Ramon Llull and His Philosophical Project
Ramon Llull (c. 1232–1315/1316) was a Majorcan philosopher, theologian, and mystic whose voluminous writings in Catalan, Latin, and Arabic explored methods of universal knowledge and religious conversion through reason. His work combined Christian theology with elements derived from Islamic and Jewish learning, reflecting the intellectual ferment of medieval Mediterranean scholarship. Llull was a prolific author in multiple languages, and his texts were printed extensively from the late fifteenth century onward, particularly in the early modern period.
On This Title
The work Opvscvlvm Raymvndinvm De avditv kabbalistico sive Ad omnes scientias introdvctorivm (commonly known as the De auditu kabbalistico) is a pseudo-Llullian text, that is, it was attributed to Llull in early modern printings but is not considered to be genuinely his. It was printed in the early sixteenth century (Venice, 1518) and later reprinted in collected Llullian editions. The orthography and Latin formulation are typical of early modern printings of Llull’s works, which frequently bore elaborate titles and varied considerably across editions. The themes evoked—”kabbalistic hearing,” introduction to sciences, and Raymond’s “little work”—reflect the Renaissance effort to combine Llull’s combinatorial Art, with its universal method, with Kabbalistic ideas.
