] and in part upon the classical architectural mnemonic. According to one inuential interpretation, his memory system was intended to ll
the mind of the practitioner with images representing all
knowledge of the world, and was to be used, in a magical
sense, as an avenue to reach the intelligible world beyond
appearances, and thus enable one to powerfully inuence

2.2

Order

events in the real world.[14] Such 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 developments in logic and scientic method
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[16]
However, this transition was not without its diculties,
and during this period the belief in the eectiveness of
the older methods of memory training (to say nothing 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 the 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 skirmish.[17] Erasmus of Rotterdam
and other humanists, Protestant and Catholic, had also
chastised practitioners of the art of memory for making
extravagant claims for its ecacy, although they themselves believed rmly in a well-disposed, orderly memory
as an essential tool of productive thought.[18]
One explanation for the steady decline in the importance
of the art of memory from the 16th to the 20th century
is oered by the late Ioan P. Culianu, who argued that
it was suppressed during the Reformation and CounterReformation when Protestants and reactionary Catholics
alike worked to eradicate pagan inuence and the lush
visual imagery of the Renaissance.[19]
Whatever the causes, in keeping with general developments, the art of memory eventually came to be dened primarily as a part of Dialectics, and was assimilated 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 the teaching
of Argument.[20] Simplied variants of the art of memory were also taught through the 19th century as useful
to public orators, including preachers and after-dinner
speakers.

2
2.1

Principles
Visual sense and spatial orientation

Perhaps 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 principle is reected 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. Victor'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

3
should therefore create strong visual images,
through expression and gesture, which will x
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]
This 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 visual 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 position images seen within
space.

2.2 Order
The positioning of images in virtual space leads naturally
to an order, furthermore, an order to which we are naturally accustomed as biological organisms, deriving 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 articial and the natural memory, 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 dierent subjects. Once one
has the all-important starting-place of the ordering scheme and the contents rmly in their
places within it, it is quite possible to move
back and forth from one distinct composition
to another without losing ones place or becoming confused.[22]
Again discussing Hugh of St. Victors works on memory,
Carruthers clearly notes the critical importance of order
in memory:
One must have a rigid, easily retained order, with a denite beginning. Into this order one places the components of what one
wishes to memorize and recall. As a moneychanger (nummularium) separates and classies his coins by type in his money bag (sacculum, marsupium), so the contents of wisdoms storehouse (thesaurus, archa), which
is the memory, must be classied according to
a denite, orderly scheme.[23]

2.3 Limited sets

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

TECHNIQUES

a long series into more manageable sets. This is reected

too, will ensure our remembering them more
in advice on forming images or groups of images which
readily.[26]
can be taken in at a single glance, as well as in discussions of memorizing lengthy passages, A long text must
On the other hand, the image associated with an emotion
always be broken up into short segments, numbered, then
will call up the emotion when recollected. Carruthers dismemorized a few pieces at a time.[24] This is known in
cusses this in the context of the way in which the trained
modern terminology as chunking.
medieval memory was thought to be intimately related
with the development of prudence or moral judgement.

2.4

Association

Since each phantasm is a combination not

Association was considered to be of critical importance
only of the neutral form of the perception,
for the practice of the art. However, it was clearly recbut of our response to it (intentio) concerning
ognized that associations in memory are idiosyncratic,
whether it is helpful or hurtful, the phantasm
hence, what works for one will not automatically work
by its very nature evokes emotion. This is how
for all. For this reason, the associative values given for
the phantasm and the memory which stores it
images in memory texts are usually intended as examhelps to cause or bring into being moral excelples and are not intended to be universally normative.
lence and ethical judgement.[27]
Yates oers a passage from Aristotle that briey outlines
the principle of association. In it, he mentions the importance of a starting point to initiate a chain of recollection, In modern terminology, the concept that salient, bizarre,
shocking, or simply unusual information will be more easand the way in which it serves as a stimulating cause.
ily remembered can be referred to as the Von Restor
eect.
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
2.6 Repetition
instance from milk to white, from white to air,
from air to damp; after which one recollects auThe well-known role of repetition in the common process
tumn, supposing that one is trying to recollect
of memorization of course plays a role in the more comthe season.[25]
plex techniques of the art of memory. The earliest of the
references to the art of memory, the Dialexis, mentioned
above, makes this clear: repeat again what you hear;
2.5 Aect
for by often hearing and saying the same things, what
[28]
The importance of aect or emotion in the art of memory you have learned comes complete into your memory.
is frequently discussed. The role of emotion in the art can Similar advice is a commonplace in later works on the art
be divided into two major groupings: the rst is the role of of memory.
emotion in the process of seating or xing images in the
memory, the second is the way in which the recollection
of a memory image can evoke an emotional response.

