Learning the Art of Memory by Doing: Diagrams as Material Objects and Embodied Teaching Tools in Early Modern Mnemonics

This article aims to highlight the significance of embodied interaction between readers and early modern diagrams, with a specific focus on the art of memory. The Rhetorica ad Herennium and Renaissance rhetoric and mnemonic manuals describe this technique as a visualization of images that symbolize information and are placed into imaginary loci, typically real or fictitious buildings. Diagrams were often used to convey the spatial order of these buildings, thus playing a crucial role in the transmission of mnemonic knowledge. Consequently, the materiality of these diagrams was instrumental in the success or failure of mnemonics manuals, as evidenced in Jacobus Publicius and Girolamo Marafioto’s manuals. The strategic importance of diagrams also explains why teachers like Johannes Henricus Döbel strove to accurately represent three-dimensional diagrams in two-dimensional printed sheets. These different case-studies underline the importance to consider diagrams not only as intellectual tools but also as material objects implying physical actions.