700th anniversary of Ramon Llull’s death to be commemorated in 2015

Barcelona (ACN).- This year the Catalan Government wants to highlight a number of important events and personalities and its goal is to promote them internationally. One of the most important figures is Catalan writer Ramon Llull, who died 700 years ago. Ramon Llull was an important writer from Mallorca, who is credited with writing the first major work of Catalan literature. Furthermore, he was one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the Middle-Ages in Europe and North Africa. Catalonia’s institute for culture and language promotion abroad is named after him.

Ramon Llull, also known as Raimundus Lullus, was an important Mallorcan writer, a philosopher, poet and theologian who lived in the 13^th century. He is seen as the first important Catalan writer. He was the first European academic who mainly used Catalan instead of Latin and is credited with writing the first major work of Catalan literature, his romantic novel ‘Blanquerna’. Moreover, ‘Blanquerna’ can also be seen as the first European novel.

Ramon Llull grew up in an environment where three cultures flourished alongside each other: the Arabic, the Byzantine and the Latin. In 1263, he left his family and social position to live a religious life. His ambition was to reform the Moors by establishing schools where missionaries could learn Arabic. Llull’s first books are about this theme. He travelled a lot: he was a professor at the University of Paris, and went to Rome and as a missionary to Cyprus, Asia and Jerusalem.

Llull is known to have written at least 265 works, including ‘Blanquerna’, ‘The Great Art’, ‘Tree of Science’ and ‘The book of the Lover and the Beloved’. His works were written in Catalan, Latin and Arabic, and were often translated from one language to another. The subjects of his works were very diverse as were the styles and genres he used. He died in 1315 in Mallorca at the age of 83.