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Lullism (Catalan:lul·lisme) is a term for the philosophical and theological currents related to the thought ofRamon Llull (ca. 1232–1315). Lullism also refers to the project of editing and disseminating Llull's works. The earliest centers of Lullism were in fourteenth-centuryFrance,Mallorca, andItaly.
Llull's early followers in France, for instance, were theologians at theUniversity of Paris who believed that Llull'sArt could provide a universal science to replace the traditional university curriculum.[1]
Later forms of Lullism have been associated withmysticism,alchemy, encyclopaedism, andevangelism and have usually involved diagrammatic imagery. Notable Lullists wereNicholas of Cusa,Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples,Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros,Gottfried Leibniz,Giordano Bruno,Johann Heinrich Alsted,Jožef Mislej, and Ivo Salzinger.
Lullism in France started at theUniversity of Paris after Ramon Llull visited Paris in the 1280s and his books became available to the academic world. Some scholastic theologians saw in Llull'sArt a new scientific and demonstrative method for theology, given thatAristotelian logic was not sufficient for acquiring knowledge of God (or proving the truths of the faith).[2] Collections of manuscripts of Llull's works at theSorbonne and theCarthusian Monastery at Vauvert laid the foundation for the study of Llull both in France and further afield. AlthoughJean Gerson had forbidden Llull's works to be taught in the Arts Faculty in Paris at the end of the fourteenth century, the study of Llull increased in the fifteenth century. There was a Lullian school inBarcelona that produced academics who taught inBologna,Venice, andPadua. Lullism only officially came back to Paris withJacques Lefèvre d'Étaples who taught at theCollège du Cardinal Lemoine at the University of Paris at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Lefèvre also published eight of Llull's works and was active in circulating them internationally. He seems to have been interested in the LullianArt, especially as a method of contemplation and sent copies of Llull's books to religious houses.[3] Another Lullist very active in publishing wasBernard de Lavinheta who had come to Paris briefly in 1515 and continued to be active in Lyon and Cologne. Like Llull's early Parisian proponents, Lavinheta sought to show that the LullianArt laid the foundation for a general science.[4]
Other thinkers were attracted to the LullianArt because its combinatorial, visual, and algebraic aspects allowed for new modes of theological language and imagery. Like his teacherHeymeric de Campo who had studied Llull's works in Paris before teaching at Cologne,Nicholas of Cusa possessed many of Llull's books.[5] Nicholas of Cusa appropriated diagrammatic aspects of Llull's thought for his own mystical theology. Whereas Llull's use of figures and combinatorics had been literal and systematic, Nicholas of Cusa deployed geometrical figures as metaphors for seeing and not seeing, knowing and not knowing, oneness and otherness, etc., with respect to understanding God.[6]
A corpus of alchemical works became associated with his name after Llull’s death, probably not earlier than the 1370's. In many cases, these Pseudo-Lullian works are characterized by the use of alphabets or figures resembling Lull’s combinatory diagrams. The earliest of these works, known as theTestamentum, presents such devices as means of memorizing the alchemical opus.[7]
Llull originally formulated hisArt to prove the truth of the Christian faith to all the people of the world starting from general principles. In this vein, many early Spanish missionaries to the New World were Lullists or familiar with Llull's thought. The CardinalFrancisco Jiménez de Cisneros who had spearheaded a reform in Spain had also mobilized an effort to edit many of Llull's works. He also was responsible for sending a group of Franciscan missionaries on Columbus's second expedition to the Americas.[8] Some years later the missionary Diego de Valadés wrote one of the manuals most influenced by Lullism, theRhetorica Christiana.[9] In this work he explains how a preacher might ascend and descend through levels of causation based on a Lullian system of divine principles and subjects of being. He also included many images, both trees and other figures.[10]
In the sixteenth century, Llull's works appeared increasingly in print. Lefèvre in France and Cardinal Cisneros in Spain embarked on projects to publish Llull's works.Bernard de Lavinheta also published his own Lullist-encyclopaedist works, notably theExplanatio compendiosaque applicatio artis Raymundi Lulli which explains how theArt is the introduction to all faculties: physics, mathematics, metaphysics, theology, ethics, medicine, and law.[11]Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s commentary on the LullianArt, on the other hand, marked a revival of its metaphysical dimension. Agrippa emphasizes that the structure of the method, or discourse, of theArt reflects the structure of the physical world. This commentary seems to have influencedGiordano Bruno, who commented on the Lullian Art as early as 1582 in the work De compendiosa architectura et complemento Artis Lullii, in his search for a philosophical discourse which reflected the physical, intellectual, and metaphysical order of the universe.[12]
In 1598 the Strasbourg printer Lazarus Zetzner published an anthology of Llull’s works with commentaries on the Art by Agrippa and Bruno, reprinted in 1609 and 1617. This anthology is thought to have been highly influential in promoting the development of Lullism toward encyclopedic and pansophical schemes of the seventeenth century.[13]
The seventeenth century, however, brought other approaches to systematic knowledge byPetrus Ramus andDescartes.[14] Encyclopaedists such asJohann Heinrich Alsted wrote commentaries critically comparing the logics of Aristotle, Ramus, and Llull.[15] It was in this milieu thatGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz probably became familiar with Llull. In 1666 Leibniz wrote theDe arte combinatoria with the idea that all concepts can be generated through a combinatorial system.[16]