the form and method for writing the aforementioned
book against the errors of the unbelievers.” (See below
for Contemporary Life from which this and other pas-
sages are quoted.) This “form and method” was the art,
of which he now wrote the fi rst work (Ars compendiosa
inveniendi veritatem, c. 1274), thereby fulfi lling the sec-
ond of his three aims. The third was soon (1276) to be
fulfi lled with the founding of the monastery of Miramar
on the northwest coast of Mallorca for the teaching of
Arabic to thirteen Franciscan missionaries.
From this point on, apart from his feverish literary
activity, Llull’s life became one of ceaseless travel in an
attempt to interest the world in his missionary projects.
Using Montpellier as a base (it then formed part of the
kingdom of Mallorca), he visited Paris four times, where
he lectured at the university and had audiences with the
king (Philippe IV the Fair, nephew of his patron, Jaume
II of Mallorca); he traveled to Italy some six times (to
Genoa, where he was in contact with rich merchants,
to Pisa, to Rome, where he had audiences with at least
three popes, to Naples, and near the end of his life to
Sicily); he went three times to North Africa (Tunis and
Bougie [modern-day Bejaïa]), thereby fulfi lling the fi rst
of his three proseltyzing aims; and once to Cyprus (from
where he visited the Turkish port of Ayas, and perhaps
Jerusalem). Llull’s lack of success was typical for an
idealist approaching practical politicians with schemes
for the betterment of mankind. As he himself admitted
in a work of the same title, he was everywhere treated
as a phantasticus, or as he put it in earlier works, “Ra-
mon lo Foll.” And in a touching passage from the poem
Desconhort (1295), he complained that people read his
art “like a cat passing rapidly over hot coals.” But these
epithets and complaints must not make us forget that he
did manage to have the ear of kings and popes, that he
presented them with political tracts that recent research
has shown to have been far more realistic than was
formerly believed. Nor must we forget that on his last
trip to Paris, overcoming at last the incomprehensions
attendant on his former attempts to teach his peculiar
system there, Llull received (1310–1311) letters of
commendation from Philippe IV and the chancellor
of the university, as well as a document in which forty
masters and bachelors in arts and medicine approved
of Llull’s lectures in Ars brevis. The Council of Vienne
(1311–1312) subsequently endorsed his proposal for the
founding of schools of Oriental languages.
After Llull’s discovery of the methodology of the art,
his literary and philosophical production can be divided
into three periods.
The Quaternary Phase (ca. 1274–1289). This was so
called because the basic components of the art (divine
attributes, relative principles, and elements) appear in
multiples of four. The fi rst work of the art, Ars compen-
diosa inveniendi veritatem, was rapidly accompanied by
a series of satellite works explaining it and showing the
other fi elds to which it could be applied. Among these,
the most important was Llibre del gentil e dels tres
savis (Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men),
Llull’s principal apologetic work. It was also around
this same time that Llull wrote a pedagogical tract for
his son, Doctrina pueril, and a manual of knighthood,
the Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria (Book of the Order
of Chivalry), destined to become popular in its French
translation, and later translated into English by William
Caxton. It was also during this time (1283) that he wrote
his fi rst didactic novel, Blaquerna (this seems to have
been the original form of the name, and not the later
Blanquerna), which included his most famous mystic
work, the Llibre d’amic e amat (Book of the Lover and
the Beloved).
In the same year of 1283, Llull decided to refashion
many minor aspects of his system in a new version called
Ars demonstrativa, around which he wrote a new cycle
of explicative and satellite works. It was during this
period that he wrote his second didactic novel, Félix o
El libre de meravelles (Felix, or the Book of Wonders),
which includes the political animal fable, Llibre de les
baèsties (Book of the Beasts).The Ternary Phase (1290–1308). In this phase the prin-
ciples of the art appear in multiples of three (and the four
elements disappear as one of its foundations). Because
of “the weakness of human intellect” that Llull encoun-
tered on his fi rst trip to Paris, he reduced the number
of fi gures with which his system invariably began from
twelve (or sixteen) to four, and he removed all algebraic
notation from the actual discourse of the art. This phase
begins not with a single work surrounded by satellites,
but with twin works: Ars inventiva verïtatis which, as
Llull says, treats ciència or knowledge, and Ars amativa
which treats amància or love of God; it ends with the
fi nal formulation of his system in Ars generalis ultima
(1305–1308), and in shorter form in Ars brevis (1308).
This period is rich in important works, among which
one might mention the immense encyclopedia, Arbre
de ciència (Tree of Science, 1295–1296), as well as his
principal work on logic, epistemology, and politics,
Logica nova (1303), Liber de ascensu et descensu intel-
lectus (1305), and Liber de fi ne (also 1305).The Postart Phase (1308–1315). With the defi nitive
formulation of his system now out of the way, Llull
is free to concentrate on specifi c logical and episte-
mological topics, many directed toward his campaign
against the Parisian “Averröists” while on his last trip
there (1309–1311). It was at the end of this stay that
he dictated what has come to be known in its English
translation as Contemporary Life. He also became moreLLULL, RAMÓN