Picture Sundays: Memory Castle

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An example of a memory palace or “method of loci.” From the description of this woodcut, which is in the collection of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford:

The Tower of Wisdom is constructed of a basement supported by 4 buttresses, a first floor with 5 windows and a double door reached by a staircase of 7 steps, above which rises the keep of a castle constructed with 12 courses of 10 stones inscribed with the names of religious virtues and topped by battlements. The reader is guided upwards in a process of edification marked by 22 letters of the alphabet from A to Y. [Germany, c.1475]

Johannes Metensis,Turris sapientiae. Woodcut with Latin inscriptions. [Germany, c.1475]