37 Facts About Ramon Llull

Ramon Llull was a philosopher, theologian, poet, missionary, and Christian apologist from the Kingdom of Majorca.

Ramon Llull invented a philosophical system known as the Art, conceived as a type of universal logic to prove the truth of Christian doctrine to interlocutors of all faiths and nationalities.

Ramon Llull's books were translated into Occitan, French, and Castilian during his lifetime.

Ramon Llull was born there a few years later, in 1232 or 1233.

In 1257 Ramon Llull married Blanca Picany, with whom he had two children, Domingo and Magdalena.

Ramon Llull narrates the event in his autobiography Vita coaetanea :.

Ramon Llull read extensively in both Latin and Arabic, learning both Christian and Muslim theological and philosophical thought.

Between 1271 and 1274 Ramon Llull wrote his first works, a compendium of the Muslim thinker Al-Ghazali's logic and the Llibre de contemplacio en Deu, a lengthy guide to finding truth through contemplation.

In 1274, while staying at a hermitage on Puig de Randa, the form of the great book Ramon Llull was to write was finally given to him through divine revelation: a complex system that he named his Art, which would become the motivation behind most of his life's efforts.

Ramon Llull urged the study of Arabic and other then-insufficiently studied languages in Europe, along with most of his works, to convert Muslims and schismatic Christians.

Ramon Llull travelled through Europe to meet with popes, kings, and princes, trying to establish special colleges to prepare future missionaries.

Ramon Llull travelled to Tunis a second time in about 1304, and wrote numerous letters to the king of Tunis, but little else is known about this part of his life.

Ramon Llull returned in 1308, reporting that the conversion of Muslims should be achieved through prayer, not through military force.

Ramon Llull finally achieved his goal of linguistic education at major universities in 1311 when the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca as well as at the Papal Court.

Ramon Llull called for the expulsion of Jews who were unwilling to convert to Christianity, and influenced later European monarchs to expel Jews in practice.

In 1314, at the age of 82, Ramon Llull traveled again to Tunis, possibly prompted by the correspondence between King James II of Aragon and al-Lihyani, the Hafsid caliph, indicating that the caliph wished to convert to Christianity.

Whereas Ramon Llull had been met with difficulties during his previous visits to North Africa, he was allowed to operate this time without interference from the authorities due to the improved relations between Tunis and Aragon.

Ramon Llull's tomb, created in 1448, is in the Franciscan church in Palma, Majorca.

Ramon Llull's Art is at the center of his thought and undergirds his entire corpus.

Ramon Llull developed the Art over the course of many decades, writing new books to explain each new version.

Ramon Llull inaugurated the Ternary Phase with two works written in 1290: the Ars inventiva veritatis and the Art amativa.

Ramon Llull reduced the number of divine principles in the first figure to nine.

Ramon Llull introduced an aspect of the system called the "correlatives" just before the final transition to the Ternary Phase.

Ramon Llull's familiarity with the Islamic intellectual tradition is evidenced by the fact that his first work was a compendium of Al-Ghazali's logic.

From early in his career Ramon Llull composed dialogues to enact the procedure of the Art.

Ramon Llull conceived it as an instrument to convert all peoples of the world to Christianity and experimented with more popular genres to make it easier to understand.

Ramon Llull created a character for himself and he stars in many of these dialogues as the Christian wise man.

Ramon Llull wrote narrative prose drawing on the literary traditions of his time to express the Art.

Ramon Llull's Art was never adopted by mainstream academia of the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, but it did accrue quite a bit of interest.

One disciple, Thomas Le Myesier, went so far as to create elaborate compilations of Ramon Llull's works, including a manuscript dedicated to the queen of France.

Ramon Llull obtained a papal bull in 1376 to prohibit Lullian teaching, although it proved ineffective.

Ramon Llull collected many works by Llull and adapted many aspects of Lullian thought for his own mystical theology.

Ramon Llull is recognized by scholars as significant in both the history of Catalan literature as well as intellectual history.

Ramon Llull has appeared in the art and literature of the last century, especially in the genres of surrealism, philosophical fantasy, and metafiction.

In 1937 Jorge Luis Borges wrote a snippet called "Ramon Llull' s Thinking Machine" proposing the Lullian Art as a device to produce poetry.

Ramon Llull is a major character in The Box of Delights, a children's novel by poet John Masefield.

Ramon Llull's Art is sometimes recognized as a precursor to computer science and computation theory.