The Art of Knowing Everything

An exploration of medieval philosopher and theologian Ramon Llull and his philosophical system through medieval and early modern book technology

The Art of Knowing Everything explores the legacy of medieval philosopher and theologian Ramon Llull, tracing the transformation of Llull’s philosophical system, known as the Art (Latin Ars), through medieval and early modern book technology. Operated by paper devices and combinatory diagrams, the Art was designed to generate a system of notation to prove the incontrovertibility of Christian faith. Llull envisioned the Art as an evangelizing tool that would combat the errors of unbelievers, transcend differences of language and culture, and universalize Christianity. In its afterlife, however, the Art was primarily deployed as a means to mechanize the process of producing knowledge about the world. This promise of the mechanization of universal knowledge claims, emblematized by the Art, captivated early modern students and readers of Llull’s work.

Drawing on the Lullian tradition to develop a rigorous theory of technology and its role in knowledge production, Noel Blanco Mourelle shows how Llull and his disciples sought to disseminate the Art by perfecting the technology of the book, incorporating a series of geometrical figures and moveable circles to offer preachers and academics a new intellectual language. Between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries scholars and humanists gathered and experimented with the corpus of Llull’s works in university libraries and royal courts. Through this material intellectual history of Llull and his reception, The Art of Knowing Everything reveals how the universalist aspirations of these thinkers were formative to early modern ideologies of imperial expansion and Christian universalism.