A fascinating look at the history of tree graphs in data visualization. I know that sounds not fascinating, bit its really beautiful and interesting ! ( )

A lavishly illustrated coffee-table book that provides an overview of roughly 800 years of the use of tree-type diagrams to visualise information. The images are often beautiful to look at. However, I would have liked a little more discussion on the methodologies underpinning these visualisations, how they're created, why they're such a helpful way of organising/communicating information. ( )

Visual presentations of data. Recommended especially for anyone whose job entails presenting data in meaningful format. ( )

When I first saw this book I was blown away. Of course, I had seen information presented in trees before and had even developed some small family trees..and used decision trees for some purposes but I had never seen a book devoted just to visualising information via tree patterns. I guess, in the final analysis I was a bit disappointed in the book. Basically it is a historical overview of the use of tree type diagrams ...or branching diagrams. They have been used in theology, in family trees and in trees of laws and evolutionary trees. More modern presentations include the use of circular trees and logarithmic trees. And probably, one of the more useful variations is the rectangular "tree" where information is packed into a rectangular shape and the size of the rectangles is really proportional to a percentage of the whole. The use of this format has become quite common with trade figures such as imports and exports by commodity, by country, by value etc. Generally, the approach is to let the pictures speak for themselves ...with a few very old trees (as old as the author could find examples) ranging through to quite modern examples. I guess, I was a little disappointed that there was little or no guidance on using such trees in the presentation of data. No summary of the pros and cons of each or recommendations on using modern programs with the various tree layouts. So, in this sense, the book was a bit of a let-down. It promised more than it delivered. The illustrations are great and some of the newer tree forms such as Voronio Treemaps were both fascinating and attractive....and probably useful. I give it three stars. ( )

Perchè ogni qualvolta ci troviamo ad osservare degli alberi antichi siamo presi come da un timore primordiale? Date uno sguardo a questi alberi, ingranditeli sul vostro pc e poi fatemi sapere la sensazione di timore, meraviglia, smarrimento che ne ricavate guardandoli. Meglio ancora, se questa sensazione la vivete dal vivo, come sicuramente ognuno di noi ha potuto provare di persona, quando ci troviamo in montagna, davanti ad una quercia o ad un ulivo.

La verità è che noi uomini siamo legati agli alberi come in un abbraccio elementare, sia da un punto di vista simbolico che biologico. Noi dipendiamo da essi, a cominciare dall'aria che respiriamo, fino alle tante metafore che nel corso dei millenni essi hanno fatto nascere nella mente degli uomini.

Gli alberi modellano la nostra storia, la nostra mitologia, fino a farne una chiave di comprensione della nostra stessa evoluzione. Scrittori, poeti e artisti, ma anche scienziati sono stati attratti dalla loro bellezza e dai loro misteri. Perfino alle "radici" della nostra lingua, di tutte le lingue, l'albero sembra essere il principio di tutto. Le radici di tutta la nostra conoscenza, intendo dire.

Perché di questo si tratta. Di conoscenza si occupa questo bellissimo libro che non ho acquistato in ebook, ma in versione cartacea. E' proprio in occasioni come queste che il libro tradizionale ha la meglio sul libro digitale. Lo devi avere tra le mani. Carta patinata, lucida, ancora profumata di stampa. Le grandi illustrazioni a colori, la rilegatura in tela. Devi possedere la fisicità dell'oggetto libro, proprio come gli alberi di cui stai leggendo. Perché sai benissimo che tra quel libro e gli alberi c'è un rapporto stretto, diretto, naturale.

L'autore di questo libro non è soltanto uno scrittore ma anche un artista, un disegnatore, un progettista, un creativo che ha avuto già modo di dimostrare la sua bravura nel concettualizzare gli alberi come strumento e occasioni di conoscenza. In un libro precedente ha saputo sintetizzare graficamente i processi visivi legati alla comunicazione.

