Dante and the Art of Memory in the Divine Comedy

Dante’s Education and Training in the Memory Arts

Frances Yates is considered to be one of the first scholars to popularize the suggestion that Dante Alighieri structured the Divine Comedy according to the principles of mnemonics. Considering Dante’s training and familiarity with philosophical and theological literature he would have certainly understood and practiced the memory arts. Around 1266 an Italian translation of the classic memory treatise, Ad Herennium was in circulation entitled Fiore di rettorica composed by Giudotto da Bologna. Some of Dante’s contemporaries wrote works on the art of memory in Italian such as Ammaestramenti degli antichi by Bartolomeo da San Concordio. Scholars have noted that since Italian translations of these classic memory texts were made available, it suggests that mnemonics would have also been learned by laymen.

Furthermore, Cicero in Book II of De Inventione stated that prudence consists of three parts: memory, understanding, and foresight. This understanding of prudence and its division is also conveyed in the works of Brunetto Latini, one of Dante’s teachers, and the Convivio. In medieval thought, mnemonics was not only tied to rhetoric but often related to virtue, as it once said, “memory of past events is considered to be the only foundation for foresight and judgment concerning the future.” Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas also discussed memory in the context of ethics in De Bono and Summa Theologica, two thinkers who had a significant influence upon Dante.

Francis Yates (1899-1981), Renaissance historian

Imaginary Memory Palaces

What we will see is that the Divine Comedy is not like a memory palace, but it is a memory palace. As a mnemonist, I think much about the design and structure of memoryspace, and I believe Dante’s use of order possesses a profound beauty. As we will see, his application of mnemonic technique was ahead of his time. Dantists have often likened the Divine Comedy to a medieval cathedral. Jason M. Baxter noted,

“If you’ve ever stepped into an old-world Gothic cathedral, then you will know that the vault soars overhead, rising sometimes to 150 feet, and that everywhere you look your eye finds harmony and graceful order. Medieval cathedrals have sweeping grandeur as well as an all-encompassing design: every part has a place, and every part has a corresponding part across the aisle. The face of the church, the façade, is divided into hierarchical layers and orderly portals. In a similar way, Dante’s poem is famous for its architectural order.”

As an architect of poetry, Dante constructs vivid locations that can be traversed in one’s mind. If you read the ancient and medieval mnemonic treatises one may discover that imaginary places were also used. Quintilian once stated,

“What I have spoken of as being done in a house can also be done in public buildings, or on a long journey, or in going through a city or with pictures. Or we can imagine places for ourselves. We require therefore places, either real or imaginary, and images or simulacra which must be invented.”

There is a tendency to think that only real places that we’ve actually visited can be used for the method of loci, however, imaginary palaces have been used throughout the history of mnemonics. I am reminded of Hugh of St. Victor’s use of Noah’s Ark, Johannes Mallow’s memory training in Minecraft, or Nelson Dellis memorizing a 1,000 random digits in a Super Mario 64 memory palace.

I recently took part in a memory research project at Columbia University where I was asked to memorize 40 randomly generated words displayed on a screen inside an MRI machine. The words were shown at 10-seconds intervals and I had to memorize them using a virtual palace they created for me. Similarly, we can think of the Divine Comedy as an imaginative memory palace that Dante intends us to walk in and see along with him.

Dante the Pilgrim, Locations, and Mnemonic Walking

In mnemonics, the process of recalling information from a memory palace is often described in terms of walking, one imagines themselves traveling to locations in order to see stored treasures of wisdom with one’s mental eye (‘oculus mentalis’). It is interesting that Dante the Pilgrim incorporates the imagery of walking, not only in its content but poetic form. As

According to Alina

pointed out,

“One of Dante’s great innovations as a poet is that he places himself, a real man, at the heart of a story about the human experience. He forgoes the use of allegorical or mythical characters as was normal in medieval traditions when writers wanted to tell tales about human existence. Instead, he weaves historical figures in a fictional plot and goes as far as putting himself into it.”

