The Art Of Memory

| 4.29 | 1,378 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Joshua Foer, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #7 in Memory Improvement, Ranked #65 in Esoteric

The ancient Greeks, to whom a trained memory was of vital importance - as it was to everyone before the invention of printing - created an elaborate memory system, based on a technique of impressing 'places' and 'images' on the mind. Inherited and recorded by the Romans, this art of memory passed into the European tradition, to be revived, in occult form, at the Renaissance, and particularly by the strange and remarkable genius, Giordano Bruno.

Such is the main theme of Frances Yates's unique and brilliant book, in the course of which she sheds light on such diverse subjects as... more
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We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Art Of Memory from the world's leading experts.

Joshua Foer It’s the book that started the whole field of academic research into the art of memory. For anyone interested in the subject, it’s the first thing to read. Yates starts with the ancient Greeks and tells the story of how the art of memory began, then went through a number of transformations. In the Middle Ages it became associated with religious remembering. During the Renaissance it got wrapped up with a whole bunch of Kabbalistic and hermetic ideas that were in the air at the time. Yates’s story ends with the Renaissance, but the story of mnemonics continues and subsequent scholars have... (Source)

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