The Castle of Memory
Gratarolo was an Italian doctor who became a Protestant and fled to Basel. William Fulwood, a London merchant, translated his book into English and dedicated it to Robert Dudley, the queen's favourite.
what it teaches
Memory is part of the body: it sits at the back of the head, and cold and damp harm it. His cures are homely: walk before meals, rub your limbs, avoid garlic, cheese and late drinking, wash your feet in herbs.
The art itself comes last. Pick a large empty house or your own town, and mark every fifth place with a sign, such as a golden hand, so you can count.
Fill the places with people you know doing something odd: one friend pours a urinal over another, a man smears salve on someone's face. Five rules for images: move the feelings, use likeness or opposites, start young, repeat each group of five, join simple images into compound ones.
A chickpea (cicer) in a garden (hortus) can stand for Cicero against Hortensius. A pen can stand for a word that sounds like it.
Only the sluggish and idle will gain nothing, he says. The rest is practice.