Italy, Ars Memorativa, and Fame’s House

Italy, Ars Memorativa, and Fame's House MaryJ. Carruthers University ofIllinois at Chicago My concern in trus pape, i, not Dante as , specific sourre fm Chaucer but rather an influence shared profoundly by both poets which, in my opinion, strengthens the case for Chaucer's enrichmentfrom his contact with Italian culture, including, inevitably and forcefully, the poetry ofthe Commedia. This shared interest is the art of memory described in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, an interest which I have been able to associate quite precisely with the early humanistic circles in central Italy-Florence, Bologna, and Pisa-and with the Dominican order, also especially in Italy. Let me begin by tracing briefly the fortunes of the memoria section of the Ad Herennium during the Middle Ages. (I am, of course, filling in a chapter missing from Frances Yates's study ofthe subject, though my work certainly depends on hers.) First, we should always keep in mind that a number ofmemory-training schemes were regularly taught as part ofelementary pedagogy in grammar (reading and composition) continuously from antiquity. 1 I do not have space to describe them here, but it will be enough for me to emphasize that trained memory, the ability to store and recall quickly, easily, and accurately large quantities of textual information, was a revered goal of medieval education. Those whose native talent enabled them to attain this ideal were regarded with awe by their contemporaries, but even the dullest ofstudents had to train his memory to a degree that we, with our extensive personal 1 The best discussions of these schemes in the Middle Ages are Helga Hajdu, Das MnemotechnischeSchriftumdesMittelalters(Wien: Franz Leo,1939); and PaoloRossi, Clavis Universalis: Arti mnemoniche e logica combinatoria da Lu/lo a Leibniz (Milan: Riccardi, 1960), esp. pp. 2-27. A very interesting manual ofelementary mnemotechnique, written in 1130, is the preface which Hugh of St. Victor prepared for his Chronica; the only edition is that of William M. Green, "Hugo of St. Victor 'De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Ges­ torum,'" Speculum 18 (1943): 484-93. The medieval history of the architectural mnemonic itself was discussed by Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Routledge, 1966), although I think that Rossi's account is somewhat more reliable even though it isbriefer. I am myself presently preparing a study of these matters, which I hope to publish soon. 179 FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS libraries, find awe-inspiring. Following Cicero, Thomas Aquinas regards memory as a part of prudence; indeed it is almost a virtue in itself. Memoria is the result of good, careful training, the formation of habitus, as all other virtues are; it is not simply some remarkable ingenium which only rarely gifted individuals possess. In discussions of the psychological fac­ ulties themselves, writers from Aristotle on distinguish between memoria as the storing capability of the mind (or animus) and reminiscentia, the power of recollection. But for the less technical discussions which occur in virtually every other context, the distinction is blurred, and the word memoria refers to all these aspects: the storage capability, the ability to recollect, and the improvement of both capabilities produced by training. The fortunes of the specific scheme taught in the AdHerennium (whose origins are almost certainly Greek) seem to have reached an ebb in the imperial years of Rome. Cicero speaks of it in De oratore as too well known to require description; Quintilian, some 140 years later, dismisses it as too artificial and cumbersome to be useful for most students. Quintilian's judgment, in turn, is reaffirmed in the late fourth century byJulius Victor. Indeed none of the "Minor Latin Rhetoricians" collected in Halm shows any clear knowledge of the particular architectural scheme of AdHerennium. The early scholastic, chiefly northern European, commentary on Ad Herennium which sprang up "fully formed," inJohn Ward's phrase,2 in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries has almost nothing to say about the memory section. Early allusions to it inJohnof Garland and Geoffrey of Vinsauf, masters at Paris, either are dismissive, in the spirit ofJulius Victor, or misunderstand it and misappropriate its rules to accord with other current mnemonic schemes. The revival of the AdHerennium's mnemonic is associated instead with...