Ramon Llull: un canone tutto per sé

Abstract

Ramon Llull's use of his contemporary literature may seems surprising, or even daring. The Majorcan has been able to repurpose to his advantage the most popular genres of his time: chivalric romance, lyric poetry or collections of exempla and miracles thus become the tools to spread and understand what Llull considered to be «the best book in the world against the errors of the unbelievers», i.e. his Art. We propose to reread some excerpts of his work through which we can understand how this conversion of literature into an Ancilla artis lullianae is achieved, thus understanding the strategies applied in this recycle of pre-existing texts/characters and the novelties added. Llull was able to create a «canon» of his own, making his production self-sufficient and capable of substituting completely the literary and scientific expression of his time. A stand-alone world which is not the result of Ramon lo foll, on the contrary of an author able to understand perfectly the functioning of the medieval editorial market, all the possibilities of which he exploited to spread his «new» knowledge.