The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci

The book centers on the concept of the memory palace, a mnemonic device that dates to antiquity. The concept was quite popular in the Renaissance, especially in Counter-Reformation Catholic culture. The book is premised on Ricci’s attempt to convert people preparing for Chinese administrative examinations in the Ming Dynasty to Catholicism by teaching them an effective mnemonic device under the belief that its success would demonstrate the superiority of Catholic teachings.

The memory palace is rooted in the method of loci, which is based on the recognition that people are good at remembering locations. By associating abstract concepts or unfamiliar information with a well-known place, memory recall becomes easier. In the memory palace, the method of loci is applied to construct a place—real or entirely fictive—that can hold everything you need to remember. The place can be a city, a house, or a room. Information is stored as an image, which is placed into the space until you need to recall it. The place should be quite familiar to the individual, and the location should be detailed. Roman rhetorician and educator Marcus Fabius Quintilian described how one would store images in a place, saying,

The first thought is placed, as it were, in the forecourt; the second, let us say, in the living room: the remainder are placed in due order all round the impluvium and entrusted not merely to bedrooms and parlours, but even to the care of statues and the like. This done, as soon as the memory of the facts requires to be revived, all these places are visited in turn and the various deposits are demanded from their custodians, as the sight of each recalls the respective details (6).

For example, Ricci’s memory palace was a large reception hall, and he placed one image in each corner.

Tricks for memory recall were important in the Renaissance. They were particularly important to the Jesuits, whose missionary work brought them far away from the libraries and schools where they learned theological teachings. To be effective missionaries, familiarity with both Catholic doctrine and the Western tradition was necessary. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, believed that memory techniques were important so that “his followers might live the biblical narrative in all its force” (15). Such memory recall techniques were also considered valuable, and Ricci tried to convert people in China by impressing them with Western scholarship and scientific knowledge.

The book’s title indicates that it is about memory palaces, but once Spence introduces the technique, his biography of Ricci becomes more about memory in general. Ricci was far from home, and memory was his link to his old life. The book includes references to his family, upbringing, and education as they relate to the topic at hand. Rather than adhering to a chronological or thematic structure, Spence introduces fragments and key moments in Ricci’s life as they correspond to the images and illustrations that begin each chapter. For instance, Ricci’s death is described about halfway through the book in Chapter 5, which features the Ink Garden illustration of Christ on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection from death. In this way, the biography’s structure follows the nonlinear forms of memory just as it traces the layout of Ricci’s memory palace.