The Medieval Craft of Memory: an Anthology of Texts and Pictures (review)

Reviews 171 Parergon 20.2 (2003) Carruthers, Mary and Jan M. Ziolkowski, eds, The Medieval Craft of Memory: an Anthology of Texts and Pictures, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002; cloth; pp. 312; 29 b/w illustrations; RRP US$37.50; ISBN 0812236769. This sequel to Mary Carruthers’ valuable work on medieval mnemonics, The Book of Memory, provides us with a useful compendium of translations of fifteen works on memory. The book starts with a 31 page introduction written by the two editors, some of it taken from Carruthers’ earlier work, which ends with three appendices, the first reappearing as Chapter Two (by Carruthers), the second (De Bono) noted in Jan Ziolkowski’s translation of Albert Magnus’s Liber de memoria et reminiscentia and the third Thomas Bradwardine’s De Memoria Artificiali, which reappears with much the same text as Chapter 9 in the earlier book. Beside Carruthers’ two repeats, but with a few changes and fuller introductions, there are 12 other works, some never translated before, and they show a fascinating range of authors and techniques to strengthen one’s memory. These chapters are on Hugh of St. Victor’s A Little Book about Constructing Noah’s Ark, tr. by Jessica Weiss (pp. 41-70), The Guidonian Hand, tr. by Karol Berger (pp. 71-82), Alan of Lille’s On the Six Wings of the Seraph, tr. by Bridget Balint (pp. 83-102), Boncompagno da Signa’s On Memory, tr. by Sean Gallagher (pp. 103-117), Albert Magnus’ Commentary on Aristotle, on Memory and Recollection, tr. by Jan Ziolkowski (pp. 118-152), Thomas Aquinas’Commentary on Aristotle, on Memory and Recollection, tr. by John Burchill (pp. 153-188), Francesc Eiximenis’On Two Kinds of Order that Aid Understanding and Memory, tr. by Kimberly Rivers (pp. 189-204), Carruthers’ Bradwardine (pp. 205-214), John of Metz’ The Tower of Wisdom, tr. by Lucy Sandler (pp. 215-225), Jacobus Publicius’ The Art of Memory, tr. by Henry Bayerle (pp. 226-254) and an anonymous Method for Recollecting the Gospels, tr. by James Halporn (pp. 255293 , with 16 images of the evangelists). Two short works fill the Appendix (pp. 295-298), Consultus Fortunatianus’On Memory and Julius Victor’s On Memory, both translated by Jan Ziolkowski. It should be added that each translation has one to five pages before it that provide very useful information on the author, the source of the text (and pictures) and further reading. The book is well presented, with clear lettering and pictures, a uniform script and no typos, it seems. It provides a delightful compendium of works on memory, some with pictures and some creating pictures in one’s mind, as with Hugh St. Victor’s Noah’s Ark. An interesting passage in one of Gregory the 172 Reviews Parergon 20.2 (2003) Great’s letters might interest Weiss, Ep 11.28, to Isaac, Archbishop of Jerusalem (Feb., 601): ‘In preserving the truth of history, what does it mean that at the time of the flood the human race outside the Ark dies, but those inside the Ark are kept alive, other than that we now see clearly that the flood of their sin destroys all the unfaithful outside the Church, and the unity of the Holy Church, like the structure of the Ark, guards its faithful in faith and charity? Of course this Ark is constructed of incorruptible beams of wood, because it is built up on souls that are strong and that persevere in their goodness. And when each person is being converted from a secular life, timber is still being cut down from the mountains, as it were. But when he is promoted to a rank in the Holy Church to look after others, an Ark is being built from sawn and jointed timbers, as it were, to preserve human lives. And of course that Ark settled on a mountain when the flood was over, because as the corruption of this life ceases when the flood of evil deeds is over, and the Holy Church settles in the heavenly kingdom on a lofty mountain, as it were’. In ‘The Guidonian Hand’, Karol Berger, a music historian at Stanford, shows how the human hand...