LXV. EXPERIMENTS AND SECRETS OF GALEN, RASIS, AND OTHERS…

LXV. EXPERIMENTS AND SECRETS OF GALEN, RASIS, AND OTHERS

II. CHEMICAL AND MAGICAL

The Liber Vaccae--Its other titles--Its two prologues--Experiments in magic generation and rain-making--More magic with animals--Other marvelous experiments--Plato as an alchemist--Galen as an alchemist--Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis--Liber ignium of Marcus Grecus--Further experiments--Secretum philosophorum--Experiments connected with writing--Riddles: a trick with a knife--Deceiving the senses--Tricks of jugglers--Mathematical problems--Astronomy: experiments with air: the magnet--Le Secret aux Philosophes--Natural Experiments of Solomon--Experiments without author or title--Twelve experiments with snakeskin of John Paulinus--Marvelous virtues of snakeskin--Other treatises concerning the virtues of snakes--Chemical experiments of Nicholas--Books of waters--Colors--Necromantic experiments--Experimentum in dubiis--A natural experiment--Variety of experiments in medieval manuscripts--An experimental manuscript--Experimental character of the Sloane MSS--Some seventeenth century experiments--More recipes and experiments--Magic experiments--Appendix I. Manuscripts of the Liber Vaccae--Appendix II. Manuscripts of the Secretum Philosophorum.

[Sidenote: The Liber Vaccae.]

Of the books of experiments of a chemical or magical character which we have to consider in this chapter the earliest, as far as our available information goes, is the Liber Vaccae, with which the name of Galen is associated and which is primarily a collection of magical and necromantic experiments. The original author, however, was the philosopher Plato whose work, according to a long, rambling, and confused prefatory statement, Galen had revised and abbreviated. Steinschneider held that our treatise was cited under the title Liber de prophetiis by Pedro Alfonso in the Disciplina clericalis at the close of the eleventh century,[2442] but perhaps Pedro knew it in Arabic or Hebrew[2443] rather than Latin translation. The manuscripts of the Latin translation, however, go back to the thirteenth, if not to the twelfth century,[2444] while for most of the other treatises to be considered in this chapter the oldest extant manuscripts seem to be of the fourteenth century. Moreover, William of Auvergne refers to our treatise in his work written in the first half of the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Its other titles.]

The work has many other alternative titles besides Liber Vaccae, which seems to be suggested by its first experiment which is concerned with a cow, and Liber de prophetiis, which I do not remember to have seen in any Latin manuscript. Another common title is Liber Anguemis or Anequems or Anegnems or Anagnenis,[2445] although the preface explains that the treatise was not called the Liber Anguemis in the first place. The manuscripts also call it The Book of Active Institutes and The Book of Aggregations of Divers Philosophers. William of Auvergne spoke with disapproval of our treatise as a book of mixtures employed in magic, which was ascribed to Plato and called Liber Neumich or Nevemich, or the Laws of Plato. “And,” adds William sarcastically, “it is called the Laws of Plato because it is contrary to the laws of nature.”[2446] Steinschneider has pointed out that in Arabic Nawamis means “laws” and that both Neumich and Anguemis are probably Latin corruptions of the Arabic word. And of course Laws and Institutes are practically the same thing. Pico della Mirandola, writing against astrology at the close of the fifteenth century, refers to our treatise by the two titles De vacca and Institutes, warning his readers that astrologers palm off their volumes as the writings of great authorities like Aristotle, “just as magicians carry about the books of Plato De vacca and what they call the Books of Institutes, stuffed with execrable dreams and figments.”[2447]

[Sidenote: Its two prologues.]

Honein ben Ishak again appears in connection with a supposititious work of Galen. The long and repetitious prefatory statement, to which we have already alluded, is professedly by him, and we are told what Honein said and what Galen said and what Honein says Galen said in great profusion. The Latin translator, however, not to mention subsequent copyists, has perhaps taken liberties with the wording of this preface and corrupted an original Arabic clarity. Who the Latin translator is we are not told, but in some manuscripts the prefatory statement to which we have thus far alluded is proceeded by an even longer prologue which opens with the pious wish, “May God confer noble morals upon you.” This is probably the same as a prologue by “Farachius” opening, “Friend, may God grant you noble morals,” which Steinschneider held belonged with the Medical experiments of Galen or Rasis.[2448] But our prologue seems to contain a direct allusion to the following Liber vaccae[2449] as well as to be generally appropriate to it. The name of the writer of this first prologue is not given in the manuscripts I have seen, but he refers to his books concerning animals and poisons and simple medicines, which last is also called the Book of Sustenance (liber sustentationis). He appears to have been criticized for his propensity toward marvels and occult virtues and his inconsistency in at the same time censuring vulgar suspensions, incantations, and cures. His defense of occult properties is the usual one that even if reason cannot account for them, they are supported both by the testimony of the ancients and by experience. As usual the property of the magnet is adduced; the Pseudo-Aristotle is cited “in his books on stones,” and the genuine Aristotle in the History of Animals concerning the narce’s power of stupefying. The remainder of the prologue consists chiefly of a series of citations from various authors which are largely duplicated in the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to Albertus Magnus. This first prologue cannot be by Honein, since it cites not only Costa ben Luca but filius messie, that is, Yuhanna ibn Masawaih who died at Cairo in 1015, or some Latin writer of the eleventh or twelfth century who pretended to translate his works from the Arabic. Presumably therefore it is by the Latin translator of the Liber vaccae. This could not be Faradj ben Salem under Charles of Anjou if the translation was known to William of Auvergne early in the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Experiments in magic generation and rainmaking.]

The experiments of the Liber vaccae are hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation. Some of them are elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics, having for their object “to make a rational animal” from a cow or ape or other beast,[2450] or “to make bees.”[2451] By a similar procedure a liniment is obtained which has such virtue that if one is anointed with it, one feels no pain from blows, while it blunts the edge of a sword with which one is struck. Or by suffumigations with it rain may be produced.[2452] A less unmentionable method of rain-making is that which is “famous among the wise” and which, the author says, some employ in his own time. First a black crow without a speck upon it is to be “submerged in water until it dies.” Then a very black dog is to be imprisoned in a dark house and given the crow to eat and the water in which it was drowned to drink on the third day. By the eleventh day, we are assured, only the whites of his eyes will show and he will be unable to bark. Then one takes a small tree called mephus with small leaves like rue and a flower like the bean, and gives the dog about an ounce of its juice, which will cause him to recover his voice and bark mightily. He should then be bound “hand and foot” (manus et pedes) and boiled in a big pot. The broth thus obtained is to be used to bring rain.[2453] Other procedures are described to stop a rainy spell and restore fine weather.[2454]

[Sidenote: More magic with animals]

In order to see spirits a white cock with a round crest which is concave in the middle is put in a place where neither the bark of a dog nor the voice of a crow is heard, whereby this experiment is sharply distinguished from the dog-and-crow procedure. For three successive days the cock is to be fed on the eyes of three fish of the species known as alliataiu, and the eyes must have been removed while the fish were living. On the third day the cock will swell up and become aggressive and his crest will grow inflamed. After three hours he is to be decapitated and fed to a wild cat, which is then to be beheaded in its turn. Its blood and gall are to be dried and from them a concoction is to be prepared which will enable one to see spirits.[2455] A frog figures as an ingredient in a mixture which, if one merely writes with it on parchment and throws the same into a den of snakes or vipers, will excoriate and kill them instantly.[2456] The congealed blood of an ass is a constituent of a suffumigation which enables one to learn what the future holds in store of good or evil.[2457] Indeed throughout the work parts of animals are the favorite substances employed, although stones and herbs are also used.

[Sidenote: Other marvelous experiments.]

The Liber Vaccae abounds in suffumigations, marvelous houses, golden or otherwise, and magic lamps and fires. One makes men appear in any form desired;[2458] another makes a house seem to be full of snakes;[2459] or a lamp is extinguished by opening the hands over it and is relighted by closing them.[2460] Such marvels we shall find frequently repeated in our following books of experiments. That of holding fire in the hand and not being burnt by it is here described as if quick-lime were used rather than alcohol.[2461] Other paragraphs tell how to plant seed and have it grow instantly,[2462] how to understand the language of the birds,[2463] how to answer questions about persons who are absent,[2464] how to sit under a tree and cause it to incline toward you.[2465] The last recipe calls for the teeth, nose, and bones of a dead man. But perhaps we have sufficiently illustrated the character of the Liber Vaccae. Its necromancy should have at least “provoked the silent dust” of Plato and of Galen.

[Sidenote: Plato as an alchemist.]

To Plato and Galen, though never apparently again in partnership, were also attributed various works of alchemy in the middle ages. Most widespread would seem to have been The Fourth Book or Four Books, which is found both in the manuscripts and in print. In an Oxford manuscript[2466] it opens by Thebit, presumably ben Corat, asking Hasam to “tell us briefly what you have learned of the revelation of things occult and expound the book of old Plato.” Thebit also introduces both of the other parts of the book in this manuscript, but for the most part Hames tells us what Plato said. This indirect form of presentation is somewhat similar to that of the Liber Vaccae, and there is also much talk of abbreviating even in the fuller and different printed version,[2467] which is divided into four books, but the contents are entirely alchemical and there is no mention of Galen. The work seems to be a translation from the Arabic and not a Latin forgery. Berthelot placed the Latin translation of the alchemical treatise of the Pseudo-Plato about 1200.[2468] But there are in the manuscripts yet other works of alchemy ascribed to Plato, one of which, The Thirteen Keys of Greater Wisdom, is said to have been translated from Arabic into Latin about 1301 A. D.[2469]

[Sidenote: Galen as an alchemist]

As for Galen, a Commentary of Galen upon Hermes’ Book of Secrets[2470] turns out to be an alchemy of the incoherent and mystical variety. A Practice in the Secrets of Secrets of Nature ascribed to him is obviously spurious, since it opens by citing Geber. It is accompanied by a Theorica.[2471] Indeed, the Practica is really the same as the treatise usually ascribed to Archelaus.[2472] There was perhaps a medieval alchemist named Galen, since a manuscript at Paris states that “Master Galienus the writer who is used in the episcopate is an alchemist and knows how to whiten eramen so that it is as white as ordinary silver.”[2473]

[Sidenote: The Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis.]

The Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis[2474] are not medical but a series of magic tricks and chemical experiments. Yet they are not only ascribed to Rasis, or at least are said to be a selection from a larger work of his recently translated from Arabic into Latin at Toledo,[2475] but the translator seems to be the same mysterious Ferrarius[2476] of the Experimental Medicines, while the opening words[2477] are very similar to those of the Secrets of Galen which Gerard of Cremona is supposed to have translated, except that here we read, “You have asked me, friend Anselm” instead of Monteus.[2478] Only fragments of the treatise seem to be extant but enough of the eighty-eight experiments are preserved to illustrate their character. Serpents are assembled at a given spot by placing a snake in a perforated pot about which a slow fire is built in order to make him hiss and attract his kind. Fish are made to congregate similarly beneath the surface of a river by letting down into the water at night a lighted lantern with glass windows in its four sides.[2479] The property of alcohol (aqua ardens) of burning on the tip of a finger or from a cloth which has been dipped in it without consuming the cloth or burning the finger is termed magical. To cook an egg in cold water, it is placed in quick-lime in a vessel, then cold water is poured in and the vessel tightly closed. Other experiments are to make a ring hop about the house like a locust, to carry live coals without injury, to light a candle from the rays of the sun, to blacken the face completely. More useful seem those experiments which consist in making alcohol, turpentine, or Greek fire.

[Sidenote: Liber ignium of Marcus Grecus.]

Following the three experiments just mentioned, in both the manuscripts of the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments which we have just been describing, comes The Book of Fires for Burning Enemies of Marcus Grecus.[2480] Since it is also found in other manuscripts,[2481] it would appear to be a distinct treatise from the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments, although its form is similar. Berthelot already has been impressed by the close association in this treatise of “purely scientific compounds of combustible or phosphorescent substances and the preparations of prestidigitateurs and magicians.”[2482] For instance, in an effort to make an inextinguishable fire glow-worms are pulverized and mixed with other substances and then warmed for a certain number of days in horse manure.[2483] A lamp that will shed a silvery light on everything in the house is obtained by smearing the wick with a liquid similar to quicksilver supposed to be obtained by cutting off a lizard’s tail.[2484] Or everything around will appear green, if the brain of a bird is wrapped in cloth and burned with olive oil on a green stone. If the hands are rubbed with an Indian nut or chestnut and “water of camphor,” a candle may be extinguished by opening them above it and relighted by closing the hands.[2485] Other ointments are said to keep one from being burned by a flame or by the red-hot iron in the ordeal.[2486] More scientific are the recipes for oil of sulphur, gunpowder, Greek fire, alcohol.[2487] Two of the more fantastic experiments are said to have been discovered by Aristotle for Alexander,[2488] and another cites Hermes and Ptolemy for its “prodigious and marvelous works.”[2489] The reader will have noticed the recurrence of some of the matters treated in the Natural Experiments of Rasis. Such repetitions and resemblances are common in the medieval collections of recipes and experiments.

[Sidenote: Further experiments.]

At the close of the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus, in one of the two manuscripts[2490] where it follows the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis, the listing of experiments of the same sort continues without any new title and the consecutive numbering of them in the margin goes on up to one hundred and forty-four in all. It is doubtful, however, how far we may regard these additional experiments as a resumption of the text of Rasis, which had been interrupted by the work of Marcus Grecus, since we cannot arrive at an even number of eighty-eight experiments by any combination. These additional experiments instruct us how to paint an image on the wall from which a candle may be lighted, how to write letters that cannot be read unless the material upon which they are written is placed near a fire or touched with a rod, how to make cooked meat seem raw and wormy.[2491] This trick, which is found frequently in medieval manuscripts, is performed by making mince meat of the heart or dried blood of some animal and strewing the particles upon the piece of cooked flesh, whose heat will make them move like worms, while their color is that of raw meat. We are also instructed how to cook meat of a sudden, how to turn a red rose white--apparently by fumigating it with sulphur, and how to make “marvelous bottles” (ad faciendum ampullas mirabiles)--the directions seem to tell how to blow soap bubbles.[2492] How to emit fire from the mouth, to heat a bath, to construct an artificial mill in a camp, and to make all the bystanders appear headless.[2493] A score of experiments are concerned with colors and dyes.[2494] To make a dog follow you, place a piece of bread and butter under your armpit, “that it may receive the odor of the sweat,” and then feed it to the dog.[2495] A magical experiment to deprive a man of his urine consists in taking urine and earth on which someone has made water and enclosing them together in the skin of a camel’s womb or a dog’s paw; “and he will have no urine as long as the earth is enclosed in the skin.”[2496] The last experiment, “that a wife may live a good life with her husband,” involves writing an incantation upon parchment.[2497]

[Sidenote: The Secretum Philosophorum.]

Found together with the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis in one of the two manuscripts[2498] containing that work, and in other manuscripts together with the Liber ignium[2499] and Liber Vaccae[2500] and Experiments or Secrets of Albert,[2501] is an anonymous work entitled The Secret of the Philosophers. As it seems to be found especially in English libraries,[2502] and mainly in manuscripts of the fourteenth century,[2503] it was perhaps composed in England in the thirteenth century. At any rate it claims no connection with Galen or Rasis. It is longer than most medieval collections of experiments and subdivides into seven sections, each named after one of the liberal arts.