3 Techniques

One of the earliest sources discussing the art, the Ad

Herennium emphasizes the importance of using emotion- The art of memory employed a number of techniques
ally striking imagery to ensure that the images will be re- which can be grouped as follows for purposes of discustained in memory:
sion, however they were usually used in some combination:
We ought, then, to set up images of a kind
that can adhere longest in memory. And we
3.1 Architectural mnemonic
shall do so if we establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set up images that are
The architectural mnemonic was a key group of technot many or vague but active; if we assign to
niques employed in the art of memory. It is based on
them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness;
the use of places (Latin loci), which were memorized by
if we ornament some of them, as with crowns
practitioners as the framework or ordering structure that
or purple cloaks, so that the similitude may be
would 'contain' the images or signs 'placed' within it to
more distinct to us; or if we somehow disgure
record experience or knowledge. To use this method one
them, as by introducing one stained with blood
might walk through a building several times, viewing disor soiled with mud and smeared with red paint,
tinct places within it, in the same order each time. After
so that its form is more striking, or by assigning
the necessary repetitions of this process, one should be
certain comic eects to our images, for that,

3.2

Graphical mnemonic

able to remember and visualize each of the places reliably and in order. If one wished to remember, for example, a speech, one could break up the content of the
speech into images or signs used to memorize its parts,
which would then be 'placed' in the locations previously
memorized. The components of the speech could then be
recalled in order by imagining that one is walking through
the building again, visiting each of the loci in order, viewing the images there, and thereby recalling the elements
of the speech in order. A reference to these techniques
survives to this day in the common English phrases in
the rst place, in the second place, and so forth. These
techniques, or variants, are sometimes referred to as the
method of loci, which is discussed in a separate section
below.
The primary source for the architectural mnemonic is
the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, a Latin work
on rhetoric from the rst century BCE. It is unlikely that
the technique originated with the author of the Ad Herennium. The technique is also mentioned by Cicero and
Quintilian. According to the account in the Ad Herennium (Book III) backgrounds or 'places are like wax
tablets, and the images that are 'placed' on or within them
are like writing. Real physical locations were apparently
commonly used as the basis of memory places, as the author of the Ad Herennium suggests
it will be more advantageous to obtain
backgrounds in a deserted than in a populous
region, because the crowding and passing to
and fro of people confuse and weaken the impress of the images, while solitude keeps their
outlines sharp.[29]

5
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 provides
the following famous example of a likeness based upon
subject:
Often we encompass the record of an entire matter by one notation, a single image. For
example, the prosecutor has said that the defendant killed a man by poison, has charged
that the motive for the crime was an inheritance, and declared that there are many witnesses and accessories to this act. If in order
to facilitate our defense we wish to remember
this rst point, we shall in our rst background
form an image of the whole matter. We shall
picture 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, but
not a man of the lowest class, so that he may
come to mind at once. And we shall place the
defendant at the bedside, holding in his right
hand a cup, and in his left hand tablets, and on
the fourth nger a rams testicles (Latin testiculi suggests testes or witnesses). In this way
we can record the man who was poisoned, the
inheritance, and the witnesses.[31]
In order to memorize likenesses based on words he provides an example of a verse and describes how images
may be placed, each of which corresponds to words in
the verse. He notes however that the technique will not
work without combination with rote memorization of the
verse, so that the images call to mind the previously memorized words.

