Wise, B. R. The Commonwealth of Australia. Little, Brown & Co. $3.00 net.
The Tower of Knowledge
DESCRIBED BY PROFESSOR PAUL MONROE, TEACHERS’ COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
Among the many symbolical representations of the world of learning or schemes of intellectual pursuits or of educational institutions furnished by the Middle Ages or the Renaissance period, none is more interesting and few more complete than the accompanying illustration from the “Margarita Philosophica” of Gregorovius de Reisch (or George Reisch).
Reisch was prior of the Carthusian monastery at Freiburg and confessor of the Emperor Maximilian I. Noted for his learning, he published one of the briefest, but also one of the most popular of the numerous cyclopedias of learning produced during the late mediæval and early modern centuries. This work, the “Margarita Philosophica,” first appeared at Heidelberg in 1496, and went through numerous editions, eight of them appearing by 1535. While the substance of the work was mediæval, it was tinged by the dawning modern spirit, as is shown by the title and by a consciousness of the significance of the Renaissance period by the claim set forth in the title to the incorporation of additions to “all known things.” The full title reads: The “Margarita Philosophica,” or the “Philosophical Pearl: treating of all known things; with additions, such as are to be found nowhere else.” (Aepitoma Omnis Phylosophiae, Alias Margarita Phylosophica Tractans de omni genere scibili: Cum additionibus: Que in alijs non habentur.)
The first seven books treat of the seven liberal arts, the eighth and ninth of natural phenomena; the tenth, eleventh and the twelfth of the soul. These twelve books are divided into 573 chapters containing an epitome of the knowledge of the day. Much of the value of the work to present day students depends upon the numerous illustrations of symbolic character. One of the most important of these is the accompanying Tower of Knowledge, which gives the whole scheme of education of that period.
The youthful victim is admitted to the Tower by the Muse of Wisdom, who presents to him the horn book. Once admitted he begins the toilsome progress through various chambers of the tower which correspond to the twelve books of the treatise, namely, the first eight to the seven liberal arts, grammar being given, not only two chambers but two entire floors. The first chamber is devoted to Donatus, whose “Eight parts of speech,” written about 400 A.D., formed the traditional approach to all studies for many centuries. So nearly universal was the use of this part of Donatus’ larger work on grammar, that the term donat came into frequent use as a synonym for an introduction into any subject. Donatus continued very popular into the 16th or even 17th century, though its popularity was successfully contested by many later works, especially that of Alexander de Villa Dei of the 13th century.
The second chamber is devoted to Priscian, whose more elaborate work on grammar (from about 526 A.D.) formed the source of much of the common literary knowledge of the middle ages. Priscian was one of the works most frequently issued from the early press, and yet exists in more than a thousand manuscripts. In all Priscian quotes more than 250 authors, several of them more than 100 times, the “Æneid” of Vergil more than seven hundred times. Thus the study of Latin grammar was of far greater significance than the modern conception of the term indicates and justifies to Reisch the assignment of two floors of the Tower.