[Sidenote: Experiments connected with writing.]

Under the heading “Grammar” materials and instruments used in writing are first spoken of, then methods of writing, especially those employed by the wise to conceal their meaning, as when the alchemists use the names of planets to denote the seven chief metals. Instructions are given for making colors employed in illuminating, ink, white tablets, and glues. We are told again how to write letters which are invisible until touched with a rod or exposed to fire. Also how to write so that the writing can be read only in a mirror, how to erase writing without leaving any mark, how to engrave steel and other metals, and how to color the letters so engraved. A paragraph on the right way of speaking might seem to belong under the head of rhetoric rather than of grammar, but just precedes the section of rhetoric in such manuscripts as I have examined. It warns against much speaking, citing Aristotle’s advice to Alexander in the Secret of Secrets, and ends with the familiar couplet:

“If you would be wise, observe my five commands, What you say, where, of whom, to whom, and when.”[2504]

[Sidenote: Riddles: a trick with a knife.]

The section on “Rhetoric,” which is defined as speaking ornately, is devoted to riddles, verbal deceits, quibbles, and catches. Under one of its sub-heads, Of Weights, we are told how to balance a knife, although its center is to project beyond the edge of a table and although a weight is to be hung on this projecting end. “The way to fulfill the doctrine of this thing is to fix the blade of the knife in the end of a rod so that it makes an acute angle with the rod, and you will see how the rod will hang with the knife.”

[Sidenote: Deceiving the senses.]

“Dialectic” is concerned in our treatise not with logical fallacies but with deception of the senses by various tricks. To make water look and taste like wine, a bottle half full of water should be held or left inverted for a time over the orifice of a jar of wine. This procedure is recommended in cases where a patient wants to drink wine and the doctor knows that it would not be good for him. In order to determine whether a patient is really dead and to prevent cases of burial alive, it is recommended to hold a mirror to his nostrils and see if it will be clouded by a faint breath. This comes under the sub-head, De olfactus deceptione, breathing as well as the sense of smell evidently being included under the olfactory organs. The sense of hearing is deceived by an echo, and the sense of sight by mirrors which enlarge or multiply objects or make an image appear outside the mirror. The use of burning glasses is also discussed.

[Sidenote: Tricks of jugglers.]

Under the sub-head, “Sophistries called sleight-of-hand,” (De sophisticationibus que vocantur iugulationes), come the tricks or cautelae of the jugglers. An apple is made to move on a table by preparing a hole in the center beforehand and placing a beetle inside. To construct a cross that will seem to turn to right or left automatically in answer to questions put to it concerning hidden or future matters, one builds it up of wax about the tail of some insect or tiny animal[2505] which is also concealed in wax and irritated with sage[2506] so that it wiggles its tail and the cross. Hands that have been bound may be freed by cutting the rope against a prearranged knife. Again we meet the experiments to make cooked meat seem raw or full of worms and directions for blowing soap-bubbles, a process which is spoken of as “making a golden sphere appear flying in the air.” Other illusions under “Dialectic” are to seem on fire and not be burned, to see stars in the daytime by multiplying the reflections of the sun, to make a silver coin seem copper, and to deceive the sense of touch by such methods as holding an object between two crossed fingers.

[Sidenote: Mathematical problems.]

The headings, Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry, are more exactly appropriate to their contents than Dialectic was. One problem in arithmetic is to tell how many knights, esquires, and pages will be required to divide twenty loaves of bread, if each knight receives two loaves, if two pages share a loaf, and if four esquires share a loaf. Under geometry are calculated surfaces, the cubic contents of various receptacles, and the altitudes of inaccessible objects.

[Sidenote: Astronomy: experiments with air: the magnet.]

Under “Astronomy” the rule of superiors over inferiors is affirmed and the various attributes, properties, and effects of the planets are listed. Then come “experiments with air” and many figures of vessels partly filled with water or other liquids. Siphoning is explained under the heading, “Of the ascent of water on account of the consumption of the air lest a vacuum be left.” By employing the same principle that Adelard of Bath observed in the magic water-jar of the enchantress, any one of four different liquids that the spectators choose can be poured from a single faucet. Inside the jar are four compartments each with its own airhole above and outlet below, and beneath all four a common chamber into which they open and from which the common faucet pours. The four air-holes are covered with the fingers, and as one of these is raised, the liquid will flow from the corresponding compartment. This is illustrated by a diagram of the contrivance. The magnet is discussed under “Astronomy” “because it bears in itself a likeness of the sky.” This discussion of the magnet and some of the accompanying figures resemble the treatise of Peter Peregrinus on the magnet, which was written in the thirteenth century.[2507] Here the work ends in two of the three manuscripts which I have used,[2508] but in the third further experiments are added.[2509] Some of these have occurred before in the Secretum philosophorum itself, or in other experimental treatises of which we have already spoken. Others are to make fireworks,[2510] to soften steel, to drive away crows, and to tell whether a person is a leper.

[Sidenote: Le Secret aux philosophes.]

Not to be confused with the Latin Secretum philosophorum, which we have just described and which seems to be of English origin, is a work in the French vernacular written at the end of the thirteenth century and entitled Le Secret aux philosophes.[2511] It is not a collection of experiments but rather an encyclopedic discussion of theological and metaphysical as well as natural problems in the form of a dialogue, presumably imaginary, although sometimes represented as a translation, between Placides, the promising son of a petty king, and his master Timeo, who chose him as his pupil in preference to the stupid son of a great emperor. Through this medium is retailed for less learned perusal much of the knowledge and superstition, especially astrological, to be found in the Latin and Arabic learning of the time. Perhaps the resemblance is greater to the Secret of Secrets of the Pseudo-Aristotle than to any other treatise that we have considered. The author, very weak and meager on theological and metaphysical matters, shows a much greater interest in natural science and something of the spirit of experimental research. Yet in a prologue “the compiler” gives his name as Jehan de Bonnet, priest, doctor of theology, and native of Paris. Ernest Renan was impressed by the curiosity shown concerning problems of natural science, by the “search after realities” and by the experimental spirit of the book. The solutions, as in the Natural Questions of Adelard of Bath, often make one smile, but “this naïve composition ... is superior to many scholastic treatises in Latin which deal purely with abstractions and where modern thought has not its true antecedents.” In this treatise, on the other hand, “the science of reality has taken the upper hand” and “the idea of research is born.”[2512] But Renan was mistaken in thinking such scientific curiosity a new thing as late as the close of the thirteenth century, and perhaps on that account overestimated its importance in this case.

[Sidenote: Natural Experiments of Solomon.]

Returning to books of experiments, we may note a treatise whose contents are very similar to the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis, the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus, and the Secretum philosophorum, namely, Some experiments which King Solomon composed because of his love for, and the imploring of, a most excellent queen, and they are experiments of nature.[2513] Instead of the experiment with the snake in the pot we now have rats in a cage, whose squealing when a fire is heated is supposed to attract other rats. Again we are told how to write invisible letters, how to make a candle burn in water,[2514] how to light a candle from the mouth of an image painted upon the wall. This is done by painting the mouth with sulphur and turpentine and applying the wick of the candle to it just after the candle has been blown out and before it has quite ceased to glow. Quicklime as well as sulphur and turpentine are used in an image that will illuminate and take fire when water is poured over it. Quicksilver is placed with saltpeter and sulphur inside a ring in order that it may hop about when put near a fire.

[Sidenote: Experiments without title or author.]

Such experiments sometimes occur without any title as well as without name of author, as in a manuscript where there are a dozen leaves filled with them between the treatise on plantations and the experiments or secrets ascribed to Albert.[2515] Again we encounter the jumping ring, the cooked meat turned raw, men made to appear headless, and artificial thunder which seems produced by use of gunpowder. There is much discussion of colors and alchemy and we are told how to make sal ammoniac and “the best bitumen.”[2516] But the virtues of herbs and animals are not forgotten and many of the experiments are medical or magical. Instructions are given for making a white crow by tampering with the crow’s egg, and how to make human hair grow again by the application of the ashes of a mole, burned in a new pot, mixed with honey. A cure for diarrhoea is to drink milk in which a glowing iron has been quenched. Suspending the tongue of a goose over a sleeper has the appropriate effect of causing him to reveal all his secrets, while the suspension of the head of a bat prevents his waking. The bearer of the herb aristologia is safe from demons whether awake or asleep. To escape from chains one should employ an incantation which contains allusions to the rescue of the apostle Peter from the sea and from prison.

[Sidenote: Twelve experiments with snakeskin of John Paulinus.]

Frequently found in the manuscripts are twelve experiments with pulverized snakeskin which John Paulinus or John of Spain excerpted from the book in Arabic of the physician or physical scientist, Allchamus or Alchanus or Alanus or Alganus, or whatever his name may have been,[2517] a book entitled Life-Saver (Salus vitae).[2518] This work, as John further informs us at its beginning, he discovered when he “was in Alexandria, a city of the Egyptians.”[2519] Steinschneider listed this John Paulinus as a different person from the well-known twelfth century translator, John of Spain, but at least in one manuscript[2520] he is called both John of Spain and John Paulinus.[2521]

[Sidenote: Marvelous virtues of snakeskin.]

Another manuscript[2522] presents our treatise under the amusing caption, “Twelve experiments with snakeskin and some of them true.” All due credit should be given for such partial scepticism but it might well have been made more sweeping. The snakeskin is to be pulverized when the moon is in the first degree of Aries, and one manuscript adds that this must be the full moon.[2523] This powder will heal a wound in the head, or will keep the head from being wounded, if it is sprinkled on the hair. A face, washed with it and water, is terrible to foes and secures the faithful allegiance of friends. If the powder is scattered in an enemy’s house, he will be unable to remain there. To secure an attentive hearing in a council, sprinkle a little at your feet. Place some on the tip of the tongue, and you will be invincible in scientific disputations. “And this has been tested many times.” This healing and magic powder also enables one to see into the future, to learn another’s secrets, to insure the fidelity of a servant or messenger, to guard against poison, to win the love of a woman. If a leper eats some of it, his disease will grow no worse. This last experiment is perhaps suggested by Galen’s story of the cure of skin disease by drinking wine in which a viper had died.

[Sidenote: Other treatises concerning the virtues of snakes.]

At the end of these twelve experiments one manuscript adds that “John in the same book gives additional statements which Alcanus composed,” and continues with further suggestions concerning the medicinal preparation and uses of snakes and their skins and blood.[2524] Similar are Secrets concerning the Serpent, which, according to a manuscript of the fifteenth century in the Bodleian, Albertus Magnus gave to a doctor of sacred theology of the order of Friars Minor at Nürnberg,[2525] and which direct how to prepare snakes and recount their medicinal virtues. It will be recalled, too, that in our preceding chapter we treated of the Experiments of Nicholas of Poland which made considerable use of pulverized snakes or toads or scorpions, and which are sometimes found in the same manuscripts[2526] as the Twelve Experiments with Snakeskin.

[Sidenote: Chemical experiments of Nicholas.]

Perhaps this is the same Nicholas to whom chemical experiments are attributed in two Oxford manuscripts.[2527] In the fuller manuscript these experiments are numbered in the margin from one to twenty,[2528] but sometimes more than one recipe or item is found under a number.[2529] Besides some alchemistic generalizations, such as the opening sentence which states that there are seven bodies, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon, and a recipe or two for making gold and silver, the treatise consists of instructions for the preparation of such chemicals as sal ammoniac, quicksilver, arsenic, sulphur, and common salt, and of other recipes similar to those in the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus.[2530]The author frequently cites the books and experiences of the philosophers but also speaks of his own experiments. Once, for example, he supports the assertions of the philosophers by adding, “And I, Nicholas, say that I have tested these two operations experimentally”:[2531] in another place he says of a powder recommended “by a very wise philosopher” that he has not yet experienced it himself as the operation is long and difficult.[2532]

[Sidenote: Books of waters.]

In addition to the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus and the experiments with air in the Secret of Philosophers, we must not forget the treatises in medieval manuscripts devoted to marvelous waters, medical and chemical. We have already seen such works attributed to Aristotle[2533] and to Peter of Spain.[2534] At that time, of course, various liquid compounds and acids were known as “waters”; alcohol, for instance, was called aqua ardens; and in one manuscript some of the “waters” are really dry or solid.[2535] As in the case of the treatises ascribed to Aristotle and Petrus Hispanus, twelve seems to be the favorite number in these medieval collections of waters, but the twelve are not always the same,[2536] and sometimes, while the title says twelve, the text will include more than that number.[2537] Such a collection of twelve waters is sometimes ascribed to Rasis,[2538] and once to Vergil,[2539] but often occurs anonymously.[2540] Other treatises on waters in general and the fountain of youth in especial are ascribed to famous names, Albert Magnus,[2541] Arnald of Villanova,[2542] and Thaddeus of Florence[2543] and of the University of Bologna, a thirteenth century writer upon anatomy and medicine who lived from 1223 to 1303. We also encounter Nine Waters of the Philosophers,[2544] Physical Waters,[2545] and a Book of Saint Giles concerning the virtues of certain waters which he made while dwelling in the desert.[2546] The saint would scarcely seem to have chosen the best place for the investigation of his subject. Such are a few specimens of medieval works on waters; many more might be collected.[2547]

[Sidenote: Colors.]

Experiments with colors are also of rather frequent occurrence in medieval manuscripts, and seem to a large extent to be anonymous. I have not sufficiently examined them to be able to say what additions may be made in the manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the recipes already given in the Compositiones ad tingenda, Mappe clavicula, and works of Heraclius and Theophilus of which we have already spoken. Like the Book of Twelve Waters, but not so widespread, is a treatise on twelve colors and their virtues,[2548] while a Virgilius appears again as the author of Pictorial Waters for Painting on Linen and Cloth.[2549] The works on colors of Peter of St. Audemar, of John Alcerius, and of John le Bègue have been printed by Mrs. Merrifield,[2550] but many brief anonymous collections of recipes concerning colors still remain in manuscript.[2551]

[Sidenote: Necromantic experiments.]

Other examples of necromantic experiments are found in the manuscripts than those of the Liber sacratus, Picatrix, and the Liber Vaccae, or those which are attributed to Michael Scot and Peter of Abano. An anonymous collection of “conjurations and invocations of spirits to discover thefts and other things of the sort” contains “among many other experiments” some concerning three angels in a crystal, a sibyl in a candle, four kings in a crystal, “a bearded old man,” and the ars episcopalis.[2552] A manuscript at Munich contains “A probable experiment to provoke spirits from all four quarters of the universe, whatever their condition, order, and station, by means of the mass.” “A good experiment in astrology of Master John of Belton” turns out to be necromantic, consisting largely in writing and repeating such words as the Tetragrammaton.[2553]

[Sidenote: Experimentum in dubiis.]