However, real physical locations were not the only source

The architectural mnemonic was also related to the
of places. The author goes on to suggest
broader concept of learning and thinking. Aristotle considered the technique in relation to topica, or conceptual
if we are not content with our ready-made
areas or issues. In his Topics he suggested
supply of backgrounds, we may in our imagination create a region for ourselves and obtain
a most serviceable distribution of appropriate
backgrounds.[30]
Places or backgrounds hence require, and reciprocally
impose, order (often deriving from the spatial characteristics of the physical location memorized, in cases where
an actual physical structure provided the basis for the
'places). This order itself organizes the images, preventing confusion during recall. The anonymous author also
advises that places should be well lit, with orderly intervals, and distinct from one another. He recommends a
virtual 'viewing distance' sucient to allow the viewer to
encompass the space and the images it contains with a
single glance.

For just as in a person with a trained memory, a memory of things themselves is immediately caused by the mere mention of their
places, so these habits too will make a man
readier in reasoning, because he has his premisses classied before his minds eye, each
under its number.[32]

3.2 Graphical mnemonic

Because of the inuence of the pioneering work of

Frances Yates, the architectural mnemonic is often characterized as the art of memory itself. However, primary
sources show that from very early in the development
Turning to images, the anonymous author asserts that they of the art, non-physical or abstract locations and/or spaare of two kinds: those establishing a likeness based upon tial graphics were employed as memory 'places. Perhaps
subject, and those establishing a likeness based upon a the most famous example of such an abstract system of

6
'places is the memory system of Metrodorus of Scepsis,
who was said by Quintilian to have organized his memory
using a system of backgrounds in which he found three
hundred and sixty places in the twelve signs of the zodiac
through which the sun moves. Some researchers (L.A.
Post and Yates) believe it likely that Metorodorus organized his memory using places based in some way upon
the signs of the zodiac.[33] In any case Quintilian makes it
clear that non-alphabetic signs can be employed as memory images, and even goes on to mention how 'shorthand'
signs (notae) can be used to signify things that would otherwise be impossible to capture in the form of a denite
image (he gives conjunctions as an example).[34]

METHOD OF LOCI

3.3 Textual mnemonic

Carrutherss studies of memory suggest that the images
and pictures employed in the medieval arts of memory
were not representational in the sense we today understand that term. Rather, images were understood to function textually, as a type of 'writing', and not as something dierent from it in kind.[37]

If such an assessment is correct, it suggests that the use of

text to recollect memories was, for medieval practitioners,
merely a variant of techniques employing notae, images
and other non-textual devices. Carruthers quotes Pope
Gregory I, in support of the idea that 'reading' pictures
This makes it clear that though the architectural was considered to be a variation of reading itself.
mnemonic with its buildings, niches and threedimensional images was a major theme of the art
It is one thing to worship a picture, it is
as practiced in classical times, it often employed signs
another by means of pictures to learn thoror notae and sometimes even non-physical imagined
oughly the story that should be venerated. For
spaces. During the period of migration of barbarian
what writing makes present to those reading,
tribes and the transformation of the Roman empire the
the same picturing makes present to the uneduarchitectural mnemonic fell into disuse. However the
cated, to those perceiving visually, because in it
use of tables, charts and signs appears to have continued
the ignorant see what they ought to follow, in it
and developed independently. Mary Carruthers has
they read who do not know letters. Wherefore,
made it clear that a trained memory occupied a central
and especially for the common people, picturplace in late antique and medieval pedagogy, and has
ing is the equivalent of reading.[37]
documented some of the ways in which the development
of medieval memorial arts was intimately intertwined
with the emergence of the book as we understand it Her work makes clear that for medieval readers the act of
today. Examples of the development of the potential reading itself had an oral phase in which the text was read
inherent in the graphical mnemonic include the lists and aloud or sub-vocalized (silent reading was a less common
combinatory wheels of the Majorcan Ramon Llull. The variant, and appears to have been the exception rather
Art of Signs (Latin Ars Notoria) is also very likely a than the rule), then meditated upon and 'digested' hence
development of the graphical mnemonic. Yates mentions making it ones own. She asserts that both 'textual' activApollonius of Tyana and his reputation for memory, ities (picturing and reading) have as their goal the interas well as the association between trained memory, nalization of knowledge and experience in memory.
astrology and divination.[35] She goes on to suggest
The 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 represent
letters, the use of illuminated capital letters at the openings of passages, and even the structure of the modern
book (itself deriving from scholastic developments) with
It may have been out of this atmosphere
its index, table of contents and chapters reect the fact
that there was formed a tradition which, gothat reading was a memorial practice, and the use of text
ing underground for centuries and suering
was simply another technique in the arsenal of practitiontransformations in the process, appeared in the
ers of the arts of memory.
Middle Ages as the Ars Notoria, a magical art
of memory attributed to Apollonius or sometimes to Solomon. The practitioner of the Ars
Notoria gazed at gures or diagrams curiously
4 Method of loci
marked and called 'notae' whilst reciting magical prayers. He hoped to gain in this way
Main article: Method of loci
knowledge, or memory, of all the arts and sciences, a dierent 'nota' being provided for each
The 'method of loci' (plural of Latin locus for place or lodiscipline. The Ars Notoria is perhaps a decation) is a general designation for mnemonic techniques
scendant of the classical art of memory, or
that rely upon memorized spatial relationships to estabof that dicult branch of it which used the
lish, order and recollect memorial content. The term is
shorthand notae. It was regarded as a particumost often found in specialized works on psychology,
larly black kind of magic and was severely conneurobiology and memory, though it was used in the
demned by Thomas Aquinas.[36]

