Ramon Llull wrote these
proverbs in
Old Catalan in 1302 while at sea, returning from
Cyprus. The collection was first published in 1746, printed in
Palma de Mallorca by Miquel Cerdà and Miquel Amorós. The proverbs are distributed across fifty-two chapters, with the amount of proverbs per chapter ranging from seventeen to twenty-two, averaging twenty. Each chapter is dedicated to a virtue or sin, a moral quality, or a human condition. The structure of the book follows a hierarchical order:
About God, the Prelate, the Subordinate, the Spouse, the Friend, the Enemy, etc. The main qualities of Llull's book are its conciseness, its didactic simplicity, and its musicality; the writing avoids the typical scholastic medieval embellishments. == References ==