An “Experiment in cases of doubt” from an early thirteenth century manuscript at Erfurt[2554] may perhaps be described more fully. It should be begun during the March equinox early in the night with psalms and prayers. Starting forth to a spot where potter’s clay may be found, one repeats the Paternoster and Credo as one leaves his house or church. On the road he repeats seven psalms, and if he meets any passers-by, returns no answer to them. Having reached the potter’s earth, he plants his heel upon it and turning successively to the East, South, and North, repeats the magic word “Syos” to each of those cardinal points. Turning to the East again, he utters a short prayer beginning, “Force eternal, innumerable power, true presence of things, I suppliantly beg your clemency.” Then with a trowel with a white handle he cuts the earth about his heel, and digs up enough of it for his purpose, repeating the while a “Te Deum” and “Gloria in excelsis.” Having secured the clay by this ceremony, when he wishes to settle any doubtful question, he writes the words “Yes” and “No” on two bits of parchment, encloses these in pastilles of the clay, places a dish of holy water between the two pastilles, saying, “In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” and another pious phrase. Then he puts the pastilles in the water, adjuring them by the names of Elias and Moses to show him the truth of the matter in question, and opens for his answer the first pastille which floats towards him.

[Sidenote: “A natural experiment.”]

What we should regard as specimens of downright sorcery and magic are sometimes presented in the manuscripts not merely as “experiments,” but as instances of purely scientific procedure. Under the title, “A natural experiment,” which, however, is likewise called “ineffable,” a writer in a Paris manuscript[2555] describes three Practicae which may be used against enemies or serpents. Of these practical experiments the most interesting is the first, which the writer learned of when he was at Paris from Thomas de Pisan. This Thomas is also spoken of as of Bologna and as the physician of the French king. Evidently he is the father of the poetess, Christine de Pisan, Thomas of Bologna, who made astrological predictions and composed philters for the learned king, Charles V of France, and the duke of Burgundy, and who also wrote a letter on the philosopher’s stone.[2556] The object of Thomas’ “experiment” was the expulsion of the English companies of mercenaries from the French kingdom. He procured earth from the center and the four quarters of France and under a selected constellation made five images of lead or tin in the form of nude men. On the forehead of each he wrote the name of the king of England or one of the captains of the companies and on the jaw and breast astrological characters and names. These images were hollow and were filled with the aforesaid earth and at the proper astrological moment were buried in the five aforesaid regions with an incantation to the effect that this was the perpetual burial and total destruction and annihilation of the said captain and king, and the permanent expulsion of him and every official or adherent of his “so long as this work shall endure by God’s will, Amen.” The images were buried face down with their hands behind their backs, “and within a few months all the said companies had fled from the realm.” The writer states that all three of his Practicae are based on the first Practica of Thebit ben Corath, and notes that Albert the commentator has said in his Mirror[2557] that such images are purely natural like medical recipes.

[Sidenote: Variety of experiments in medieval manuscripts.]

It is hard to tell where to make an end of describing or even of merely illustrating the many collections and isolated examples of “experiments,” medical, chemical, culinary, artistic, magical, and necromantic, both of spurious and of anonymous authorship, to be found in medieval manuscripts. There are “experiments, good and best” which include such illusions as making a river appear to flow in a house;[2558] there are “some experiments in which occur many words written in a mystic form with vowels omitted”;[2559] there is an experiment to catch birds which begins by using the tongue of a dog;[2560] there are “Sounds of trumpets and other mathematical experiments,”[2561] and “A booklet of experiments for this and that,” which opens with instructions how to dissolve phlegmatic humors.[2562] In a single manuscript are “incantations and other experiments,” “Experiments of Alexander,” “experiments from Galen’s book of Dinamidia,” “general experiments,” “Experiments of Rusticus” who is perhaps Rusticus Elpidus, physician to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and “Experiments of Parisius, Abbot of St. Mark’s.”[2563] A certain group of experiments seems to be associated in some way with the emperor Frederick, presumably the Second.[2564] Another group of perhaps twenty-five experiments was collected at Paris about 1331 and “approved by divers doctors of the same dear university.”[2565] In an Escorial manuscript are experiments of a chancellor and cardinal.[2566]

[Sidenote: An experimental manuscript.]

A manuscript which belonged to an English family in Northamptonshire in the fifteenth century and received some additional entries in the sixteenth provides a good example of the scope and character of the experimental interest of those times. Omitting some brief family records, we find its main contents to be a calendar, list of eclipses, table and chart of the influences of planets and signs on the human body, treatises on flebotomy, on colors, a problem credited to Aristotle, verses on the seven liberal arts, medical recipes, a compotus, arithmetics, a Sphere of Pythagoras, the treatise of John Paul on experiments with snakeskin, Alfraganus on signs from thunder, what seem to be extracts from the Herbarium of Apuleius and perhaps from the treatise of Sextus Papirius Placitus on animals which so often accompanies it. This last is accompanied by a memorandum to the effect that there are many true things here and also many false ones. Charms and further recipes are followed by a treatise on the conduct of waters and siphoning and how to learn the altitude of objects, which is not unlikely to be an extract from the Secretum philosophorum. A treatise on the moon in the twelve signs is followed by one “on philosophy according to Aristotle with cases and experiments proving its thesis.” It opens with the words, “In these things nature works in an occult fashion.” Next comes a charm in English, then more recipes in Latin, the Physiognomy of Aristotle, a treatise of chiromancy, a Dream Book of Daniel, a further discussion of colors, the familiar charm to find a thief by means of a loaf of bread, and various tricks and fireworks.[2567]

[Sidenote: Experimental character of the Sloane manuscripts.]

How long this experimental literature, which we have been describing for the medieval period, retained its popularity, and how large a place it had even in the esteem of celebrated scholars and scientists, may be inferred from the very prominent place which it occupies in the manuscript collection of Sir Hans Sloane, which with his books and scientific collections formed the nucleus of the present British Museum. Sir Hans Sloane, who lived for nearly a century from 1660 to 1753, won such a reputation both as a medical man and a naturalist that in 1727 he became physician to the king and succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society. Yet the manuscripts collected by this distinguished scientist contain about as much alchemy and astrology as they do medicine, while even in those of the seventeenth century experiments of every sort continue to play as great a part as ever before. Indeed the general tenor of the seventeenth century manuscripts in the collection seems rather more superstitious than in those of any previous century. This may be due to the fact that superstition is being crowded out of the printed page by that time, and finds a refuge only in private manuscripts, but I am doubtful if such was the fact. We must remember that the seventeenth century was marked by the witchcraft delusion, and even Boyle had not quite lost faith in alchemy despite his The Sceptical Chemist. Perhaps, however, the combined influences of the Index Expurgatorius, English censorship of the press, and the natural tendency or pretense of alchemy and magic to adopt secret and cryptic methods, were enough to keep a number of works or “secrets” in manuscript form. Be that as it may, it certainly seems as if the recipe notion dominated the catalogue of the Sloane manuscripts and especially so in those of the seventeenth century. I have not begun to note all the titles with the word or idea of experiment in them, but I should like to run over a considerable number of the subjects of seventeenth century manuscripts which I have jotted down, and which I think will serve to illuminate the character of the science of that time, and its relation to the preceding medieval literature in the same field.

[Sidenote: Some seventeenth century experiments.]

We may begin with “Notable experimentall receipts taken out of the booke of Hen. Rantzovius de conservanda valetudine.”[2568] We pass on to “Small empirical experiments” in both German and Latin,[2569] and to “Doctor Collette’s Experyment for the memory” and several medical receipts.[2570] “A new system for an experimental college” is dated 1680.[2571] In a long manuscript devoted to alchemy are found, among other items, “the experiment of some unknown,” “some remarks about the magic image in a Benedictine monastery near Florence,” “a marvelous experiment from a book printed in Flanders, but in my opinion a deceit,” and some other “sophistical experiments.”[2572] To a manuscript in which are contained “Severall receipts of my mother’s which she had chiefly in my Lord Berkeley’s family”[2573] soon succeeds another in which four out of the six treatises are respectively anatomical, chemical, medical, and philosophical experiments.[2574] “An experiment with a mirror, for theft” and so forth, is explained by the catalogue as being “rather sundry charms by which experiments may be made.”[2575]

[Sidenote: More recipes and experiments.]

“Lady Rennelagh’s choise receipts, as also some of Capt. Willis, who valued them above gold,”[2576] are probably not very different from “A Booke of Receipts collected on Sundry occations, being for the moste part such as are commonly used in shopps yett nott to be found in the London Pharmacopaeia; with some other receipts of certaine Chymicall preparations most in use in Apothecaries shopps with the way of makeing them.”[2577] “L’arsenal des secrets,” besides recipes for making potable gold and various elixirs, contains “Diverses secrets curieux” in the way of directions how to stamp or cast metals, to make colors, ink, and dyes.[2578] Thus we see that industrial processes are still “mysteries.” A method of shooting guns without noise[2579] excites our curiosity, but we recall that Thomas Browne classes among his Vulgar Errors the belief in a “white powder that kills without report,” concerning which, he wittily remarks, “there is no small noise in the world.”[2580] We turn to “Experiments made at several times upon Oxe’s galls,”[2581] to “Preparations and Experiments” and “Some excerpts from the experiments of Andreas Michelius.”[2582] In a manuscript which consists chiefly of recipes we find directions for making saltpeter and gunpowder and various kinds of fireworks.[2583] An experimental remedy for the gout[2584] carries our thoughts back to Alexander of Tralles, while a manuscript written in 1579 consists of “A book of certain experiments of physics, copied out of an old written book in old English, bearing the date of 1329, by John Nettleton, with additions of medical receipts and observations in a later hand.”[2585]

[Sidenote: Magic experiments.]

We come to the books of magic in the manuscripts of the seventeenth century in the Sloane collection and find them full and running over with “experiments.” “An excellent approved experiment to cause a thief to come again with the goods.” “An experiment to call out spirits that are keepers of treasure trove, either by an artificiall inchantment magically, or otherwise by Divine justice.” “An introduction teaching the use of the foregoing treates and thereby other experiments.”[2586] Another manuscript has “some experiments and incantations and imperfect conjurations written by John Evans,” “some experiments for sport,” “an experiment with book and key to reveal the thief by the names of the suspects,” and the equally superstitious experiments of William Bacon.[2587] Elsewhere we meet “A magical treatise containing a number of experiments and directions to those that will call any spirit,”[2588] “Experiments for finding out stolen or hidden things by the help of the Chrystal Stone,” “A noble experiment of King Solomon with astrological tables,”[2589] “Experiments for love,” “Experiments for all games,”[2590] “the doctrine of all experiments,”[2591] “some magical experiments,” “many experiments of magic,”[2592] and so on and so forth; in short, magic experiments galore.

FOOTNOTES:

[2442] Steinschneider (1906), p. 44; (1862), p. 53.

[2443] A Hebrew version is extant in a Munich MS (214, fol. 109v) described by Steinschneider (1862), pp. 54-5.

[2444] For a list of the MSS see Appendix I to this chapter.

[2445] A Liber tegimenti cited in the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to Albertus Magnus perhaps refers to our treatise, of which the De mirabilibus seems to make further use. The citation from the Liber tegimenti is to the effect that a training in dialectic, natural science, astrology, and nigromancy is necessary for one who would thoroughly understand the world of nature and the books of the philosophers.

[2446] Cited by Steinschneider (1862), pp. 52-3, “Liber Neumich, sive nevemich, et alio nomine vocant leges Platonis, qui totus liber est de huiusmodi commixtionibus; et vocatur leges Platonis, quia contra leges naturae est.” The passage was first noted by A. Jourdain.

[2447] Adversus astrologes, lib. I, “sicut libros Platonis de vacca magi circumferunt et quos vocant institutionum execrabilibus somniis figmentisque refertos.”

[2448] See above, p. 756, note 3.

[2449] Digby 71, fol. 37r, “quare negas ergo quod si vacca sit reliquarum rerum que suis proprietatibus agunt (?) donec experiaris et certificis certitudine.”

[2450] Arundel 342, fols. 47v-48r; Digby 71, fol. 42v; Corpus Christi 125, fol. 147r-v.

[2451] The Hebrew version, according to Steinschneider (1862), p. 54, devotes its first chapter to making bees from a calf and a calf from bees rather than, like the Latin version, to the production of “a rational animal.”

[2452] Arundel 342, fol. 48v; Digby 71, fol. 43v; Corpus Christi 125, fol. 148r.

[2453] Corpus Christi 125, fol. 150r.

[2454] Ibid., fol. 150r-v. As the three MSS which I used were all difficult to decipher, I did not take time to locate each recipe in all three, having satisfied myself of the essential identity of contents of the two Oxford MSS at least, which I compared together.

[2455] Arundel 342, fols. 50v-51r.

[2456] Ibid., fol. 54v; Digby 71, fol. 56r; Corpus Christi 125, fol. 159v.

[2457] Arundel 342, fols. 52v-53r.

[2458] Arundel 342, fol. 53r.

[2459] Corpus Christi 125, fol. 159v.

[2460] Digby 71, fol. 56r.

[2461] Arundel 342, fol. 54v; Corpus Christi 125, fol. 159v.

[2462] Corpus Christi 125, fol. 157r.

[2463] Ibid., fol. 151v.

[2464] Ibid., fol. 152r.

[2465] Ibid., fol. 151v.

[2466] Digby 219, late 16th century, fols. 120-43, “Liber quartus Platonis tribus partibus, explicatus ab Hamete filio Hasam rogatu Thebeth,” opening “Dixit Thebeth Hames filio Hasam, Abrevia nobis quod de revelatione occultorum intellexisti et expone librum senioris Platonis,” and closing, “Dixit Plato et qui cognovit cognovit quod quedam dictorum nostrorum, etc. Hic defiunt multa.”

Other earlier MSS are:

S. Marco XVI, 1, 14th century, fols. 43-6, Platonis quartus super secretis naturae, opening, “Dixit Plato, cum res ex eodem genere sint....”

S. Marco XVI, 3, 15th century, fols. 291-303, Commentum tertiae partis quarti de quartis Platonis, opening, “Haec scientia incipit a potentia et pervenit ad actum....”

Bologna University Library 138, 15th century, fols. 216v-21v, “Quartum Platonis scolasticorum. Dixit Plato ... / ... omnibus diebus vite sue.”

Bologna University Library 270, X, 15-16th century, fol. 185r, “Quartum Platonis scolasticorum. In nomine Dei ... / ... intellige hoc.”

[2467] Zetzner, Theatrum Chemicum, V (Strasburg, 1622), 114-208, “cum commento Hebuhabes et Hamed philosophorum, explicatus ab Hestole.” Concerning the Arabic original see Steinschneider (1906), p. 44. Berthelot (1893) I, 247-8, spoke of it as “ouvrage juif.”

[2468] Berthelot (1893) II, 398. Lippmann (1919), p. 480.

[2469] S. Marco XVI, 1, 14th century, fols. 20-26, Incipit liber Platonis de tredecim clavibus sapientiae maioris, translatus de arabico in latinum anno. Dom. 1301. It opens, “Narraverunt quod in terra Romanorum fuit quidam philosophus qui vocabatur in arabico Platon....”

Examples of MSS of what seem to be still other Platonic alchemies are:

Orléans 290, 16th century, fol. 207-, “Incipit summa Platonis alkymie sic inquiens: Cum res ex eodem sunt....”

Riccard. 119, fols. 1r-2v, “In nomine domini amen. Incipit liber Platonis super aptationem lapidis pretiosi scribens filio suo ex dictis philosophorum. In vii capitulis.”

