The art of memory

Essential reading for anyone who wants a look into to the history of memory techniques in European cultures.

Fascinating history of the art of memory. Links up a number of thinkers in refreshing and apparently when this came out, new ways. Some chapters on Lullism and Bruno and the hermetic tradition were a very heavy slog despite being the climax of the author's most original arguments and I confess to some skimming there. The early chapters through the chapter on Thomas Aquinas were a wonderful survey of mnemotechnics from Greek to medieval European (of course the discussion is limited to the European side of things) history of memory techniques.