Ramon Llull, The Cartoon Version

My suspicion would be that, despite the numerous occasions on which I have written about the old boy, there will still be goodly numbers among you who have never heard of Ramon Llull. I'll put this down to the fact that you happened to miss those previous occasions.

I am not suggesting that I have been acting as an unofficial and therefore unpaid one-man PR operation for this Mallorcan ancient, as there are many others who do this, some of whom do actually receive remuneration: they're known as employees of tourism/cultural promotion authorities. But for the most part, the Llull PR machinery exists within the isolated bubble of Catalan and of Catalanism. Efforts to promote him to wider audiences have, generally speaking, not worked. Largely because, one also suspects, they've never been coherently undertaken outside of the Catalan bubble.

That Llull was a Catalan speaker and writer does help to explain this limited knowledge dissemination, but he deserves to have greater fame, just as he should be central to a whole Mallorcan culture-as-tourism initiative. Why? Well, his list of achievements was phenomenal. There was, among others, his rudimentary computer - the "Ars Magna" (and please, no sniggering at that title) - designed to reveal fundamental truths (as they were understood in the thirteenth century). This kaleidoscopic series of wheels - the Llullian circles - was like a mediaeval punch-card system. Had they thought about it back then, Llull could have made a fortune from having invented the first random lottery system.

Of course, Llull did have a politico-religious thing going on. His system of logic was to prove Christian truths and to thus dispute Islam. Llull was to become a Catholic fundamentalist - he wasn't especially religious until a revelation in his late twenties led him to walk out on the wife and kids - but this didn't mean that he was ill disposed to Islam: just that he wanted to prove that one religion was mightier than another. And his intelligence led him to learn Arabic - still partially surviving in any event in the Mallorca of the thirteenth century (Llull was born three years after the Catalan conquest). If Islam was to be engaged in debate, then it was important to do so in the appropriate language. His mission to prove Christian logic was a key reason for his having persuaded King Jaume II of Mallorca to found Miramar in Valldemossa. The learning of Arabic was part of the curriculum.

Llull should have greater status. He was a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus and an equal in terms of religious philosophy of the High Middle Ages. Llull's logic, and that of his peers, was to be as crucial to the founding of modern philosophy as that of Aristotle and the very much more ancients. This status, unattained, places him at number one in the list of admittedly few genuinely famous Mallorcans from history.

There is debate as to when Llull died. The commonly cited date is 29 June, 1315, but the room that exists for questioning this partly explains why the celebrations for the 700th anniversary of his death haven't yet started. They will do later this year and continue in 2016: an alternative version of his death is that he passed away in 1316.

But once they start, what will they be? Dull but worthy, one imagines. There again, for many this is exactly what Llull was. Theology, philosophy, mediaeval Catalan literature: all terribly well and good but also extremely old and not things to get the pulses racing. In order to try and make Llull more accessible, there are ways, and one fancies that, as the maker of that primitive computer, the old chap would probably heartily approve of new technologies. And with these in mind, there is meant to be some sort of Ramon animation, a cartoon Ramon. Techies at the university have been working on it, but the end result appears to be lost somewhere in the corridors of the Council of Mallorca.

If it emerges, and it probably will, one does rather fear for the worst. Will it be multi-lingual? It damn well ought to be because Llull was a multi-linguist. Will it be, like much of the subject matter, dull but worthy? Hard to say without seeing it, but quite possibly yes.

Opportunities present themselves only rarely. The collision between the 700th anniversary and the availability of advanced animation technologies provides the perfect context for something meaningful to propel Llull into the wider orbit of awareness. But, and always aware of respect for his ancientness, dare one say that an animated Ramon, with suitable PR and promotion, could attain much wider awareness were he to appear elsewhere. In the US in September, the 27th season of "The Simpsons" will start. Ramon meets Homer. They should do it.