Homage to Ramon Llull
«Ramon Llull and The Secret of Life» (Herder & Herder, New York, 2002) is the title of the book by historian and theologian Amador Vega (Barcelona, 1958). The book dwells on the life and work of Ramon Llull (1232 – 1316), and I have used it to approach this remarkable character.
The beginning of the piece describes Llull in Mallorca during his days of youth, in which he is a courtly troubadour, he sings romances to the ladies, and enjoys life.
Before 1263, Llull undergoes a deep personal crisis and a conversion after some visions of Christ on the cross, five apparitions altogether. He decides to surrender his life to martyrdom and acquire the necessary training to understand himself.
The piece then makes a leap and moves directly to Llull’s next period, which starts approximately in 1263, known as his training years. Ramon learns Latin and Arabic and, above all, learns to turn writing into the means of communication that blends his profane life with his religious life. A path is marked that leads him to self-understanding and to the resolve to begin a mission that will take him to turn the Mediterranean into his field of action; to turn Catalan, Latin and Arabic into his means of communication, enabling him to visit and work in the leading European cities, in the eastern Mediterranean and in northern Africa. This is one of the many things that fascinate me about Llull – his integrating vision of a Europe and a Mediterranean that is the crucible of cultures, religions and civilisations, wich he seeks to understand and unite with the idea of preaching a mystic mode of contemplation.
1274 marks the start of his contemplative period, during which he writes his Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem (Summarised Art of Finding the Truth), in which a model of preaching is evolved. During this period we see the beginning of the use of geometric or sensitive figures, such as the circle, the ladder, and the tree. It is a time characterized by much journeying and contemplative prayer.
Circa 1283 is the beginning of his last period, usually referred to as preaching. In it, Ramon travels to Paris with the idea of converting the great masters of the city to contemplative science. He gets acquainted with those holding power in the various maritime republics. He visits Genoa and Rome (sheer chance...). He travels to Tunis where he is imprisoned and manages to get away in 1294, heading for Naples.
In his final phase, Ramon commits to writing much of his work and ideas in order to achieve his final goal – to preach and to found monasteries so that in them, as he used to say, the Saracens and others may learn a number of languages.