The classical rules and exemplifications related to the ars memoriae, as well as the deep reformulations they experienced during the Middle Ages, reappear in the rich mnemonic treatises of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, modulating themselves in different ways according to the peculiarities of the cultural context where they were used, making themselves functional to new tasks, and, most of all, making all their memorial functions visible and evident thanks to the iconographic component that almost always characterizes these texts. In fact, the connection between word and image, which is essential for the function of the art of memory, duplicated itself at an operative level, guaranteeing on the one hand an effective exemplification of the proposed rules and on the other hand demonstrating in progress their functioning (that is to say, helping to memorise the text). Concerning this, it is important to stress that when we use the word “image”, we do not refer only to illustrations but also to images described in the text and to images which are moulded in the reader’s mind through a specific passage or a textual structure. In any case, whether real or mental, images can create a strong dialogue with the text they refer to and they always enrich, in a sensorial way, the reading experience, and suggest how the reader should pace the reading and help him to understand. In short, they help us to interpret the text they belong to. Starting from these theorical assumptions, my paper will focus on three texts that present three different forms of the relation between iconic and textual component: in particular, we found a didascalic relation (the image, which is part of the work, illustrates the text), a “referential” relation (the image, which is not part of the work, transfers the text in a real context) and a metaphoric relation (the image, which is not part of the work, is a kind of metaphoric development of the text). The first document is an anonymous manuscript written in vernacular Italian and regarding the «artifitial memoria»; it most probably dates back to the 15th century and is presently at the Parisian library of Saint Geneviève. Most interesting in this manuscript is not the textual component, which is simply a vulgarization of the main classical rules about the local memory, but rather the iconic whole that constantly accompanies the text. Each image is considered as an action carried out by human and animal forms (real or imaginary but always «cum alcuno movimento») inside an architectural scene that is harmoniously traced according to a rigorous perspective order. Furthermore, the miniature technique provides a clearly defined image that makes more easily intelligible the rule explained by the text and that sometimes seems to present strong features of autonomous identity to such an extent that you could read the whole text as a long and precise caption. Dimenticando per un attimo il testo, potremmo allora leggere queste immagini con un approccio analogo a quello riservato dagli studiosi dell’arte della memoria medievale alle dinamiche memoriali attivate in affreschi, arazzi, sculture, miniature a soddisfazione delle più varie finalità, dinamiche memoriali qui trasferite, forse tra le prime volte, all’interno di un trattato di mnemotecnica. If we forget for a moment the text, we could then read these images with an approach similar to the approach the scholars of the medieval art of memory applied to the memorial dynamics present in frescos, tapestries, sculptures, miniatures for the satisfaction of the most various purposes; and these dynamics are here, probably as a pretty new experience, inside a mnemotechnic treatise. The second text dates back to approximately the end of the 16th century and we see the disappearance of the manifest iconiccomponent (that is to say the illustrations[...]
Patterns and Functions of the Mnemonic Image in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
TORRE, ANDREA
2009
Abstract
The classical rules and exemplifications related to the ars memoriae, as well as the deep reformulations they experienced during the Middle Ages, reappear in the rich mnemonic treatises of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, modulating themselves in different ways according to the peculiarities of the cultural context where they were used, making themselves functional to new tasks, and, most of all, making all their memorial functions visible and evident thanks to the iconographic component that almost always characterizes these texts. In fact, the connection between word and image, which is essential for the function of the art of memory, duplicated itself at an operative level, guaranteeing on the one hand an effective exemplification of the proposed rules and on the other hand demonstrating in progress their functioning (that is to say, helping to memorise the text). Concerning this, it is important to stress that when we use the word “image”, we do not refer only to illustrations but also to images described in the text and to images which are moulded in the reader’s mind through a specific passage or a textual structure. In any case, whether real or mental, images can create a strong dialogue with the text they refer to and they always enrich, in a sensorial way, the reading experience, and suggest how the reader should pace the reading and help him to understand. In short, they help us to interpret the text they belong to. Starting from these theorical assumptions, my paper will focus on three texts that present three different forms of the relation between iconic and textual component: in particular, we found a didascalic relation (the image, which is part of the work, illustrates the text), a “referential” relation (the image, which is not part of the work, transfers the text in a real context) and a metaphoric relation (the image, which is not part of the work, is a kind of metaphoric development of the text). The first document is an anonymous manuscript written in vernacular Italian and regarding the «artifitial memoria»; it most probably dates back to the 15th century and is presently at the Parisian library of Saint Geneviève. Most interesting in this manuscript is not the textual component, which is simply a vulgarization of the main classical rules about the local memory, but rather the iconic whole that constantly accompanies the text. Each image is considered as an action carried out by human and animal forms (real or imaginary but always «cum alcuno movimento») inside an architectural scene that is harmoniously traced according to a rigorous perspective order. Furthermore, the miniature technique provides a clearly defined image that makes more easily intelligible the rule explained by the text and that sometimes seems to present strong features of autonomous identity to such an extent that you could read the whole text as a long and precise caption. Dimenticando per un attimo il testo, potremmo allora leggere queste immagini con un approccio analogo a quello riservato dagli studiosi dell’arte della memoria medievale alle dinamiche memoriali attivate in affreschi, arazzi, sculture, miniature a soddisfazione delle più varie finalità, dinamiche memoriali qui trasferite, forse tra le prime volte, all’interno di un trattato di mnemotecnica. If we forget for a moment the text, we could then read these images with an approach similar to the approach the scholars of the medieval art of memory applied to the memorial dynamics present in frescos, tapestries, sculptures, miniatures for the satisfaction of the most various purposes; and these dynamics are here, probably as a pretty new experience, inside a mnemotechnic treatise. The second text dates back to approximately the end of the 16th century and we see the disappearance of the manifest iconiccomponent (that is to say the illustrations[...]File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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