Potete vedere alcune immagini a questo link. Con questo nuovo libro Manuel Lima esplora otto secoli di diagrammi ad alberi, dai manoscritti di Cartesio ai moderni alberi cognitivi digitali. Centinaia e centinaia di immagini offrono al lettore l'affascinante storia visiva di come la metafora degli alberi si sia evoluta in modo da dare un volto armonico al progresso della civiltà umana. Racchiusa in undici tipi di alberi l'autore riesce a sintetizzare tutta storia della conoscenza umana.

Alberi figurativi
Alberi verticali
Alberi orizzontali
Alberi multidirezionali
Alberi radiali
Alberi iperbolici
Mappe ad alberi rettangolare
Mappe ad alberi voronoi
Mappe ad alberi circolare
Mappe a macchia solare
Alberi a ghiaccioli

Ecco alcuni famosi esempi di alberi applicati alla conoscenza nel corso dei secoli:

"Distribuzione genealogica delle arti e delle scienze" di Chrétien Frederic Guillaume Roth dalla "Encyclopédie"(1780). L'albero riproduce la struttura genealogica della conoscenza seguendo le indicazioni di Francesco Bacone. La memoria e la storia a sinistra, la ragione è la filosofia al centro, l'immaginazione è la poesia a destra.

"L'albero delle virtù" di Lambert of Saint-Omer, (anno 1250). Illustrazione ad albero di palma disegnato da un prete di nome Lambert per una delle più antiche enciclopedie contenente disegni e manoscritti sistemati in maniera cronologica. L'albero di palma è l'albero sacro della Chiesa, ricco di associazioni simboliche e motivi cristiani.

Per secoli e secoli gli alberi hanno avuto un enorme significato nella nostra esistenza. Essi ci hanno dato riparo, protezione, cibo, ma anche medicine, energia, attrezzi, costruzione. È normale il fatto che gli uomini abbiano affidato agli alberi l'idea di nascita, crescita, sviluppo, decadenza e rinascita.

Tutte le culture hanno adottato simboli e riferimenti legati agli alberi di tipo esistenziale e religioso. Gli alberi sono stati anche venerati come delle divinità. La dendrolatria (adorazione degli alberi) è legata alla idea di fertilità, immortalità e rinascita.

Ricordiamo l'albero della vita che ha caratterizzato la recente Expo di Milano. Mitologia e folklore si mescolano, come anche religione e natura, attraendo l'attenzione di poeti, scienziati, artisti non solo per la loro bellezza ma anche per un sotteso senso e fascino del mistero sul quale si basa tutta la natura. La loro forza evocativa attrae in maniera così evidente da superare tutte le barriere razziali, ideologiche o religiose che gli hanno eretto nel corso della loro storia.

Sembra chiaro a questo punto quanta importanza abbiano avuto nel tempo e nello spazio i simboli legati alla realtà naturale degli alberi, non solo in termini religiosi ma anche sociali, umani e spirituali. La loro bellezza grezza e spontanea ha attirato l'attenzione di scienziati, filosofi e artisti per le loro intrinseche qualità evocative.

"L'Albero della vita" di Gustav Klimt (1901), è uno dei più famosi quadri ispirati da alberi, una congiunzione tra l’attesa e la riconciliazione. Spezza la freddezza della solitudine della prima donna con il calore dei due amanti. La differenza lampante tra il primo e il secondo pannello appare nella geometria delle vesti: la prima donna presenta motivi rigidi, triangolari, mentre le due figure sono contraddistinte dalla concentricità del cerchio.

Tra una marcata solitudine inquieta e un abbandono pervaso dall’estasi. Sui rami dell’albero alto vi è appollaiato un uccello nero che spicca quasi al centro dell’opera per la sua mancanza di colore. Questi altri non è che la figura della morte, la minaccia sempre presente che, seduta, attende.

Tra i molti artisti che hanno messo al centro della loro arte gli alberi va ricordato anche Leonardo da Vinci. Verso il 1515, poco prima della sua morte, in uno dei suoi numerosi disegni, elaborò una formula matematica per stabilire la relazione tra la grandezza del tronco di un albero e quella dei suoi rami. Egli affermò che man mano che i rami crescono, la loro grandezza equivale a quella del tronco dell'albero. Un modo, secondo questa tesi, con il quale gli alberi si difendono dalla forza dei venti. Moderni studi hanno smentito questa tesi che riguarda soltanto alcuni alberi. Resta, comunque, certa la loro resistenza al vento.

