Llull, Ramon (1232–1316)

One of the most extraordinary figures of thirteenth-century Europe, Llull was a self-taught lay theologian and philosopher, chiefly concerned with reforming Christian society and converting unbelievers. Details of his life remain obscure, but over 200 of his writings survive. Most of these expound his personal dialectical system, the Great Universal Art of Finding Truth, an encyclopedic collation of commonplace doctrines that attempts to show how all human knowledge conforms to divine truth. Largely ignored during Llull’s lifetime and denounced as heretical in the later Middle Ages, the Great Art became very popular in the Renaissance as a programme of universal knowledge.