As the mnemonist puts himself in a memory palace, Dante puts himself in the poem. He used the poetic meter known as la terza rima which imitates the movement of walking, namely: ABA / BCB / CDC, and so on. Notice that there is a continual forward movement in the use of rhyme as if one is always walking ahead. There is a rhythmic pace that resembles the musicality of human feet in pilgrimage through its poetic form that is not quite captured in English translations that simply uses iambic pentameter.

Sometimes the memory palace technique has been called The Journey Method, with this term, another aspect is emphasized, that is one may travel from one place to another place through linking. You can connect multiple memory palaces together like beads on a necklace even if they are physically far apart in real life. So, one may walk “to and fro” the Divine Comedy as one walks “to and fro” a memory palace.

People in Locations and the Katie Method

Katie Kermode competing in Memory League

I wrote an essay on the development of the Katie Method, that is, the use of memory palaces with locations comprised of designated people, which has been known to be created by English memory athlete, Katie Kermode, arguably one of the most skilled mnemonists in the world. In an interview she mentioned to me,

“…if I had the numbers 705851 it would be ‘cool foot’ (because I use the Ben System), so I would probably imagine a specific footballer who is really cool. So I often found that the next time I used that journey [memory palace], I’d imagine that person in the location again.”

She has more than 2,700 locations that includes people from real life, celebrities, characters from TV shows, sports players, and other categories. Mnemonists such as John Graham, Prateek Yadav, and Braden Adams have also adopted this approach and have stated on numerous occasions that it has improved their recall in contrast to the more traditional use of memory palaces. I would argue that we see an earlier form of this mnemonic device in the Divine Comedy. The poem contains nearly 1,500 proper names, classical heroes, mythological beasts, medieval Florentines such as Guido Cavalcanti and Pier della Vigna, and historical characters in designated locations tracing back to Adam all the way to the patriarchal period, and Dante’s contemporary Italy.

If you mentioned to any Italian student today the names Paolo and Francesca, their mind would immediately go to the location of Inferno, Canto V. Then through the recollection of location, one ultimately recalls the narrative. Quintilian making observations on the nature of place stated,

“For when we return to a place after a considerable absence, we not merely recognize the place itself, but remember things that we did there, and recall the persons whom we met.”

Then when discussing the value of committing arguments to memory Aristotle observed in Topics, “…in a person with a trained memory, a memory of things themselves is immediately caused by the mere mention of their places.” In other words, we can conclude that it is not just the mnemonic imagery that brings to mind the thing of memory, but the location itself (‘locus’). Dante’s use of designated historical figures and locations functions much like the Katie Method, and perhaps this is what contributes to the poem’s memorability.

On the Use of Striking and Grotesque Images

In the medieval period, memory was often viewed as a wax-tablet or a manuscript by which one writes upon. Notice the language Dante uses in Vita Nova when describing memory, “in quella parte del libro de mia memoria” (‘book of memory’). In the memory arts tradition, one used imagery to write upon their memory just as one would use ink. What we will notice in the Divine Comedy is that Dante uses striking and grotesque imagery throughout the poem according to the principles of ancient mnemonics. Mary Carruthers, historian of medieval rhetoric noted,

“It should be clear by now that memories were thought to be carried in intense images (intentio + simulacrum), and that indeed memory depended on imagination, the image-making power of the soul. While commending the other four senses as a means of giving additional ‘color’ to memory images, all writers on the subject single out the visual sense as the easiest to recollect, the most secure for the memory work of composition.”

It is also interesting to note that the English word, “clarity” derives from the Latin “clarus”, which refers both to good lighting and intelligibility. In mnemonics, there is this emphasis upon visualization, and perhaps this is why it is common to hear, “I see what you are saying” in everyday speech. Cicero once said,

“the keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight, and that consequently perceptions received by the ears or by reflection can be most easily retained if they are also conveyed to our minds by the meditation of the eyes.”