La primitiva relazione simbolica con l'albero spiega perchè lo schema a rami ha costituito non solo un importante motivo iconografico ma anche significativa metafora per i sistemi della conoscenza e della classificazione. In tutta la storia umana la struttura ad albero è stata utilizzata per affermare le varie facce della vita: parentela, origini, consanguineità, sviluppo, origini, crescita, e tante altre innumerevoli facce. Tutte virtù, sistemi di leggi scientifiche, morali, religiose, culturali, modelli programmatici utili ed indispensabili per esprimere concretamente la materializzazione e la molteplicità di una originaria unità dei destini umani.

Anche nel Giardino Segreto dell'Anima, nel villaggio di Campinola, uno dei tredici villaggi che formano il Comune di Tramonti, nella Valle che costituisce il polmone della Costa di Amalfi, la prossima estate festeggeremo intorno al suo albero della vita, perduto e poi ritrovato, un denso programma di eventi a partire dal mese di marzo. Il suo instancabile ed impagabile Patron Antonio De Marco lo sta approntando unitamente alla sua gentile consorte Enza Telese e al loro figlio Giancarlo. https://goo.gl/S0W5d4






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I haven't read this, just looked at the pictures, which are fascinating. An exploration of tree diagrams - "cognitive art" is the phrase used in an article quoted below - from Medieval times to the present. Visually rich. Someday I hope to read the text, but for now I'm content to browse through color, structure, style. ( )

This is a beautifully illustrated book showing how visualizing knowledge as dendrite structures can lead to further understanding of the world we live in. The author, Manuel Lima, illustrates how the real and symbolic interfold in mathematical structures. We have to come a greater ability to represent the geometry of life through the use of the computer. ( )

B&C 3-4/15 Returning to the medieval tree (scheme) as a way to organize (and even create) knowledge

cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Knowledge_System

KENNETH CHONG

Trees of Knowledge
Much of what we think is new is old.

It was in 1852 that Augustus T. Dowd, in search of a grizzly, stumbled across bigger game: a towering tree to be named a sequoia, after the famous Californian Redwoods. For those not in Yosemite, the reports of Big Trees seemed fanciful. A tree that stretched upward and outward at three hundred feet high? New Yorkers and Londoners scoffed at the idea, even as they eyed, suspiciously, a very long strip of bark that had once covered a sequoia's third. Botanists were less skeptical. But more enterprising minds got to the trees first, felling them for wood and turning the forest into—what else?—a scenic destination for tourists: visitors could bowl down two alleys or dance sets of the cotillion on a smoothly planed stump.

That was the advertising pitch, at least. Soon the multitudes descended, less tourists than pilgrims eager to behold the trees whose very existence inspired curiosity and reverence and awe. Even the resistant among them were provoked. How long had sequoias been around? When David was made Israel's king? Or when Aeneas fled Troy? Certainly when Christ walked our battered earth. The rings of the trees confirmed that. Whether they flourished outside the Americas was not to the point. What mattered was that the trees had stood—and that they still did. They were witnesses, albeit distant witnesses, to the founding myths of civilization.

The trees of our Edenic past were probably not sequoias, but they too were seeming immortals grounded in the earth. In the second creation account, Yahweh plants a garden full of "all kinds of trees" and places a man in it. (The first account in Genesis has seed-bearing plants, including trees, fill the land on the third day.) Life begins in the garden with trees, which feed, nourish, and shade us, and give us aesthetic pleasure. They are "pleasing to the eye." But life also ends with trees, or rather the taste of "the fruit / Of that forbidden tree," in John Milton's memorable line. And lest our first parents eat of another tree (the tree of life) and live forever, they are banished from the garden, cursed to toil and wander, give birth and die.

