Description

This unique and brilliant book is a history of human knowledge.

Before the invention of printing, a trained memory was of vital importance. Based on a technique of impressing ‘places’ and ‘images’ on the mind, the ancient Greeks created an elaborate memory system which in turn was inherited by the Romans and passed into the European tradition, to be revived, in occult form, during the Renaissance.

Frances Yates sheds light on Dante’s Divine Comedy, the form of the Shakespearian theatre and the history of ancient architecture; The Art of Memory is an invaluable contribution to aesthetics and psychology, and to the history of philosophy, of science and of literature.

Publisher Review

One of those quite remarkable and unclassifiable books on the history of knowledge which suddenly makes sense of three or four issues in terms of one commanding metaphor -- Jonathan Miller * Observer * Frances Yates is that rare thing, a truly thrilling scholar -- Michael Ratcliffe * The Times *