[2470] Corpus Christi 125, fols. 78-80r, Galeni super Hermetis librum secretorum expositio.

[2471] Riccard. 1165, 15th century, fols. 96-101, “Practica in secretis secretorum naturae,” fols. 101-105, “Theorica.”

[2472] J. Wood Brown (1897) 83, has pointed out that in Riccard. 119, fols. 192v-195v, the Liber Archelai Philosophi de arte alchimiae is called also in the margin Practica Galieni in Secretis secretorum.

[2473] BN 6514, but Brown (1897) 83, who quotes the Latin of the passage fails to mention the folio of the MS.

[2474] Both copies of this work of which I know seem to be fragmentary. Amplon. Quarto 361, English cursive hand of early 14th century, fol. 24, I have not seen, and follow the description of it by V. Rose in his “Ptolemaeus und die Schule von Toledo,” Hermes, VIII, 338-40, which is fuller than the notice in Schum. Rose knew of no other MS of the treatise, but I have examined it in the following: Digby 67, 15th century, fol. 32.

Both MSS have the same prologue by Ferrarius, in which the number of experiments is stated as eighty-eight, and both open with the same experiment. Rose gives the headings of only fourteen others, and then begins the Book of Fires of Marcus Grecus, “Nunc incipiet liber ignium a marcho greco descriptus,” which, as Rose says, follows the same form of a series of experiments as the preceding Rasis. Indeed, in Digby 67 the experiments of both treatises are numbered continuously in the margin. The Rasis seems to end with the experiment numbered 33, a circumstance which led Macray to describe it as containing 33 instead of 88 experiments. Digby 67, however, does not at present contain experiments 1-33 inclusive, but only 1-5 and 27-33; apparently a sheet is missing. The Liber ignium, beginning at experiment 34 and at the same juncture as in the Amplon. MS, since the preceding experiments in both cases were concerned with alcohol (aqua ardens), turpentine, and Greek fire, comprises twenty-five experiments, after which miscellaneous experiments carry the total number recorded in the margin up to one hundred and forty-four. In the Amplon. MS the Liber ignium is followed by another experimental treatise entitled Secreta philosophorum, of which more will be said presently.

[2475] “In Toleno” or “In Coleno.”

[2476] “Suus suo amicus amico Anselmo ferarius.”

[2477] Strictly speaking there are two other sentences before the words, “Rogasti me, amice Anselme....”

[2478] Professor D. B. Macdonald warns me, however, that these are common opening words in Arabic treatises.

[2479] This and the preceding experiment follow the liber ignium of Marcus Grecus in CLM 197, 1438 A. D.; see Berthelot (1893) I, 124.

[2480] First printed in 1804 by La Porte du Theil at the wish of Napoleon who had heard of the old recipes for Greek fire. Hoefer gave a faulty edition of it in his History of Chemistry, 2nd edition, I, 517-24. I have employed the text printed by Berthelot (1893) I, 89-135, from four continental MSS: BN 7156, 13-14th century; BN 7158, 15th century; CLM 267, about 1300 A. D.; CLM 197, about 1438 A. D. This text is accompanied by a French translation, introduction, and notes. Berthelot’s discussion of Marcus Grecus suffers from his ignorance of the existence of other collections of experiments similar to it in MSS contemporary with it. He notes only its resemblance to the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to Albertus Magnus and to the books of secrets printed in the sixteenth century. Marcus Grecus seems not the same as Mark, the canon of Toledo (Marcus Canonicus Toletanus) in the twelfth century who translated into Latin the Koran and works of Hippocrates, Galen, and Honein ben Ishak: see Steinschneider (1905), p. 54.

[2481] Besides the MSS used in his text Berthelot alludes to some MS of the Liber ignium in England which belonged to a Mr. Richard Mead (probably, Professor D. B. Macdonald suggests, Dr. Richard Mead, the eighteenth century London physician, many of whose books are now in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow), but does not mention Digby 67 and Amplon. Quarto 361, which we have described already; nor CU St. John’s 177, 14th century (Italian), fol. 15v, “Incipit liber ignium a marco greco prescriptus”; nor Sloane 323, 14th century. fols. 162-5; nor Digby 153, 14th century, fol. 179v-, where it is reduced to ten experiments. There may be other MSS of the Liber ignium in the British Museum, as I have not searched especially for them. In Arundel 164, 15th century, fol. 192v, are Recepta varia de praeparatione ignis graeci.

[2482] Berthelot (1893) I, 131.

[2483] Ibid., pp. 111, 120.

[2484] Ibid., p. 114.

[2485] Ibid., p. 115.

[2486] Ibid., pp. 114-5.

[2487] Ibid., pp. 117-8.

[2488] Ibid., pp. 105-7.

[2489] Ibid., p. 112.

[2490] Digby 67.

[2491] Ibid., Experiments 60, 71-72, 73-74.

[2492] Ibid., Experiments 76, 77, 88.

[2493] Ibid., Experiments 92, 95, 97, 127.

[2494] Ibid., Experiments 104 et seq.

[2495] Ibid., Experiment 136.

[2496] Digby 67, Experiment 90.

[2497] Ibid., Experiment 144.

[2498] Amplon. Quarto 361.

[2499] Also Digby 153.

[2500] Digby 71 and Corpus Christi 132.

[2501] Addit. 32622, Egerton 2852, Digby 37, 153, CU Trinity 1351.

[2502] Of the two MSS at Erfurt one is in an English hand.

[2503] See Appendix II to this chapter for a list of the MSS.

[2504]

“Si sapiens fore vis, sex(?) serva que tibi mando: Quid dices, et ubi, de quo, cum quo, quando.”

[2505] Called anena (?).

[2506] Safina (salvia?).

[2507] Concerning Peter Peregrinus see S. P. Thompson, Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt and his Epistola de Magnete, 1907, and The Epistle of P. Peregrinus concerning the Magnet, done into English by S. P. Thompson, 1902. Thompson lists eleven editions and 28 MSS. Addit. 32622, fols. 71-77r, and Egerton 2852, which I have examined, are briefer than the printed text of the Epistola. Addit. 32622 has the better diagrams of these two MSS.

[2508] Digby 37 and 153.

[2509] Addit. 32622, fols. 77-84.

[2510] Ibid., fol. 80v, ad faciendum volantem seems to be a rocket, and fol. 81r ad faciendum tonitruum magnum et horribile to be some sort of an explosive.

[2511] The work is described in HL 30: 567-95. I have not seen the treatise itself. It exists in two different manuscript versions and a third repeatedly printed text for which no corresponding manuscript can be found.

[2512] HL 30: 576 and 593.

[2513] Sloane 121, 15-16th century, fols. 90v-92r.

[2514] The knowledge that sulphur and quicklime will burn when brought into contact with water seems, as Berthelot has pointed out, (1893) I, 95, to antedate Livy who writes (XXXIX, 13), “Matrones Baccharum habitu ... cum ardentibus facibus decurrere ad Tiberim demissasque in aquam faces, quia vivum sulfur cum calce insit, integra flamma efferre.”

[2515] Arundel 251, 14th century, fols. 12-24.

[2516] Possibly there is some connection with the chemical experiments of James Hutton (1726-1797), the geologist, and his discovery of a process for manufacturing sal ammoniac from coal-soot.

[2517] Steinschneider (1905), p. 51, also mentions Alcharius and Alcaus. The catalogue of MSS at Munich gives Alchabitii; in a Bologna MS we read Aichauus.

[2518] Steinschneider (1905), p. 51, notes only four of the following MSS, namely, those starred:

Sloane 1754, 14th century, fol. 30, “De pelle serpentis 12 experimenta et quaedam vera.” No author or translator is mentioned: the treatise immediately follows the Experiments of Nicholas of Poland.

Royal 12-D-XII, late 14th century, fol. 111v.

Arundel 251, 14th century, fol. 35v.

CU Trinity 1081, 15th century, fol. 69.

Bodleian 177 (Bernard 2072), late 14th century, fols. 29v-30r.

* Ashmole 1437, 15th century, fol. 3v, “De corio serpentis.” John’s prefatory statement is omitted and no author is mentioned.

* Amplon. Folio 276, early 14th century, fol. 69.

CLM 206, 15th century, fol. 38, De viribus corei serpentis pulverisati.

* CLM 444, 14th century, fol. 200.

* CLM 534, 14th century, fol. 42v.

Bologna University Library 135, 14th century, fols. 31r-32r, “Aichauus, Liber vitae.... Illum autem librum fecit Aichauus fysicus.”

Arezzo 232, 15th century, fol. 80, “Secreta magistri Iohannis,” from the fact that they follow the Verbum abreviatum ascribed to Roger Bacon are probably the alchemical treatise attributed to Bacon’s disciple, the youth John, rather than our treatise.

Sloane 3679, 17th century, fol. 96v--, “Sequuntur quaedam Experimenta mirabilia de spolio serpentis quae Jo. Hispalensis ex Arabico transtulit in Latinum ex libro salutis vitae Alcani philosophi Arabici.”

[2519] “Hic incipiunt 12 experimenta naturalia de corio serpentis translata a johanne paulino ab arabico in latinum ut predictus philosophus dicit cum ego Johannes essem in alexandria civitate egipsiorum reperi ... hoc qui salus vitae appellatur....” Bodleian 177.

[2520] Arundel 251, “Cum ego Johannis hyspanicus....”

[2521] At least he seems to have been a different person from John of St. Paul’s, a medical writer whose works will be found in a number of MSS in the collections of Amplonius and Sir Hans Sloane, and whom Scott in his Index to the Sloane MSS has identified both with the translator of the snakeskin experiments and with John Platearius.

And still different from any of these would seem to have been “Ioannis Paulus de Fundis,” doctor of arts and lecturer on medicine and astronomy in the university, and astrologer of the commune, of Bologna, whose Tacuinus astronomico-medicus, written in his own hand in February, 1435, is preserved in a MS of the University Library at Bologna. Nor is this Tacuinus to be confused with the earlier work of that title translated by the Jew Faradj ben Salem for Charles of Anjou.

[2522] Sloane 1754.

[2523] Sloane 1754. These virtues ascribed to snakeskin are perhaps to be connected with the belief that the serpent renews its youth by changing its skin every year: see J. G. Frazer (1918) I, 66.

[2524] Royal 12-D-XII, fols. 112r-113r. Sloane 1754 ends immediately after the twelfth experiment with the powdered snakeskin, while Arundel 251 adds but one further sentence.

[2525] Canon. Misc. 524, fol. 17r-v, “Secreta Alberti magni de serpente dedita uno doctori sacre theologie ordinis minorum de Norenbergia.”

[2526] Sloane 1754 and CLM 534. Sloane 1754 also contains the following experimental works which have not yet been mentioned: fols. 80-82, Experimenta de sanguine; fols. 197-201, 205-8, 212-8, 222-31, Chimica experimenta varia.

[2527] Ashmole 1448, 15th century, pp. 119-28, de experimentis chemicis in viginti capitula distributis, opening, “Septem sunt corpora scilicet Saturnus, Jupiter,” and closing, “Et sic finitur opus Nicholai.”

Corpus Christi 125, 14-15th century, fols. 90r-91v. This has the same Incipit and some of the same experiments, but is briefer. It addresses a certain William (fol. 90r) and cites Michael Scot (fol. 91r).

Duhem, III (1915) 443, note, cites from Digby 164, which I have not seen, “Chi sont les lettres de frère Nichole envoiiées à Bernard de Verdun et les lettres de frère Bernard envoiiées à frère Nichole sur la pierre des philosophes.”

[2528] This marginal numbering goes on from 21 to 64 in succeeding treatises, including one on twelve waters, numbered 25 to 36.

[2529] For instance, under 9. Aqua pro igne Greco, Ignis inextinguabilis, Ignis quem invenit Aristoteles cum Alexandro, De 3 generibus igneum; under 10, Ad accendendum ignem ad solem, Ut manus ardere videatur nec ardeat, Ignis discurrens, Candele, Ignis ad sagittandum.

[2530] See the headings in the preceding note, and other chapters, most of which Black has already listed in his description of the MS, where he says, “Some of the chapters are curious and highly deserve notice.”

[2531] Ashmole 1448, p. 119.

[2532] Ibid., pp. 125-6.

[2533] See above p. 251.

[2534] See above p. 500.

[2535] BN 6514, fol. 40.

[2536] In the Florentine MS, Palat. 887, 15-16th century, fols. 89-, 91-, 93-4, three different books of twelve waters occur in succession; and Berthelot (1893) I, 70, has noted that the texts of the Book of Twelve Waters are different in MSS, BN 6514, fol. 40 and BN 7156, fol. 145v, and in the printed Theatrum chemicum, III, 104. Also in Ashmole 1448, 15th century, occur two different Books of Twelve Waters, at pp. 130-40, “Incipit liber de aquis qui dicitur 12 aquarum ... / ... explicit tractatus 12 aquarum;” at pp. 193-6, “Hic incipit liber 12 aquarum Alkimie seu in Alkamica.”

[2537] In the first liber de aquis in Ashmole 1448 mentioned in the preceding note there are paragraphs numbered from 25 to 57 and more than twelve waters are mentioned.

[2538] Digby 119, early 14th century, fols. 205-6, Liber Rasis de aquis 12 optimis, opening, “Aqua mollificatissima et nigrissima.”

Sloane 1754, 14th century, fol. 112r, “Incipit liber rasis de 12 aquis preciosis. Libelli huius series 12 splendet capitulis. Primum de aqua rubicunda. Secundum de aqua penetrativa. Tertium de aqua mollificanti et ingrediente. Quartum de aqua eiusdem ponderis et magni nominis. Quintum de aqua ignita. Sextum de aqua sulphurea. Septimum de aqua cineris. Octavum de aqua aurea. Nonum de aqua martis de albatione. Decem de aqua almarcaside et argenti dissolutione. Undecimum de aqua in mercurii congelatione et conglutinatione. Duodecimum de aqua perpetua.”

In the same MS at fol. 78r-, “Incipit 12 aquarum liber. Libelli huius series duodecim splendet capitulis. Primum de aqua rubicunda. Secundus de rubicundo ere. 3m. de rubigine. 4m. de croceo ferreo. 5m. de rubicundo lapide. 6 de aqua sulphurea. 7 de aqua cineris. 8 de gummi rubicundo. 9 de aqua penetrativa, 10 de aqua marchaside in argenti dissolutione. 11 de aqua vitrea. 12 de fermento.”

As the Incipits and chapter headings suggest, the two treatises are in portions identical, elsewhere divergent. Such is also apt to be the case where the work occurs in different manuscripts.

[2539] Vienna 5230, 15-16th century, fols. 293-5, “Primo recapitulat libellus ... / ... sulfuris et magnesie vocabulum assumit.”

[2540] Some MSS are:

Corpus Christi 125, 13-15th century, fols. 82-3. “Explicit liber duodecim aquacionum.”

Corpus Christi 277, 15th century, fol. 9, Liber duodecim aquarum.

Digby 219, late 16th century, fol. 109v, “Libelli huius series 12 splendet capitulis.”

Ashmole 1485, fol. 173.

CLM 405, 14-15th century, fol. 65, Liber aquarum; fol. 160, De XII aquis.

Bologna University Library 474, fols. 16r-19v, “Libelli huius series....”

