Allegory of rhetoric. 16th-century artwork of rhetoric ('Typus in Rhetoricum') as a woman (centre) holding the tip of a sword and a flower in her mouth. Rhetoric,the ability to debate and persuade,was for centuries central to classical education. This woodcut is from 'Margarita philosophica' (1503). This work,by the German author Georg Reisch (c.1467-1525),was an encyclopedic compilation of knowledge that became one of the standard textbooks of the time. The topics in its twelve books included grammar,dialectics,rhetoric,arithmetic,music,geometry,astronomy,physics,natural history,physiology,psychology,and ethics |