Trees hold out the promise of life, but they also remind us of our mortality. The reminder is sometimes too much to bear. Gilgamesh, the earliest recorded literary hero, realizes that he will be among the dead bodies that float down the river beyond the city's walls. Seeking fame and glory, he embarks on a journey with his friend and protector, Enkidu, to slay the guardian of the forest, the demon Huwawa. But his act, as he explains to the elders of the city of Uruk, is not only aimed at making himself a name. It is an act of defiance. Forests, too, will share the fate of humans. Gilgamesh will cut down their trees, and cedar logs will float, like corpses, on the same river.

On one level, this declaration might seem jejune, petulant. Gilgamesh is not exactly a modern hero. Yet his reaction is emblematic or at least indicative of our long ambivalence toward trees. In order to make room for ourselves—to create what we call human civilization—we have had to clear out trees. And we have been clearing them ever since Mesopotamian times. We continue to build our huts and towns and villages and cities, replacing forests with rival forests of human culture and activity. Despite that, we cannot do without them. We plant trees in our bustling metropolises, amidst artificial trees of wood, glass, iron, concrete, and steel.

In addition to the trees that adorn urban (and suburban) landscapes, there are trees firmly planted in our minds and books. Indeed, the richest source for figurative trees—as Manuel Lima calls them, in the first and lengthiest chapter of The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge—is the medieval codex. Quilled onto the skin of cows or goats (or some leftover hide from the kitchen), trees seem to appear everywhere in the Middle Ages. They crop up as trees of virtues and vices, trees of consanguinity, trees of rhetoric and philosophy. They neatly divide scientific knowledge, geometrical planes, the ages of man, poetic works, and fiefdoms. They aid, even displace, biblical exegesis. Sometimes scrawled on margins, sometimes carefully plotted out within columns, they could take on massive importance. Canonists, for instance, regularly used family trees to determine legal matters. A mistake could result in losing your inheritance.

I first encountered the medieval tree in a graduate seminar that remains to this day one of the most thrilling classes I have ever attended. We had been assigned a short text of 17 pages (short for grad school, anyway) by the Greek philosopher Porphyry, a neoplatonist of the 3rd century who talked cryptically about genus, species, difference, property, and accident, and whose pages remained mostly opaque until, gathered around the classroom table, our professor got up and started drawing a tree. Starting at the top, he wrote "substance," which he labeled a genus, and drew two branches—the species of "incorporeal" and "body"—underneath. Then he chose the rightmost branch (in this case, "body") and kept dividing in similar fashion until he reached the last species, "human." Below he chalked a barcode of lines, standing for countless individuals like Socrates and Plato (two favorite philosophical examples) who populate the world.

Suddenly Porphyry's text made sense. The dry and technical prose of the Introduction, or Isagoge, as the manuscript was known, was transformed into a figurative tree. One could follow the words while tracing the nodes and branches of a tree, seeing how a genus might split into species and then marking the differences within species. Porphyry thus set the tone for how we draw up the world and define it.

The Porphyrian Tree is the true forerunner to our biological trees of classification (first devised by the 18th-century Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus). Curiously, though, the tree is not to be found anywhere in Greek manuscripts. It is almost surely a medieval invention. To understand its popularity, we need to remember the place of Porphyry's Introduction in the curriculum. As its title suggests, it was a primer—to be more precise, a primer to the logical works of Aristotle. Medieval logic was difficult, but it was a code for unlocking all other disciplines; it was, to switch to an earlier metaphor, a tool for thinking clearly and precisely about truth. It was, in other words, the necessary means of attaining knowledge. But the tree was also a sort of code, a diagram that made visible the elements of logic—a measure all the more urgent in a classroom full of raging hormones. The tree made logic intelligible, and it evidently became an indispensible part of Porphyry's work, copied and adapted endlessly for use with other texts. Whether the text at hand was a translation or a logical compendium, a schoolboy or master would have read it alongside a tree. Underpinning medieval philosophy is a persistent image of a tree. Yet oddly enough, the Porphyrian Tree is missing from our familiar narratives of formal learning in the Middle Ages.