Savignano di Romagna 44, 15th century.

[2541] Vienna 5315, 15th century, fols. 128-33, de aqua vitae, “Inter cetera domini Alberti magna aquarum experimenta ... / ... urina fractum expellit.”

[2542] CLM 666, 15th century, fol. 81-, Arnoldus de Villanova de aquis.

[2543] De virtutibus aquae vitae, in both CLM 363, 1464-1466 A. D., fol. 78; and CLM 666, 15th century, fols. 129-47.

[2544] Vienna 5336, 15th century, fol. 29, “Prima recipe ysopi pulegii ... / ... natura provenientes.”

[2545] Harleian 2258, fol. 189, de aquis physicalibus.

[2546] Rawlinson C, 815, 15-16th century, fols. 25-7, “Libellus sancti Egidii de virtutibus quarundam aquarum, quas ipse in deserto commorans fecit.”

[2547] Such as Digby 71, 14th century, fols. 81-4, aqua vitae; Rawlinson D, 251, 14-15th century, fols. 64v-72, de virtutibus aquarum; etc.

[2548] Brussels, Library of Dukes of Burgundy 14746, 15th century, Colores xii seu virtutes eorum, “Jaspis viridis et crassi....”

[2549] BN 7105, 15th century, #2, Virgilii de pictorialibus aquis pro depingendo super linteamina vel pannos; #3, Anon. de coloribus.

[2550] Original Treatises dating from the XIIth to XVIIIth centuries on the arts of painting, London, 1849, vol. I.

[2551] Some of them may prove upon examination, however, to be works by known authors or extracts from the same.

BN 6552, 14th century, #2.

BN 6742, 17th century.

BN 6749, 1481 A. D. #9, 10.

BN 7344A, 14th century, #3.

BN 7400A, 14th century, #5, Modus faciendi colores et distemperandi; #6, Varia experimenta chemica.

Bernard 3623, #34, de diversitate colorum.

Digby 147, 14th century, fols. 33-4, de coloribus.

Cotton Julius D-V, end of the 13th century, fol. 156-, de viridi colore faciendo ad usum scribendi.

Julius D-VIII, fols. 77v-87, a treatise in English on colors, medicines, etc.; following it are cooking recipes and directions for making parchment, ink, and si vis invisibilis fieri.

Titus D-XXIV, fol. 127, Latin and French, de distemperandis coloribus ad scribendum vel illuminandum.

Harleian 218, fol. 71, Experimenta bina Anglice: “For to rasone parchement without knyffe” and “To make asure.”

Sloane 342, 13th century, fol. 132, “Quidam Lumbardus socius concessit mihi ista de libro suo qui intitulatur liber Massia de coloribus.” In Egerton 840A the work of Theophilus was called tractatus Lumbardicus.

Sloane 1698, 14th century, fols. 45-52.

Amplon. Quarto 189, 13-14th century, fols. 67-8, Notae de coloribus.

CLM 444, 14th century, fol. 214, de coloribus faciendis.

CLM 27063, 15th century, fols. 37-8, de coloribus faciendis et remedia.

Florence II-vi-54, 13th century, fols, 1-11, “Incipit de coloribus. Simplices colorum sunt quecumque elementis consequentia ... / ... Explicit de coloribus, incipit de mundo animalium.”

S. Marco X-55, 14th century, fols. 1-4, “Simplices colorum sunt quicumque elementis consequantur ut igni et aeri”; apparently the same treatise as the foregoing.

Vienna 5207, 15th century, fols. 112-6, is a treatise on colors ascribed to Urso; “Primo videamus ... / ... et hec de coloribus summariter dicta sufficiant secundum Ursonem.”

[2552] Rawlinson D, 252, 15th century, fol. 98v.

[2553] Sloane 314, 15th century, fol. 106v.

[2554] Or at least this part of the MS is of the early 13th century. The MS, Amplon. Octavo 32, 11th-14th century, is in part a palimpsest. Our experiment, which occurs at fol. 89, has been printed in Haupt’s Zeitschrift f. d. Alterth., III, 190.

[2555] BN 7337, pp. 45-6, Experimentum naturale unicum (?) et ineffabile.

[2556] HL 24:468-71. According to Christine, her father was “doctorifié à Bologna la Grasse en la science de la Médecine.”

[2557] That is, the Speculum astronomiae.

[2558] Digby 86, 13th century, fols. 34, 46-8.

[2559] Digby 69, about 1300 A. D., fol. 201, Experimenta quaedam in quibus occurrunt multa verba scripta in forma occulta omissis vocabulis.

[2560] Amplon. Quarto 301, first half of the 15th century, fol. 100.

[2561] Canon. Misc. 521, 15-16th century, fol. 37, de tubarum sonis aliaque experimenta mathematica, partim ex Hugonis spiraminibus confecta, figuris instructa (mutilated at the beginning).

[2562] Merton College 324, 15th century, fols. 229v-234, Libellus experimentorum pro diversis, opening “Ad dissolvendum flemmaticos humores.”

[2563] Additional 34111, 15th century (in English) fols. 70-, 77-, 114v-, 169-, 174-, 190v-.

[2564] Vienna 5492, 15th century, fols. 1r-2v, Vididenus (?), “Liber septem experimentorum ad imperatorem Fridericum. Cap. 1; accipe sanguinem draconis....” Palatine 794, 15-16th century, fols. i-xxxii, “In nomine domini Amen. Questi sono isperimenti tratti di più libri i quali lo ’mperadore Federigho fece scriuere, i quali sono prouati e ueri.”

[2565] Wolfenbüttel 2189, 15th century, fols. 174-5, Quedam experimenta Parisiis probata. Wolfenbüttel 2503, 15th century, fols. 271-82, Experimenta collecta a magistris Parisiensibus collaudata et primo de pulveribus/Explicit hoc opus laudabile collectum Parisius circa annos Domini 1331 approbatum per diversos doctores eiusdem alme universitatis.

[2566] Escorial P-II-5, 14th century, fols. 69v-74, Incipiunt experimenta Cancellarii et Cardinalis. Possibly there is some connection with BN 7056, Experimenta magistri Gilberti Cancellarii Montepessulani, or with Wolfenbüttel 3489, 14-15th century, fols. 83-135v, Experimenta magistri cancellarii de Monte Pessulano.

[2567] CU Trinity 1081, 15th century and later. I follow the analysis of its contents by James, III, 54-7. CU Trinity 1109, 14th century, with 63 items (described by James, III, 84-92), is much the same, including various tracts of divination and astrology, and works on waters, fires, herbs, stones, and animals, together with the more reputable works of Sacrobosco, Jordanus, and Burley.

[2568] Sloane 483, fols. 148-59; this and all the succeeding MSS, unless otherwise stated, are of the 17th century.

[2569] Sloane 733, fols. 1-10, “Parva experimenta empirica.”

[2570] Sloane 744, 16th century, fols. 27-31.

[2571] Sloane 1220, fols. 187-265, Novum systhema collegii experimentalis.

[2572] Sloane 1255, fols. 36-38, 144v, 240, 241v.

[2573] Sloane 1289, fols. 80-95.

[2574] Sloane 1292.

[2575] Sloane 1317.

[2576] Sloane 1367.

[2577] Sloane 1501.

[2578] Sloane 1512.

[2579] Sloane 1731A, written about 1700, fol. 13.

[2580] Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, II, 5.

[2581] Sloane 2039, fols. 112-14.

[2582] Sloane 2046, fols. 67-76, 141-55.

[2583] Sloane 2818, fols. 102-8, 140v-145.

[2584] Sloane 3328, fol. 17.

[2585] Sloane 3655, fol. 131.

[2586] Sloane 3824, fols. 16-21, 89-120, 141-54.

[2587] Sloane 3846, fols. 24-30, 30v, 79v-86, 93v-98.

[2588] Sloane 3847, fols. 152-9.

[2589] Sloane 3849, 15th-16th centuries, fols. 17-22, 30-38.

[2590] Sloane 3851, fols. 140-4, 144v.

[2591] Sloane 3853, fols. 3-45, “Thesaurum spirituum secundum Robertum Turconem et Rogerum Bacon,” opens, “Haec est doctrina omnium experimentorum;” fols. 176-219, a magic book called Dannet opens, “This is the doctryne of all experiments in generall.”

[2592] Sloane 3853, fol. 266, Experimenta quaedam magica; fols. 54-63, 70-120, Experimenta plurima magicae.

APPENDIX I

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE LIBER VACCAE

The three first MSS in the list are those which I have used. Steinschneider (1906), p. 43, listed four MSS: Digby 71, Corpus Christi 125 and 132, and Montpellier 277. The three which I examined were wretchedly written and full of abbreviations.

Arundel 342, 14th century, Italian hand, fols. 46r-54v. The Titulus is “Incipit liber institutionum activorum (sic) Platonis in quo Humayn filius Zacarie sic loquitur dicens.” The Incipit is “Galienus cum praeparavit ut abreviaret librum Platonis physici, qui nominatus est liber anguemis.” The Explicit is “Expletus est liber aggregationum Anguemis Platonis cum expositione Humayn filii Ysaach gratia Dei.”

Digby 71, 14-16th century, fols. 36r-56, Liber Vaccae, precepta et experimenta alchemica et magica, praemisso prologo (ut videtur) longo. Incipit prologus, “Conferat tibi Deus mores nobiles.” Incipit liber (fol. 40v) “Galienus cum propter amatum voluit abbreviares (sic) librum Platonis philosophi qui nominatus est liber anequems.” Ad calcem (fol. 56) “Completur liber anequems Platonis id est liber vacce.”

Corpus Christi 125, 13-15th century, fols. 121v-141r (141-60, according to the system of numbering which I have followed in the foot-notes of the preceding chapter). This MS repeats the first prologue, found in Digby 71 but missing in Arundel 342. It ends, “Completus est liber Anaguenis, id est, liber vaccae.”

Corpus Christi 132, 15th century, fols. 139-66, has the same title and opening as the preceding.

CLM 22292, 12-13th century, fol. 68, Epistola de medicina, opening, “Conferat tibi deus mores,” and ending, “Explicit epistola Ameti” (a name which usually means the astrologer Alfraganus); fol. 70, Prologus in librum Anguemis, of which the text does not seem to follow, since at fol. 72 comes a commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. In this early MS therefore we seem to have only the two prologues.

Amplon. Quarto 188, written in 1267 A. D., 1319, and later, fols. 103-4, Liber vacce seu liber aggregacionis diversorum philosophorum, opening, “Primor queritur quare risus magis sequitur titillacionem,” and closing, “significet fleubotomia predominari et odor debet et etiam.” From its brevity and opening and closing words this would seem to be only a fragment of our treatise. Schum states that it was originally followed in the MS by another treatise on nigromancy, since torn out, and that in the sixteenth century the two works were given the common title, “Liber vacce nigromanticus.” But perhaps it is only a part of the Liber Vacce that has been torn out.

Florence II-iii-214, 15th century, fol. 57-, “Liber institutionum activarum Platonis in quo Hunayn filius Ysac sic loquitur;” fols. 59-72, “Inquit Hunayn, Galenus dixit ... / ... completus est liber agregationis aneguemis maioris et minoris Platonis cum expositione Unayn filii Ysac et declaratione Galieni.”

The treatise was once found in the library of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, 1275, vacca platonis.

Among MSS which T. Allen had in 1622 but which are no longer in the Digby collection was, in 16mo, Liber Anequems Platonis, id est, Liber vaccae.

APPENDIX II

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE SECRETUM PHILOSOPHORUM

Of the following MSS I have chiefly used Additional 32622, Digby 37, and Digby 153.

CU Trinity 1214, good hand of late 12th century, fols. 71-82, is perhaps an earlier precursor of our treatise, judging from the following headings given by James: “De aque ductibus, de puteis fodiendis, de probatione aque ... de fistulis organicis ... de calce ... de fabrica ville rustice disponenda, de balneis ... de coloribus ... de norme institutione, de horologii institutione ... de solidamentis, de altitudine arborum sive turrium probanda, probacio auri, de arte multiplicandi, de arte organizandi.”

Amplon. Quarto 330, mid 13th-early 14th century, fols. 1-23, appears to be the earliest of the MSS of our treatise.

Amplon. Quarto 361, English hand of early 14th century, fols. 27-40.

Additional 32622, small octavo written in England in early 14th century, fols. 3-84, “Iste liber quem prae manibus habemus vocatur Secretum philosophorum, et intitulatur isto nomine quia in eo continentur quaedam secreta quae reputatione vulgari sunt impossibilia, apud philosophos secreta et necessaria.”

Additional 18752, small quarto, 14-16th century, fols. 1-28, “Secretum philosophorum,” imperfect.

Sloane 2579, fol. 2-.

Egerton 2852, mid 14th century, fols. 5v-49v.

Digby 37, 14th century, fols. 4-43, “Secretum philosophorum.”

Digby 71, 14-16th century, fols. 85-97, Titulus as in Addit. 32622, imperfect, leaving off in the midst of “Arithmetic.”

Digby 153, 14th century, fols. 148-67v.

Rawlinson C, 7, 14th century, fols. 51-87, mutilated at close.

Corpus Christi 132, 15th century, fols. 1-59, Titulus as in Addit. 32622 and Digby 71.

CU Trinity 1082, 15th century, fols. 1-110.

CU Trinity 1144, late 15th century, fols. 9-54v.

CU Trinity 1351, late 15th century, fols. 1-25, James gives no general title, but his description is sufficient to identify it with our treatise.

Gonville and Caius 413, 15th century, #4, 31 fols.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXVI. PICATRIX

Problem of date and authorship--Law of Alfonso the Wise concerning magic and astrology--Picatrix a confused compilation--Its mentions of magic--Magic and science--Its use of natural virtues--Magic compounds--Things required of the magician--Magic procedure--Invocation of spirits--Necromancy and astrology--Astronomical images--Aims and results of magic--Appendix I. Manuscripts of Picatrix.

“Scientia ... semper acquirit et numquam diminuit; semper elevat et numquam degenerat; semper apparet et numquam se abscondit.”

[Sidenote: Problem of date and authorship.]

Another celebrated medieval book of magic is that which usually goes by the name of Picatrix, who is, however, cited in the work itself[2593] and would seem to have been only one of its authors, translators, compilers, or sources. Nevertheless he is mentioned as author in the title, Incipit, and Explicit of the manuscripts,[2594] and is called “very wise,” “a philosopher,” “most skilled in mathematics,” and “very learned in the arts of necromancy.” The treatise is also said to have been compiled by Norbar the Arab in the twelfth century.[2595] The Latin manuscripts state that in 1256 it was translated from Arabic into Spanish by order of Alfonso the Wise; but when it was translated into Latin is not stated. There seem to be no Latin manuscripts older than the fifteenth century, and none of our thirteenth century Latin writers seems to have been acquainted with the work. Peter of Abano, it is true, is charged by Symphorien Champier, writing in 1514,[2596] with having borrowed from Picatrix, but Champier does not substantiate his charge and I have found no unmistakable evidence of it in Peter’s works. Evidently, however, Picatrix was well-known in Latin by 1514. Rabelais, who lived from 1495 to 1553, speaks of “le reuerend pere en Diable Picatris, recteur de la faculté diabolologique” at Toledo.[2597] A Cambridge doctor about 1477 cites “Picatrix in his third book of magic.”[2598] The work seems never to have been printed and J. Wood Brown expresses the hope that it may never be translated into any modern language.[2599]

Law of Alfonso the Wise concerning magic and astrology.