7
same general way at least as early as the rst half of ing in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attested
the nineteenth century in works on Rhetoric, Logic and in classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and comprePhilosophy.[38]
hensive in the treatment of this subject.
O'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 The 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 any geographical entity
which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When
desiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks
through these loci 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
'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate
the desired items. The ecacy of this technique has been
well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969,
1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as
is the minimal interference seen with its use.[39]

5 See also
6 Notes
[1] In her general introduction to the subject (The Art of Memory, 1966, p4) Frances Yates suggests that it may be misleading to dismiss it with the label 'mnemotechnics" and
The word 'mnemotechnics hardly conveys what the articial memory of Cicero may have been like. Furthermore, mnemotechnics, etymologically speaking, emphasizes practical application, whereas the art of memory
certainly includes general principles and a certain degree
of 'theory'.
[2] Carruthers 1990, p. 123

The designation is not used with strict consistency. In

some cases it refers broadly to what is otherwise known [3]
as the art of memory, the origins of which are related,
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 how Simonides relied on remembered seating arrangements to call to mind
the faces of recently deceased guests, Steven M. Kosslyn remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of a
technique the Greeks called the method of loci, which
is a systematic way of improving ones memory by us- [4]
ing imagery.[41] Skoyles and Sagan indicate that an ancient technique of memorization called Method of Loci, [5]
by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial [6]
maps originated with the story of Simonides.[42] Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee Williams mentions,
One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was developed by Simonides, a Greek poet of the fth and sixth
centuries BC[43] Loftus cites the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and
[7]
describes some of the most basic aspects of the use of
space in the art of memory. She states, This particular [8]
mnemonic technique has come to be called the method
of loci.[44] While place or position certainly gured
prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no designation equivalent to method of loci was used exclu- [9]
sively to refer to mnemonic schemes relying upon space [10]
for organization.[45]

Simonedes of Ceos, the poet credited by the ancients with

the discovery of fundamental principles of this art, was active around 500 BCE, and in any case a fragment known as
the Dialexis, which is dated to about 400 BCE contains a
short section on memory which outlines features known to
be 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, Third
Edition, Ed. Hornblower and Spawforth, 1999, p1409.
Yates, 1966, pp. 29
Yates, 1966, pp. 27-30
Aristotles assertion that we cannot contemplate or understand without an image in the minds eye representing
the thing considered was also highly inuential. Aristotle, De Anima 3.8 in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed.
Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984)
Yates, 1966, pp. 1-2
Cicero, De oratore, II, lxxxvi, 351-4, English translation
by E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham from Loeb Classics Edition
Carruthers 1990, 1998
Carruthers & Ziolkowski 2002

