El arte de la memoria en el Epítome de la elocuencia española de Francisco José de Artiga

Abstract

Francisco J. de Artiga's work could be defined more as a manual providing a repertoire of “the rhetorical” than as a work that prolongs the effort of formalisation that presides over the very history of the technique it claims to serve with its publication. The treatment of memory is made in the Epítome from the point of view of an artificial memory, specific to matters of eloquence, and not from a scientific medical perspective. Addressed to an audience mainly made up of priests, its usefulness is linked to the construction of the sermon. On the other hand, despite its demystifying purpose, a hermetic, occult and esoteric reference remains on the surface of the treatise.