It was fitting that such a work should have been translated from the Arabic under the patronage of Alfonso X, the Wise or Learned, who is noted for his astronomical tables, and whose favorable attitude toward astrology and magic may be seen from the law on those subjects in his code of the Seven Parts.[2600] Divination of the future by the stars is sanctioned in the case of persons properly trained in astronomy, although other varieties of divination are forbidden. And while those who conjure evil spirits or who make waxen, metallic, or other images with the aim to harm their fellows are to be punished by death; those who employ incantations with good intentions and good results are pronounced deserving of reward rather than penalty. Thus no objection is made to magic procedure but only to evil intentions and results.

[Sidenote: Picatrix a confused compilation.]

Picatrix divides into four books and is accompanied in the manuscripts by tables of contents which, however, are not as helpful as might be expected, since the work really has no plan and the division into books and chapters is quite arbitrary.[2601] In short, the work is a confused compilation of extracts from occult writings and a hodgepodge of innumerable magical and astrological recipes. The author states that he “has compiled this book,” that he intends to set forth “in simple language” what past sages have concealed in cryptic words, and that he has spent some six years in reading two hundred and twenty-four books by “ancient sages.”[2602] Whenever modern compilers of the notions of folk-lore and the magical customs of aborigines shall have exhausted their resources, a rich mine will still await them in this book of magic. We can give but a few specimens of its contents here.

[Sidenote: Mentions of magic.]

For Picatrix is openly and professedly a book of magic. At the close of the first of its four books we are told that its contents are “the roots of the magic art” and that “without them one cannot become perfect in such arts.”[2603] Throughout all four books such phrases are used as “magic works,” “magic effects,” “magical sciences,” and “the operator of magic,” and books of magic are cited by Abrarem (Abraham?), Geber, and Plato.[2604] It is true that the term necromancy is also employed frequently and a chapter devoted to its definition,[2605] and that astrological images and invocations of demons are the subjects most discussed. So in a way the work is primarily a treatise of astrological necromancy. But it is said on the supposed authority of Aristotle that the first man to work with such images and to whom spirits appeared was Caraphrebim, the inventor of the magic art.[2606] It is also affirmed that the science of the stars is the root of magic, that the forms of the planets or astronomical images “have power and marvelous effects in magic operations;” while after announcing his intention of listing “the secrets of ancient sages in the magic art,” the first thing that our author divulges is that the influence of Saturn exceeds the influence of the moon.[2607] Evidently little distinction is made between astrology and magic. On the whole then, although magic is not defined at length in Picatrix, it seems justifiable to apply it as a general term covering the contents of the book, and to regard astronomical images and invocations of demons as two leading features of the magic art.

[Sidenote: Magic and science.]

Picatrix regards magic as a science, as a superior branch of learning, to excel in which one must first master many other studies. He believes that the greatest philosophers of antiquity, such as Plato and Aristotle, have written books of magic. Hermes is also cited frequently. Our author also has a high appreciation of science which in his first chapter he declares to be God’s greatest gift to man. “It always is making acquisitions and never diminishes; it ever elevates and never degenerates; it is always clear and never conceals itself.”[2608]

[Sidenote: Use of natural virtues.]

Much use of natural objects is made in the various recipes of Picatrix. Here is one brief example: Adam the prophet says that if you take fourteen grains of the fruit of the laurel tree, dry them well and pulverize them and put the powder in a very clean dish in vinegar, and beat it with a twig from a fig tree, you can make anyone you wish possessed of demons by giving him this powder to drink.[2609] One chapter is especially devoted to “the virtues of certain substances produced from their own peculiar natures,” and the author further explains that “in this section we shall state the marvelous properties of simple things, as well of trees as of animals and of minerals.”[2610] Hermes is quoted as saying that there are many marvels for necromancy in the human body,[2611] and various parts thereof are often employed by Picatrix. Thus in making a magic mirror a suffumigation is employed of seven products of the human body, namely, tears, blood, ear-wax, spittle, sperma, stercus, urina.[2612] Indeed, vile and obscene substances are in great demand for purposes of magic throughout the book. Picatrix, like the De mirabilibus mundi, considers heat an important force in magic and mentions both elemental and natural heat, the former referring to the use of the element fire in sacrifice, suffumigation, and the preparation of magic compounds, the latter designating the heat of digestion when simples or mixtures must be eaten to take effect.[2613]

[Sidenote: Magic compounds.]

Although we have found one chapter devoted to the virtues of simples, in actual magical procedure several things are generally combined, as in a suffumigation with fourteen dead bats and twenty-four mice, to give a comparatively simple example.[2614] On the supposed authority of Aristotle in a book written to Alexander, detailed instructions are given how to make four “stones” of great virtue and of elaborate composition by procedure more or less alchemistic.[2615] Indeed, there are listed all sorts of “confections,” compounds, and messes, either to burn or to sacrifice or to eat or to drink or to smell of or to anoint oneself with, in order to bring various wonders to pass. The ingredients employed include different oils and drugs, butter, honey, wine, sugar, incense, aloes, pepper, mandragora, twigs, branches, adamant, lead, sulphur, gold, the brains of a hare, the blood of a wolf, the urine of an ass, the filth of a leopard, and various portions of such further animals as apes, cats, bears, and pigs. Besides the actual ingredients all sorts of receptacles and material paraphernalia are called into requisition: vessels, jars, vases, braziers, crosses, candles, crowns, and so on.

[Sidenote: Things required of the magician.]

Much is said of the magician himself as well as of the materials which he employs. He should have faith in his procedure, put himself into an expectant and receptive mood, be diligent and solicitous.[2616] Often chastity is requisite, sometimes fasting or dieting, sometimes the wearing of certain garments.[2617] He must have studied a long list of other sciences before he can attempt necromancy, but then he must drop all other studies and devote himself to it exclusively. A little knowledge of necromancy is a dangerous thing, and the ignorant meddler therein is liable to be violently slain by indignant demons.[2618] Much depends also upon the magician’s personality and natural fitness. No one can succeed in the science of images unless his own nature is inclined thereto by the stars. Some men are more subtle and spiritual, less gross and corporeal than others, and hence more successful in magic.[2619] The ancients, when they wished to employ a boy in magic, used to test his fitness by fire as well as make sure that he was physically sound.[2620]

[Sidenote: Magic procedure.]

It has already been implied that great stress is laid upon procedure in Picatrix. Extensive use is made of images of the person or thing concerned. Thus an image of a fish is employed to catch fish, and to bewitch a girl a waxen image of her is made and dressed in clothes like hers. In both cases, however, there is additional ceremony to be observed. In the image of the fish the head should first be fashioned; furthermore the image of the fish is to be poised on a slender rod of silver and this is to be stood erect in a vessel filled with water. This vessel is then to be hermetically sealed with wax and dropped to the bottom of the stream in which it is proposed to fish.[2621] In the bewitching of the girl, which is recounted as an actual occurrence, the object was to make her come to a certain man. Hence another image was made of him out of a pulverized stone mixed with gum, and the two images of man and girl were placed facing each other in a vase where seven twigs of specified trees had been arranged crosswise. The vase was then buried under the hearth where there was a moderate fire and a piece of ice. When the ice had melted, the vase was unearthed and the girl was immediately seen approaching the house. In the reverse process to free her from the spell a candle was lit on the hearth, the two images were taken out and rudely torn apart and an incantation uttered.[2622] To make a spring that is going dry flow more freely a small and comely virgin should walk up and down beating a drum for three hours, and then another small and good-looking girl should join in with a tambourine for six hours more. To ward off hail storms a company of people should go out in the fields, half of them tossing handfuls of silk or cotton (bombix) toward the sky and the other half clapping their hands and shouting as rustics do to frighten away birds.[2623] Tying seven knots and saying an incantation over each is another specimen of the ceremonial in Picatrix.

[Sidenote: Invocation of spirits.]

Ritual also plays an important part in the invocation of spirits. If one wishes to invoke the spirit called “Complete Nature” he must enter a spick and span room while the moon is in the first degree of Aries. Various receptacles filled with different foods and combustibles must be arranged in a certain way on a table. Then he must stand facing the east and invoke the spirit by its four names seven times and repeat a prescribed form of prayer for increase of knowledge and of moral strength.[2624] To draw down the virtue and power of the moon one crowns oneself in the favorable astrological hour and goes to a green spot beside a stream. There he beheads with a bone--under no circumstances employing iron--a cock with a divided crest. He stands between two braziers filled with live coals on which he casts grains of incense gradually until smoke arises; then, looking toward the moon, he should say, “O moon, luminous and honored and beautiful, thou who shatterest darkness by thy light, rising in the east and filling the whole horizon with thy light and beauty, I come to thee humbly asking a boon.” Having stated his wish, he withdraws ten paces, facing the moon the while and repeating the above formula. Then more incense is burned and a sacrifice performed and characters inscribed on a leaf with the ashes of the sacrifice and a bit of saffron. This leaf is then burned, and as its smoke rises the form of a well-dressed man will appear, who will answer the petition.[2625]

[Sidenote: Necromancy and astrology.]

Throughout Picatrix planets and spirits are closely associated. Many instructions are given how to pray to each of the planets and to work magic by their aid, just as if they were demons. It is hard to say whether the spirits are more thought of as forces in nature or the stars as gods. A necromancer who does not know astronomy is helpless, and each planet has a list of personal names associated not only with itself but with its every part and position.[2626] Lists are also given of the boons which one may ask from each planet, and of the stones, metals, animals, trees, colors, tinctures, odors, places, suffumigations, and sacrifices appropriate to each planet and sign of the zodiac, in order that one may use the proper materials, eat the right food, and wear the right clothes when petitioning any one of them.[2627] Let us remember, too, that the natural qualifications of the magician depend upon his horoscope.

[Sidenote: Astronomical images.]

Finally Picatrix devotes much space to astronomical images,[2628] which, engraved preferably upon gems in accordance with the aspect of the sky at some instant when the constellations are especially favorable, are supposed to receive the celestial influences at their maximum and store them up for future use. That they receive “the force of the planets” and produce marvelous works, such as the invocation of demons, is in our author’s opinion “proved by nature and by experiment.” He lists images for forty-eight figures made from the fixed stars, for the twenty-eight mansions of the moon, for the signs of the zodiac and for the planets. One of the images for Saturn will suffice as an example: “A man erect on a dragon, holding a sickle in his right hand and a spear in his left hand, and clad in black clothing and a panther skin.” This image “has power and marvelous effects in magic works.”[2629] Characters composed of lines and geometrical figures are also derived from the constellations and are supposed to possess marvelous efficacy.

[Sidenote: Aims and results of magic.]

Some of the results attributed to images and characters are to drive away mice, free captives, throw an army into a town, either render buildings safe and stable or impede the erection of them, the acquisition of wealth, making two persons fall in love, making men loyal to their lord, making the king angry with someone, curing a scorpion’s sting, walking on water, assuming any animal form, causing rain in dry weather and preventing it in rainy weather, making the stars fall or sun and moon appear divided into many parts. The possessor of such images can further ascend into the air and take on the form of a falling star, or speak with the dead, or destroy an enemy or city, or traverse great distances in the twinkling of an eye. The aims of incantations, invocations, and recipes are similar, as has already been indicated in several cases. Ten “confections” are listed that stop evil tongues; eight, that generate discord and enmity; six, that cure impotency, if taken in food; seven, that induce a sleep like unto death; ten, that induce a sleep from which one never wakes.[2630] Others prevent dogs from barking at you, produce green tarantulas or red snakes, remove bothersome frogs from pools, cause water to burn and appear red, enable you to see small objects a long way off, make the winds and tempests obey you, deprive others of memory or sense or speech or sight or hearing, and so on through a long list. The aims are infinitely varied, and are sometimes good, sometimes evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[2593] II, 10, “Haec autem figurae planetarum quemadmodum translatas invenimus in lapidario mercurii et in libro beelum (probably meant for Beleni) et in libro spirituum et in ymaginibus quas transtulit sapiens picatrix.” Magliabech. XX, 20, fol. 32v; Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 14v.

[2594] For a list of MSS see Appendix I at the close of this chapter.

[2595] J. Wood Brown (1897), p. 183; Arpenius, De prodigiosis naturae, Hamburg, 1717, p. 106.

[2596] In a criticism of Abano’s “errors” printed at the close of the 1526 edition of the Conciliator, fol. 248.

[2597] Pantagruel, III, 23.

[2598] Steinschneider (1905), p. 61, and Ashmole 1437; see Appendix I.

[2599] Brown (1897), p. 183, note 1.

[2600] Los Códigos Españoles concordados y anotados: Código de las siete partidas, second edition, Madrid, 1872, vol. IV. La setena partida: Titulo XXIII, Ley 1-3. There is an article on the astronomical works of Alfonso X by A. Wegener in Bibl. Math. (1905), 129-85.

[2601] J. Wood Brown (1897), p. 183, gives a wrong impression that the work is systematically arranged.

[2602] Magliabech. XX, 20, fols. 1v and 53r. Future citations in this chapter, unless otherwise noted, will be from this MS.

[2603] Fol. 15v.

[2604] Fols. 7v, 44r, 44v, 22v, 23r, 28r, 40r, 50r, 51r, 99r. Magliabech. XX, 21, fols. 78r and 79v.

[2605] Liber I, cap. 2, which is much briefer in Magliabech. XX, 21 than in XX, 20.

[2606] Fol. 55v.

[2607] Fols. 32v and 28r.

[2608] “Semper acquirit et numquam diminuit; semper elevat et numquam degenerat; semper apparet et numquam se abscondit.”

[2609] Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 79v.

[2610] IV, 8, fol. 108v; Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 86r.

[2611] Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 60v.

[2612] Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 22v.

[2613] I, 2.

[2614] Fol. 70r.

[2615] III, 10, fol. 73v; Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 53r.

[2616] I, 4.

[2617] II, 12; III, 5 and 7 and 12.

[2618] IV, 5.

[2619] III, 6 and IV, 1.

[2620] Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 47v.

[2621] Fol. 10.

[2622] Fol. 52.

[2623] Fol. 103v; Magliabech. XX, 21, fols. 81v, 82r.

[2624] III, 6. Fols. 54-55; Magliabech. XX, 21, fols. 32-34.

[2625] IV, 2. MS. XX, 21, fol. 68v.

[2626] III, 9. MS. XX, 20, fol. 71r. MS. XX, 21, fol. 50r.

[2627] II, 5 and 10; III, 1 and 2.

[2628] Liber II, passim: also I, 4-5 and IV, 9.

[2629] II, 10; fol. 32v; Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 14v.

[2630] III, 11; fol. 78v; Magliabech. XX, 21, fol. 58v.

APPENDIX I

MANUSCRIPTS OF PICATRIX

I have chiefly used Magliabech. XX, 20 and XX, 21, two MSS now preserved at the National Library at Florence and originally written at Rome in 1536, as an identical colophon in either MS states. Otherwise, however, their contents are often not identical although roughly corresponding. I have also examined Sloane 1305 and found it in general similar to the other two.

