Art of Memory

Art of Memory by Francis A. Yates


Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1974ISBN is 9780226949994 / 0226949990
Hardcover5.5 x 8.7 inches, 400 pages

The Art of Memory is a 1966 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book follows the history of mnemonic systems from the classical period of Simonides of Ceos in Ancient Greece to the Renaissance era of Giordano Bruno, ending with Gottfried Leibniz and the early emergence of the scientific method in the 17th century.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, its publication was "an important stimulus to the flowering of experimental research on imagery and memory."

Modern Library included The Art of Memory on its list of 100 best nonfiction books.
---------------------------Dame Frances Amelia Yates, DBE, FBA (28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was an English historian of the Renaissance, who wrote books on esoteric history.

After attaining an MA in French at University College London, she began to publish her research in scholarly journals and academic books, focusing on 16th century theatre and the life of John Florio. In 1941, she was employed by the Warburg Institute, and began to work on what she termed "Warburgian history", emphasising a pan-European and inter-disciplinary approach to historiography.

Her most acclaimed publication was Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964), in which she emphasised the role of Hermeticism in Bruno's works and the role that magic and mysticism played in Renaissance thinking. The Art of Memory (1966), and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972) are also major works. Yates wrote extensively on the occult or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance, which she is credited with making more accessible.