The Divine Comedy is filled with striking imagery. From Bertran de Born that speaks from a head separated from his body, to souls inside trees, to a three-headed Lucifer, Ovidian grotesquery, and the radiance of Paradise. It is so well-designed from a mnemonic standpoint that the Divine Comedy has been used as a memory palace by lawyers to store arguments. Even images from the 100 cantos have been used for peg systems by contemporary mnemonists such as Vanni De Luca.

The Divine Comedy Recited from Memory

You may be asking if Dante made the poem so memorable with the use of mnemonic devices, are there people today who have actually memorized it in its entirety? To my knowledge there are only two living individuals who have committed the entire Divine Comedy to memory, namely: Alessio Cinotti and Silvana Bedodi. Then there are others who have only memorized the Inferno and/or parts of other canticles.

Alessio Cinotti

• Alessio Cinotti also known as Farfarello or the “Jukebox Dantesco” is able to recite all 14,233 lines without flaw. He stands in front of the Museo Casa di Dante six months out of the year, and for the one who inserts a coin he will begin to recite any canto of choice from memory.

Silvana ‘Sissi’ Bedodi

• Silvana ‘Sissi’ Bedodi, a Dante scholar memorized the entire Divine Comedy by memorizing 9-18 verses a day on her train rides to school. She tours Italy to recites cantos in cities such as Firenze, Ravenna, and Ferrara.

Roberto Benigni

• Roberto Benigni, Italian actor, known for his role in the classic film Life is Beautiful committed the entire Inferno to memory.

Vanni De Luca

• Vanni De Luca, an Italian mnemonist knows the majority of the Inferno and is able to recite it forwards, backwards or any verse selected at random. He teaches the art of memory with Andrea Muzii, the current world memory champion.

Conclusion: On Virtue and the Art of Memory

In contemporary memory teaching, there is a tendency to view mnemonics as only for passing exams, entertaining audiences, memorizing presentations, remembering names, or storing general knowledge, etc. But if we learn from the past is that mnemonics is more and not less than that. Today, you probably won’t see a section on the art of memory in a book on ethics. However, training in the memory arts was often tied to prudence, virtue, and political action. The Divine Comedy is a work that speaks to the human heart and calls for action and personal transformation. Dante used mnemonic devices in order to enhance the memorability of his text, and wants us to remember the spiritual and cultural dangers of forgetfulness.

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Personal Updates

• I am working on memorizing the entire Divine Comedy in Italian. I will share photos of my progress in Substack Notes.

• Recent Episode: “Hannah Arendt on Memory, Thinking, and Solitude” w/

  Samantha Rose Hill
  . You can listen to it here on the Craft of Memory Podcast.

• Upcoming Interviews: Anthony Metivier,

  Jillian Hess
  , and Douglas Hoff.

“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third” - T.S Eliot

Recommended Resources on Dante

• English

  • A Beginner’s Guide to the Divine Comedy by Jason M. Baxter

  • The Divine Comedy translated by Hollander

  • Dante and the Art of Memory by Spencer Pearce

  • The Poet as Master Builder: Composition and Locational Memory in the Middle Ages - Mary Carruthers

  • Remembering the Convivio: Dante and the Art of Memory by Eleonora Buonocore

  • According to Alina
    ’s Substack on the Divine Comedy

• Italian

  • https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/elenco-opere/Enciclopedia_Dantesca

  • Dante: Divina Commedia commento di Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi

  • La Divina Commedia (Weebly)

  • Resources for Learning Italian: Podcast Italiano, LearnAmo, Learn Italian with Lucrezia, Learn Italian with Teacher Stefano, Learn Italian with Italiano Bello, Learn Italian with Vaporetto Italiano

  • Italian Grammar: A Concise Guide to Italian Grammar, LearnAmo

  • Language Learning Apps: Italki, Busuu, HelloTalk, Preply, LingQ