Vienna 3317, 15th century, 114 fols., Picatrix, De magia, “Ad laudem et gloriam altissimi ... / ... fel leonis est.”

Magliabech. XX, 20, 1536 A. D., fols. 1-117v, “Liber Piccatrix sapientissimi Philosophi in necromanticis artibus excellentissimi de Arabico in Hispanicum primum traductus postea in Latinum conversus. Alphonsus Rex Hispaniae totiusque Andalutiae precepit primam traductionem summa diligentia. Hoc autem opus perfectum fuit Anno MCCCLVI” (probably should be 1256, referring to the Spanish rather than Latin translation). The foregoing occurs two leaves before the book proper begins and is in a larger print-like hand than the text itself, which opens: “Alibi incipit liber excellentissimi viri picatrix picatrici Hispanensis.” The Proemium then opens, as also in Sloane 1305 and 3679, “Ad laudem et gloriam altissimi dispotentis (disponentis) Dei cuius est in vellariis suis praedestinans feliciter secreta scientiarum ad illustrationem et doctrinam latinorum quibus est inopia librorum ab antiquis philosophis editorum Alfonsus Dei gratia prosperrimus rex Hispaniae totiusque Andalitiae igitur (ego) precepit hunc librum summo studio summaque diligentia de Arabico in hispanicum transferri cuius nominem (nomen) est piccatrix. Hoc autem opus perfectum fuit anno Domini 1356 (1256) Caesaris 2285 (1295) Alexandri 1569 (2568).” The parentheses inclose variant readings from other MSS. The work closes, “Et sic finitur liber sapientissimi piccatricis in Math. die vigesimo primo mensis maii hora vigesima prima brasichelle in domo que est in platea a duobus faciebus et iuxta pallacium communis currentibus annis a salutifera nativitate millesimo quingentesimo trigesimo sexto inditione nona anno secundo pontificatus Pauli tertii ad dei laudem et gloriam in infinita.

Qui servare libris preciosum nescit honorem Illius a manibus sit procul iste liber. Telos.”

Magliabech. XX, 21, 1536 A. D.

Sloane 1305, 17th century, fols. 1-153, (Johannis) Picatricis, Philosophi, Liber de Coelo, in partes quatuor distinctus, cum prooemio, tabula uniuscuiusque libri capitulorum et auctorum e quibus compilatur opus nominibus praemissis. Praefigitur prooemio, “Alphonsus (X) Dei gratia illustrissimus Rex Hispaniae totiusque Handulatiae praecepit hunc librum summo studio summaque diligentia de A(rabico) in Hispanicum transferri, cuius nomen est Piccatrix. Hoc autem opus perfectum fuit anno Domini 1256, Alexandri 1568, Caesaris 1295, Arabum 55, ex 200 libris philosophia(e) et pluribus compilavit qui suo proprio nomine nominavit.” Incipit prooemium, “Incipit liber quem sapientissimus Philosophus Piccatrix in Necromanticis artibus ex quam pluribus libris composuit. Ut sapiens ait, primum quod agere debemus in omnibus rebus mundi est Deum orare.” Incipit partis primae cap. I, “De scientia cognoscendi in quo gradu es. Scias, O homo, quod maius donum.” Desinit pars ultima, “et dum comburitur, legas supradicta nomina et ex hoc amor et amicitia movebitur.” “Et sic finitur Liber totus sapientis Piccatricis in Mathematicis peritissimi. Deo optimo maximo; gratias in aeternum agamus.”

Sloane 3679, 17th century, fols. 1-73, in the usual four parts and with a table of contents.

Sloane 1309, 17th century, 69 fols., in Italian, “Delli Experimenti di Gio Peccatrix.”

BN 7340, 17th century, #1, Picatricis Hispani astrologia tribus libris.

BN 10272, 15th century, and 10273, 17th century, Traité de nécromancie ‘Picatris.’

BN 13016 and 13017, 17th century, Liber Picatricis hispani, two copies.

BN 17871, early 16th century, Picatrix.

Arsenal 1033, 17th century.

Steinschneider (1905) p. 61, discusses Picatrix and calls attention to Cod. Reg. Suec. 505 at the Vatican, but fails to note the Sloane MSS or those at Florence and omits some of those at Paris--but adds a Paris Supplem. 91--and incorrectly cites Ashmole 1179. He means Ashmole 1437, 15th century, a commonplace book of a Cambridge doctor, Johannis Argentin, where there is a citation of “Picatricem (secundum) in tertio libro sue magice.” “1179” is the number of the column in Black’s Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS, from which Steinschneider derived this information, and I presume that he mistook it for the number of the MS itself. Steinschneider notes that in Hanover 396, 17th century, a work of magic in Italian, Picatrix is spoken of as a Hebrew philosopher, and that in the aforesaid Ashmole MS are “Tabulae motionis octavae spherae moventis ab occidente ad orientem octo gradus in 640 annos secundum ordinem Picatricis.”

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Chapter LXVII

GUIDO BONATTI AND BARTHOLOMEW OF PARMA: AN ASTROLOGER AND A GEOMANCER

Guido Bonatti and Dante--The Liber astronomicus of Guido Bonatti--Career of Bonatti--Arrangement of the Liber astronomicus--Astronomy and astrology--Truth of astrology--Theological opposition--Bonatti’s defiant rejoinder--Astrological predictions for Christians and the clergy--Instances of Bonatti’s detailed treatment--The planet Jupiter--An astrological image--The Geomancy of Bartholomew of Parma--How to proceed in geomancy--Questions answered by geomancy--Appendix I. Some Manuscripts of the Liber Astronomicus of Guido Bonatti.

“Vedi Guido Bonatti....” --Inferno, XX, 118.

[Sidenote: Guido Bonatti and Dante.]

With these words Vergil calls the attention of Dante and ourselves to the presence of that astrologer in the fourth division of the eighth circle of the Inferno among those spirits who in life had tried to pry too far into the future and were condemned henceforth to look backwards with turned heads. This is all that Dante says of Bonatti, although Benvenuto of Imola, the fourteenth century commentator upon the Divine Comedy, adds a number of tales concerning him, some of which may be true but most of which are stock stories like that of the speaking brazen head, told of many other medieval men of learning. But we may perhaps associate Bonatti and Dante in our minds a little further. Forlì, Bonatti’s native city, lies almost in a direct line between Florence, where Dante lived his early life, and Ravenna, where he ended his exile. Indeed, Filippo Villani[2631] and Fossi[2632] would persuade us that Guido Bonatti, too, was born a Florentine but, like Dante, became an exile from the town of his birth and called himself a native of Forlì because he came to hate the place of his birth which he had left on account of the strife of political factions. Finally, Bonatti and Dante had a common interest in astronomy.[2633]

[Sidenote: The Liber astronomicus of Guido Bonatti.]

The most important astrological work produced in Latin in the thirteenth century seems to have been the Liber astronomicus of this Guido Bonatti,[2634] which is a voluminous work divided into some ten or a dozen treatises.[2635] In the preface, after some of the usual devout opening phrases of medieval authors, Guido states that he writes the book particularly for the use of his nephew, that the work will be “long and prolix” and that on this account he will not include “disputations nor many proofs.” He proposes to compile a work from past authors which can be understood by those who do not yet know much of other sciences “and especially for your use, Bonatus, my nephew.” Indeed, the annalist of Forlì states that Bonatti expounded the doctrine of astrology so clearly in this book that “it seemed as if he wished to teach women astrology.”[2636] Guido employs such classical authorities as Ptolemy, Hermes, and Dorotheus, but still more such Arabian astrologers as Alcabitius, Albumasar, Messahala, and Thebit ben Corat.[2637] He also states that he has made additions of his own,[2638] and many passages demonstrate that he has made detailed practical application to the present problems of medieval life of the principles of his art established in the past. The popularity and influence of Guido’s work is attested by the numerous manuscripts, including an interesting de luxe manuscript of it and other astrological treatises made for the use of Henry VII of England, whose picture is given in the midst of Bonatti’s text.[2639] There are also several printed editions of the Latin text and translations of the work into several modern languages. There is an Italian translation of it in a manuscript in the Laurentian library at Florence; a German translation was printed at Basel in 1572; and an English translation by William Lilly appeared in print at London in 1676.[2640] Thus Dante’s consignment of Bonatti’s soul to hell does not seem to have kept people from reading his Liber astronomicus.

[Sidenote: Career of Bonatti.]

The battle of Valbona, fought in 1277, seems to be the latest event mentioned by Bonatti. He also speaks of having himself seen many evidences of the cruelty of Ezzelino, and of that tyrant’s death, which occurred in 1259. He was alive as early as 1223, when he mentions having seen a certain man.[2641] Guido seems to have been a professor at the university of Bologna. He must have died before 1300, when Dante’s visit to the Inferno is supposed to have occurred. Bonatti’s death, however, would seem to have been comparatively recent, since the Annals of Forlì[2642] represent him as playing a prominent part in the defense of that town in 1282 by the famous captain, Guido of Montefeltro, against a large force sent by Pope Martin IV. Though Bonatti himself was loyal, it was in a wheat field belonging to him that conspirators gathered in a vain attempt to betray the town, while the enemy later encamped outside the city in another field belonging to him and called, “Of the oak tree.”

Then Guido of Montefeltro, we are told, “captain of the people of Forlì, together with lord Guido Bonatti, a citizen, philosopher, and most eminent astrologer, having called the people together in the public square,” instructed them as to the strategem of a mock withdrawal from town and subsequent return by which he intended later to take the superior forces of the enemy unawares after they had entered the town in triumph and were overcome by feasting and drinking. The strategem turned out a complete success, and the Annals give much of the credit to Bonatti, by whose counsel, art, and forecasting the future it is said to have been planned. He was wounded in the battle, while carrying medicines, but this too he had foreseen and foretold. Later, when the pope sent more mercenary troops into Romagna, Forlì deemed it prudent to submit, and Guido of Montefeltro transferred his military activities elsewhere and finally, we are told, made his peace with the pope and spent his declining years in the Franciscan Order. Some say that Bonatti followed his patron into the convent, but it seems very improbable in view of the hard things which he had said of the friars. On the other hand, judging from the number of Franciscans who have written works on astrology and astrological medicine, he might not have found such retirement entirely uncongenial, and need scarcely have surrendered his astrological views in consequence.

[Sidenote: Arrangement of the Liber astronomicus.]

But we turn to the contents of the Liber astronomicus. Bonatti’s first treatise is a general introduction in which he defines his subject, discusses its utility, and meets the objections of its opponents. The second treatise[2643] deals with the signs of the zodiac and their characteristics and subdivisions. The third treatise, in two parts,[2644] deals with the planets, their influences on things on earth and their effects on one another. The fourth treatise deals chiefly with conjunctions. The remaining treatises comprise 146 considerations affecting astrological judgments, another brief introduction of three chapters to the subject of judgments,[2645] discussions of the four chief departments of astrological prediction, interrogations, elections, revolutions, and nativities, and a final treatise upon prognostication of changes in the weather.[2646]

[Sidenote: Astronomy and astrology.]

As the title, Liber astronomicus, shows, Bonatti generally uses the word “astronomy” where we should say “astrology” and vice versa. He states, for instance, that nativities, elections, interrogations, and revolutions are four varieties of “astronomy,” which he distinguishes from other forms of divination.[2647] He also says, however, that the words “astronomy” and “astrology” may be used interchangeably. He regards both as of great value in the study of first philosophy. Through these sciences we come to know impassive and unalterable creatures who cannot be changed into any other essence, and through these creatures we can attain to as much knowledge of the Creator as the human mind can reach. Nobler than the profession of the physician who deals with the four inferior and corruptible elements is that of the astrologer whose concern is with superior and incorruptible bodies composed of the fifth essence.[2648]

[Sidenote: Truth of astrology.]

Bonatti asserts confidently and vehemently all the main suppositions of the astrological art. He affirms that its principles ought not to be proved but assumed, since they all reduce to one point which he does not believe that anyone doubts, namely, that the motion of the heavens surrounding the elements alters fire and air and that these alter the other elements, earth and water.[2649] “All wise men agree in this, that inferiors are ruled by superiors.”[2650] The astrologer understands every motion of each heavenly body; therefore he knows what impressions they make and what their significations are. “Therefore all things which are being done now or have existed in the past or will be done in the future, can be known by the astrologer.”[2651]

[Sidenote: Theological opposition.]

It will hardly be profitable for us to follow Bonatti’s rehearsal of familiar arguments for and against the influence of the stars and the practicability of the art of astrology. But we may well note those passages in which he suggests the existence of a contemporary ecclesiastical and theological opposition to his art. Bonatti at least does not appear to have any fear of the clerical detractors of astrology, of whom he speaks quite disdainfully, hurling back at them the charges of heresy which they had perhaps directed at him. “I would have you know,” he affirms in the introduction to his treatise on Elections, “that fortune rules in everything, although some fools among those wearing the tunic (that is, the friars) may say that fortune does not exist, but only what God wills. But the wiser of them dissent from this in secret, although they may seem to assent in public, rather from fear that their Orders be thought less of than from a conviction of its truth. For if fortune did not exist, who would be so stupid as not to know how to acquire at will an abundance of the necessaries of life? Yet we daily see quite the contrary. For do you not see wise men of integrity and intelligence who do not have enough to eat?” Bonatti consequently contends that those who deny the existence of fortune “impute madness to their Creator, falsely representing Him as unjust, and falling into a hateful heresy.” He then continues, “And although at times many fools and idiots in tunics have arisen against me, declaring elections to be of absolutely no value, nevertheless elections and the other parts of astronomy have stood in their strength, nor has their truth diminished any on this account.”

[Sidenote: Bonatti’s defiant rejoinder.]

As for those self-styled theologians who object that the stars are so countless in number that their influence cannot be measured and estimated, Bonatti assures them that astrologers know vastly more about the stars than the theologians do about God, “Of Whom they none the less preach daily.”[2652] He further asserts that the holy fathers of old employed astrology, that Abraham taught it to the Egyptians, and that Christ implied the truth of the doctrine of elections. For when the disciples endeavored to dissuade Him from returning to Judea, where recently He had been nearly stoned to death, He replied, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” meaning that He might now select a more fortunate time than before. “And this makes it plain that He used elections and did not blaspheme astronomy as some jealous detractors do today.” Bonatti then mentions “some silly fools, of whom that hypocrite, John of Vicenza, of the Order of Preaching Friars was one, who said that astrology was neither an art nor a science.” Guido scarcely thinks it worth while to notice such men.[2653] This John of Vicenza mentioned by Bonatti was the well-known friar of that name to whom manifold miracles were attributed and who in the Alleluia year of 1233 had been made duke of Vicenza, but so abused his power that he was soon imprisoned and discredited. Bonatti complains that no one had ever seen a single one of the eighteen men whom John was said to have raised from the dead, and affirms that he himself long sought in vain for anyone who had either been cured by John or had himself witnessed one of John’s miracles.[2654] On the other hand, the friar Salimbene tells us in his Chronicle that Guido Bonatti, who reviled the preaching of the friars, “was so confounded by” a “Brother Ugo before the university and people of Forlì that he not only feared to speak, but even to show himself during all the time that the Brother was in those parts.”[2655] But perhaps Brother Hugo was one of those persons whom Guido thought it scarcely worth while to notice.