[11] Bolzoni 2004

In other cases the designation is generally consistent, but

more specic: The Method of Loci is a Mnemonic [12] Spence 1984
Device involving the creation of a Visual Map of ones
[13] Brunos use of groups of words may also be associated
house.[46]
This 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 upon images
and places. The designator method of loci does not
convey the equal weight placed on both elements. Train-

with the use of shorthand, or with techniques associated

with shorthand in antiquity. Yates (1966) mentions the
possibility of a relationship between shorthand notae and
the art(s) of memory (p15 footnote 16) and the possible role of shorthand notae in 'magical' memory training
(p43). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third Edition,
1999, in the article tachygraphy) discusses the formal

characteristics of late Hellenistic shorthand manuals, noting These show a fully organized system, composed of
a syllabary and a (so-called) Commentary, consisting of
groups of words, arranged in fours or occasionally eights,
with a sign attached to each, which had to memorized.
This can be compared with Brunos atria in De Imaginum, Signorum, et Idearum Compositione (1591) in which
groups of 24 words are each associated within an atrium
with Atrii Imago (e.g. Altare, Basili, Carcer, Domus, etc.)
[14] Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, 1966; Giordano Bruno
and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964
[15] e.g. the Memory Theater of Giulio Camillo discussed
by 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] De memoria et reminiscentia, 452 8-16, cited in Yates, The
Art 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 Art
of Memory, 1966, p29
[29] Book III, xix, 31, Loeb Classics English translation by
Harry Caplan
[30] Book III, xix, 32, Loeb Classics English translation by
Harry Caplan
[31] Book III, xix, 33, Loeb Classics English translation by
Harry 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 of
Memory, 1966, p. 31
[33] Yates, 1966, pp. 39-42
[34] Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, XI, ii, 23-26, Loeb Edition
English translation by H. E. Butler
[35] Yates 1966, pp. 42-43
[36] Yates 1966, p. 43
[37] Carruthers 1990, p. 222

REFERENCES

[38] e.g. in a discussion of topical memory (yet another designator) Jamieson mentions that memorial lines,
or verses, are more useful than the method of loci.
Alexander Jamieson, A Grammar of Logic and Intellectual Philosophy, A. H. Maltby, 1835, p112
[39] John O'Keefe & Lynn Nadel, The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map, Oxford University Press, 1978, p389-390
[40] Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, University of Chicago,
1966, p1-2
[41] Steven M. Kosslyn, Imagery in Learning in: Michael S.
Gazzaniga (Ed.), Perspectives in Memory Research, MIT
Press, 1988, p245; it should be noted that Kosslyn fails to
cite any example of the use of an equivalent term in period
Greek 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-Sided
Mind: A Guide to Right Brain/Left Brain Education, Simon & Schuster, 1986, p110
[44] Elizabeth F. Loftus, Human Memory: The Processing of
Information, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1976, p65
[45] For example, Aristotle referred to topoi (places) in which
memorial content could be aggregated - hence our modern term topics, while another primary classical source,
Rhetorica ad Herennium (Bk III) discusses rules for places
and images. In general Classical and Medieval sources describe these techniques as the art or arts of memory (ars
memorativa or artes memorativae), rather than as any putative method of loci. Nor is the imprecise designation
current in specialized historical studies, for example Mary
Carruthers uses the term architectural mnemonic to describe what is otherwise designated method of loci.
[46] Sharon A. Gutman, Quick Reference Neuroscience For Rehabilitation 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. ISBN
071265545X.
Spence, Jonathan D. (1984). The Memory Palace
of Matteo Ricci. New York: Viking Penguin. ISBN
0-14-008098-8.
Carruthers, Mary (1990). The Book of Memory
(rst ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780-521-38282-3. (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. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-4330-5.
Bolzoni, Lina (2004). The Web of Images. Ashgate
Publishers. ISBN 0-7546-0551-5.
Dudai, Yadin (2002). Memory from A to Z. Oxford
University 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 Medieval Craft of Memory: An anthology of texts and
pictures. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN
0-8122-3676-9.
Culianu, Ioan (1987). Eros and Magic In The Renaissance. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226-12316-2.
Foer, Joshua (2011). Moonwalking with Einstein:
The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.
New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420229-2.

External links
TED talk: Joshua Foer on feats of memory anyone
can do

10

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

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Art of memory Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art%20of%20memory?oldid=659504336 Contributors: William Avery, Michael

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Images

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9.3

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