Have we spent so much time on the written text that we have forgotten that medievals—the educated ones, at the very least—started with, and were thinking along, a tree? This is an easy mistake to make, and one that is reinforced rather than corrected by many modern scholarly editions. Printed in black and white, they reinforce the impression that the medievals were a strictly text-obsessed bunch. (They may have painted in color and illuminated initials with gold, but never mind.) Diagrams, if there are any, are usually tucked away in the introduction or notes, not far away from the more favored stemma of textual criticism (another sort of tree, incidentally).

One of the great advantages of Lima's book—really a catalogue of cognitive art—is that it disabuses us of such misconceptions. Arranged in thematic chapters of trees (figurative, vertical, horizontal, hyperbolic) which themselves proceed chronologically, The Book of Trees gives us images in full color. What is striking, as one flicks through the pages, is how rich and lively the medieval illustrations are, especially compared to the black-and-white woodcuts of the early modern period or the blander, more uniform sheen of computer-generated color. With few exceptions, none of the later reproductions (Lima, unlike Edward Tufte, doesn't redraw) seem to match the pure luxury and vibrancy of natural dye on vellum.

A large part of Lima's argument is to show that what we think of as modern inventions—phylogenetic trees, computer directories, telecom dashboards, word and mind maps—have a much longer history than we suspect. Much of what we think is new is old—as old as the Middle Ages, at least, which in retrospect seem surprisingly up to date. We naturally think of ancestry and languages as genealogical trees; to think otherwise seems impossible. Yet it took the encyclopedist Isidore of Seville, toying in the 7th century with different versions of consanguinity trees and even a circle, to give us the prototype. Isidore's drawings gave rise to a remarkable amount of experimentation—illustrators tried different shapes, angles, and starting points—but the basic design remains intact today. True innovators are scarce. In recent times, only one candidate clearly qualifies: Ben Shneiderman, whose 1990 "treemap," rather than branching outwards, is a density of nested rectangles.

What The Book of Trees also does, perhaps unwittingly, is take us back to a medieval way of comprehending. Lima reveals a universe in which word and image co-existed. Medieval thought was not all text; neither, to invoke that other popular canard, was anti-intellectualism all pictures. In fact, to develop and teach a later style of biblical exegesis, monks, preachers, and theologians used crucifix-like trees to expound texts as difficult as Revelation. Adding prophets, events in Christ's life, and other passages of Scripture as branches and leaves, "visual exegesis" extends, in alternative vectors, our classical and biblical typologies, our already textually linked trees (the olive tree, the fig tree, the tree of Jesse, the cursed tree). Images, contrary to Aristotle, are a sort of thinking and not merely its prelude; and this is no better witnessed to than by the presence of diagrammatic trees on the page or the screen. And not only trees, but circles, squares, triangles, and tables (not to mention maps and astronomical charts). But it was the tree, along with the circle, that proved to be the most flexible and accommodating. (The chapter on "radial trees" demonstrates that they combine successfully.) Squares can be good for drawing up contraries and contradictions (as in the square of contradiction); but once you make them more complicated, they start looking like badly organized trees.

When Lima speaks of the tree's deep history, he can sometimes slip into Jungian-sounding language ("universal symbol," "timeless," "tree archetypes"). But the historical details of his introduction—and above all, the images he selects—more convincingly persuade us of the tree's perdurable fascination. The tree diagram, of course, is not without its limits. It can be frustratingly rigid and hierarchical, forcing us to reach back to a single source. But this thinking of the One will not go away. The tree diagram, as the publication of this book suggests (three decades after Deleuze and Guattari's complaint against root thinking), still flourishes. A visual commonplace in areas as diverse as banking, music, and epidemiology, a powerful model of organizing, seeing, and, yes, creating knowledge—metaphorical trees, like the natural kind, will always be with us.

Kenneth Chong is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland's Centre for the History of Emotions, where he is working on a literary and intellectual history of the theological passions from roughly the 12th to the 16th century.

Copyright © 2015 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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