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Artificial Intelligence: Ars Notoria and the Promise of Inst

08 Aug 2026

Artificial Intelligence: Ars Notoria and the Promise of Instant Knowledge

What happened

  • The Ars notoria promised rapid knowledge transmission from the thirteenth century on.
  • Fifty-six extant manuscripts of the Ars notoria survive.
  • Medieval scholars and university students were the intended users of the Ars notoria.
  • The Ars notoria promised to rapidly transmit total knowledge of subjects taught in medieval universities through diagrams, incantations, and arcane rituals.
  • St Thomas Aquinas concluded that the Ars notoria is both 'unlawful and futile'.
  • St Thomas Aquinas argued that the signs in the Ars notoria lure humans into contact and compact with demons.
  • St Thomas Aquinas condemned the Ars notoria specifically in his Summa theologiae, Book Two, Part 2, Question 96.
  • The Ars notoria was copied and owned in religious institutions until the end of the medieval period.
  • The Ars notoria was translated in the early modern period and went into print.
  • The copy of Ars notoria now in Yale University Library is accepted as the earliest known manuscript version.
  • The earliest known manuscript of Ars notoria was likely produced in the setting of the University of Bologna.
  • Brother John, an early fourteenth-century monk of the abbey of Morigny, experienced the rituals of Ars notoria as so powerful they seemed demonic.
  • The first 'triumphals' performance should take place on the fourth day and be repeated on the eighth, twelfth, sixteenth, twentieth, twenty-fourth, twenty-eighth, and thirtieth days within a lunar month.
  • The Ars notoria begins with acquisition of the 'general' gifts of memory, intelligence, and eloquence before proceeding to the 'specials'.
  • The 'specials' in the Ars notoria begin with Grammar, Eloquence/Rhetoric, and Dialectic, collectively known as the trivium.

Numbers

  • Fifty-six extant manuscripts of the Ars notoria survive. (56)
  • The first 'triumphals' performance should take place on the fourth day and be repeated on the eighth, twelfth, sixteenth, twentieth, twenty-fourth, twenty-eighth, and thirtieth days within a lunar month. (8)

Why founders should care

  • May indicate faster shipping cycles for teams adopting the new tools.

Sources