Tesouro das ideias e guardião do discurso: enquadramento retórico da memorização = Treasure of ideas and guardian of discourse: rhetorical framework of memorization

Abstract

This article tackles the topic of artificial memory in a rhetorical context. In fact, it was in the field of rhetoric that memory had a vast and prosperous tradition, since it was the fourth rhetorical operation, developing after inventio, dispositio and elocutio and before actio. We will first show the classical theory and then the medieval one, which is both a continuation and an innovation of former theories. We will focus on Rhetoric to Herennius, for having contemplated the oldest treatment of memory in a rhetorical context and for having established (not in Cicero or Quintilian) the later Western tradition of memory. We will also take into account a pleiad of medieval authors, who are representative of the memory in this time.