[Sidenote: Astrological predictions for Christians and the clergy.]

Against these allusions to an opposition to astrology among the friars, or at least, among the Dominicans, should be set other passages which indicate that Bonatti’s book is intended for the use of Christians and even of the clergy, whose preaching and practice anent astrology seem divergent. One of the illustrations which he employs against those who argue that it is better not to know the future, since to learn of ills beforehand will only make one so much the sadder, is that even if one learns that his disease is fatal, he is forewarned to make his will and receive the last sacrament in season.[2656] Among the interrogations which Bonatti lists are whether a bishopric or abbotship or cardinalate, or other clerical dignity, rank, or order, even up to the papacy, will be attained by the inquirer.[2657] In this connection Guido grants that it may not seem honorable to seek ecclesiastical offices, but that the fact is that many clergy do it and that it is necessary for the astrologer to be prepared to answer them, if they consult him as to their prospects. In the treatise on elections instructions are given how to choose the favorable hour for building churches as well as castles and cities. The treatise on revolutions tells what will be the state during any year of the bishops and other secular clergy or the religious and regular clergy, as well as of other social classes such as kings or princes, rich men or magnates, soldiers, women, merchants, populace, and serfs. Indeed, that even a Preaching Friar in the middle ages was not necessarily opposed to astrology, is seen from an Oxford manuscript of the fifteenth century, where not far from Rules one should know concerning various matters relating to the sick, according to Guido Bonatti and others, is a treatise in astrological medicine by Nicholas of Aquila of the Order of Preachers.[2658]

[Sidenote: Instances of Bonatti’s detailed treatment.]

We may not follow Bonatti through his long technical discussions of houses and exaltations of the planets, of triplicitates and termini, of why the naming of the signs of the zodiac begins at Aries and not at any other sign, or of what part of the body each planet signifies in each sign, and a hundred other similar questions. It must suffice to give a few suggestions of the thoroughness of his detailed treatment. The treatise on nativities promises to reveal everything which will “naturally”--a saving word for those who insist on freedom of the will--befall the child from birth to death, “and also what will be said of him after death.” Pursuant of his promise, Guido considers such topics as length of life, physical and mental qualities, offices and property to be held by the person concerned, the fate of his brothers, parents, and children, serfs, and domestic animals, his sickness or health, mental afflictions, marriage, feuds, death, religion, learning, and journeys. The treatise on interrogations answers questions on all sorts of matters from winning crowns or gaining one’s freedom to learning how many courses and what kind of food there will be at a dinner to which one has been invited and which one is in a quandary whether to accept or not. The treatise on elections selects favorable hours for any and every act of life from weaning and circumcising infants to trimming one’s nails, hair, and beard. The treatise on revolutions descends from the fate of monarchs and nations during the year in question to such matters as the prospects for a good crop of melons or cucumbers.

[Sidenote: The planet Jupiter.]

Some further idea of Bonatti’s method and content may be derived from the following translation of his account of the properties, significations, and effects of the planet Jupiter.

“Alchabitius has said that Jupiter is fortunate, masculine, diurnal; and is by nature significant of property, since property is the second accident that happens to the child after birth ... and Jupiter is second in the order of the planets. Jupiter is likewise the second planet to exert its influence on the child before birth, giving it spirit and life. And its nature produces heat and moisture, and is temperate, aerial, and sanguine. Of man’s age Jupiter signifies the period called iuventus from youth to the prime of life, namely, from fourteen or twenty-one to forty or forty-five years. It governs those offices pertaining to law and just and honest judgments. And it attends when it sees any persons engaged in altercation or litigation, and makes peace between them and bestows harmony upon them, and ever is engaged in good pursuits. And it signifies abundant property. And such business occupations as are performed without deceit.

“It signifies spirit, life, joy, religion, truth, patience, and every precept that is good, lovely, and precious, and everything that is honorable. It indicates abundant charm. Of infirmities it signifies those due to excess of blood.... It is the planet of wisdom, of intellect, of sound practice. Moreover, if Jupiter be well disposed and in the east and at a favorable angle, the child will be of good quality, benign, just; he will honor the aged, and will be a good counselor, a helper of the needy, and of good repute. He will cherish his friends; he will be of good intellect.

“But if Jupiter shall be unfavorable, Ptolemy is witness that the child will be ignorant of well doing, versed in diabolical practices, that he will intrigue under a hypocritical exterior, will linger in places of prayer, will gladly live in crypts and caverns and caves, and there will predict the future. He will love no one, though he may have a few friends; he will abhor his children, will shun human conversation, will seek no honors from anyone, will be untrustworthy, and no one can depend on him. In fine, he will be bad, weak, stupid, weary and heavy-laden, of evil election.”

Having thus considered the properties of Jupiter per se, Bonatti next proceeds to record its tendencies when in conjunction with Saturn and the other planets.

[Sidenote: An astrological image.]

One of the stories told of Bonatti may be noted in conclusion, since it concerns an astrological image. Pitying a poor apothecary with whom he used to play chess, Guido gave him a wax image of a ship, telling him to keep it hid in a box in a secret place and he would grow rich, but that if he removed it, he would grow poor again. True enough, the man became wealthy, but then began to fear lest the image be the work of witchcraft. So, having made his fortune, he decided to save his soul and confessed concerning the image to a priest who bade him destroy it. But then, as Bonatti had predicted, he rapidly lost his entire fortune. He then begged Guido to make him another image, but Bonatti cursed him and told him that the image had been no magic one but had derived its virtue from constellations which would not recur for another fifty years.[2659]

[Sidenote: The geomancy of Bartholomew of Parma.]

If the Liber astronomicus of Guido Bonatti was the leading Latin work on astrology in the thirteenth century, probably the most elaborate treatise in the associated art of geomancy was that by another Italian, Bartholomew of Parma, who appears to have written a long Summa[2660] on the subject in 1288 in Bologna at the request of Theodosius de Flisco, bishop-elect of Reggio in northern Italy;[2661] and then in October, 1294, a briefer treatment for two German friends and disciples named John and Paul,[2662] and again in November, 1295, another abbreviated treatment for the beginner.[2663] Titles in manuscripts at Vienna indicate that Bartholomew also wrote astrological treatises,[2664] but perhaps they would prove to be merely extracts from his longer work on geomancy, although Houzeau and Lancaster give the date of a Liber de occultis by him as 1280.[2665] None of Bartholomew’s works seems to have been printed. The interest of the canon of Laon and bishop elect of Reggio in the art of geomancy is another of numerous indications that we have had that such occult and superstitious arts were at least not consistently condemned by the church and clergy.

[Sidenote: How to proceed in geomancy.]

Bartholomew of Parma tells us that the art of geomancy originated from God and was taught to the sons of Noah by an angel who took on human form before the time of the flood. Whoever intends to practice that art should be “a friend of God” and a good man of praiseworthy life. No one should make use of it without real necessity of knowing the future and geomancers should beware of persons who try to catch them in error by asking questions about sure things. On the other hand, in certain cases one may ask questions for another person, and even without his knowledge, and questions may be put at any time and place, for the art of geomancy is simple and easy of operation. The only instrument needed is something to make a series of points or marks with. These dots should be set down in four rows like the four fingers of a hand, but at random without noting how many dots one puts in each row or how long the row is.[2666] These four rows indicate the elements, points of the compass, and so on. Next one cancels the points in each line, cancelling two at a time until only one or two points remain in each line. When this is done we have one of the following sixteen possible geomantic figures, which I have indicated numerically rather than graphically: 2121, 2212, 1211, 1222, 2111, 2222, 2112, 2211, 1212, 2122, 1121, 2221, 1112, 1111, 1221, 1122. Of these the first eight are favorable, the last eight are unfavorable. They bear such names as gain, white, childhood, joy, head (acquisitio, albus, pueritia, laetitia, caput). The first inventors of the art are supposed to have worked out these figures “with great ingenuity and subtlety” from careful observations of the stars and of the virtues of the sky. Hence these figures have the property of signifying much concerning the future. Each is associated with some particular sign of the zodiac and with one of the planets. Also with a day, month, color, odor, taste, stone, tree, metal, and human type.[2667]

[Sidenote: Questions answered by geomancy.]

Among the questions which geomancy undertakes to answer are how long one will live, whether one will better one’s present position, whether one should enter the clergy or remain a layman, whether a journey will be dangerous, whether a rumor is true or false, whether to buy or not, whether the year will be a fertile one, and concerning gain and loss, hidden treasure, the condition of a city or castle, and which side is stronger in a war. Whether a child will be born or not, of what sex it will be, and whether it is legitimate or a bastard. Which of two magistrates is superior in wisdom, whether a scholar can by study become an honor to the convent or not, whether the soul of some dead person is in paradise or before the doors of paradise or in purgatory or in hell. In answering such questions the figure found by chance from the points is compared with and related to figures appropriate to the person inquiring and the thing sought, and a decision is rendered according as enmity or friendship is found to exist between them. In determining this the figures are reduced to terms of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the astrological aspects are thus investigated.

FOOTNOTES:

[2631] Cited by Boncompagni (1851), p. 5.

[2632] Fossi (1793-5), p. 395.

[2633] Orr (1913). p. 4. says: “Where Dante speaks of appearances he is remarkably accurate, far more so than most modern artists and writers of fiction.”

[2634] My citations, unless otherwise specified, will be to the following edition of Augsburg, 1491: Liber astronomicus Guidonis Bonati de forlivio explicit feliciter. Magistri Johannis Angeli viri peritissimi diligenti correctione Erhardique Ratdolt viri solertis eximia industria et mira imprimendi arte qua nuper Veneciis nunc Auguste Vindelicorum excellit nominatissimus. Septimo kal. Aprilis, 1491. Quarto, 422 leaves, no pagination. There is a copy of this edition at Columbia University in this country and not merely at Brown, as stated in CFCB.

Other editions of the Latin text were printed at Venice, 1506; and at Basel in 1530 and 1550.

For a list of MSS of the work see Appendix I to this chapter.

[2635] The titles more often speak of ten treatises, but some of these sub-divide into two or more lesser treatises. Such sub-division and combination also varies in different editions and MSS, and the order of the component treatises also varies. In the edition of 1550, for instance, the work is divided into six parts, of which the first contains what are usually listed as the first five or six of the ten or twelve component treatises. But the order of the edition of 1550 is the same as in that of 1491, while in Arundel 66 the order of the last six treatises is different.

[2636] Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, revised edition, Fasc. 20, 1903, p. 104.

[2637] Some others mentioned are, II, ii, 1, Atezdegoz, Adila, Al-hayat, Astaphan, Arastellus; these are probably indirect citations. Elsewhere Aoma (Haomar) and Aboali (Haly) are mentioned.

[2638] Ibid., “Et addendo ea quae mihi utilia videbuntur.”

[2639] Arundel 66, membr. folio maximo, fols. 48-249.

[2640] Will. Lilly, Student in Astrology, Anima Astrologiae; or a Guide for Astrologers: being the Considerations of the famous G. Bonatus rendered into English: as also the choicest Aphorisms of Cardan’s VII Segments, London, 1676.

[2641] For the sources of these events see Della vita e delle opere di Guido Bonatti astrologo ed astronomo del secolo decimoterzo, Notizie raccolte da B. Boncompagni, Roma, 1851. Estratte dal Giornale Arcadico, Tomo CXXIII-CXXIV.

[2642] Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, revised edition, Fasc. 20, 1903, pp. 37-8.

[2643] In the 1491 edition it divides into three parts; in Arundel 66 it is divided into two treatises listed as the second and third of the work.

[2644] In Arundel 66 these are listed as books 4 and 5, and have a different division into chapters.

[2645] If we wish to reckon only ten treatises, this must be combined with the following treatise on interrogations.

[2646] As has been stated in a previous note, the order varies in different MSS. In Arundel 66 the 146 considerations come later between nativities and revolutions. In Vienna 2359 the treatise on revolutions follows that on weather prediction.

[2647] I, 11-12.

[2648] I, 1.

[2649] I, 2.

[2650] I, 5.

[2651] I, 3.

[2652] I, 4.

[2653] I, 13.

[2654] Liber astronomicus, 1491, fol. 99.

[2655] MG Scriptores, vol. 32, p. 163.

[2656] I, 9.

[2657] In this connection it may be noted that Wolfenbüttel 2637, 15th century, fols. 132-42v, contains “Prognostications for Pope Paul II’s forty-eighth year (1466) according to Guido Bonatti,” and also other astrological predictions which were sent to that pope: fols. 325-34, Prognostica de rumoribus et motibus currentibus anni 1468 et anni 1469 ad papam (Paulum II) missa.

And as late as 1704 A. D. we find P. Ercole Corazzi arguing “against the fallacious and superstitious art of a certain astrologer who dares to predict and promise the promotion of cardinals”:--Bologna University Library 963, #4.

[2658] Canon. Misc. 46, fols. 68-79, Regulae ad sciendum de diversis ad aegrotantes spectantibus secundum Guidonem Bonatum aliosque; fols. 51-61, Nicolai de Aquila, ord. Praed., tractatus in Astronomia qui medicinalis scientiae compendium nuncupatur, praevia ad Jo. de Olegio de Vicecomitibus de Mediolano praefatione.

[2659] Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, revised edition, Fasc. 20, 1903. p. 105.

[2660] Digby 134, 15th century, 128 fols, in an Italian hand, “Ars Geomantie que docet hominem solvere omnes questiones de quibus vult certificari divina virtute per istam artem ... / ... Compositus quidem est iste presens liber a magistro Bartholomeo de Parma in Bononia ad preces domini Tedesii de Flisco, qui erat tunc ellectus in episcopum civitatis Regii, curentibus annis Domini MCCLXXXVIII.”

See also CLM 436, 16th century, fol. 46-.

Vienna 5523, 15-16th century, 208 fols.

Emmanuel 70, 15th century, fol. 80-, gives the date as 1286 instead of 1288; “Inc. breviloquium mag. bartholomei nacione parmensis bononie compilatum et confirmatum per prudentes viros de fructis tocius astronomie ad preces domini Thedesii de fusco anno 1286.”

[2661] Between 1283 and 1290 the bishopric of Reggio was vacant owing to a disputed election between Franciscus de Fullano, a canon of Reggio, and this Theodosius, who was a canon of Laon (Eubel, p. 439).

[2662] CLM 489, 16th century, fol. 61, “Incipit breviloquium artis Geomantiae noviter compilatae a mgro Batholomeo de Parma, quod breviloquium extraxit de summa eius artis quam compilavit anno 1288 ad partes (preces) nobilis viri Theoderici de flisco. Et sic complevisse fatetur utrumque opus fideliter et verius quam scivit utilia scribens et superflua relinquens in hoc opusculo ad preces duorum suorum amicorum et discipulorum Johannes et Paulus Theutonicorum sub Anno Domini 1494 (1294) de mense Octobris in Bononia.”

Magliabech. XX, 13, 15th century, fols. 1-60, “Incomincia il libro dell’ arte della geomançia nuovamente compilato da maestro Bartholomeo da Parma a contemplatione de’ suoi scholari da Bologna anno Domini MCCLXXXXIIII.”

See also CLM 196, 15-16th century, fols. 1-10.

CLM 240, 15th century.

CLM 398, fol. 1-.

CLM 192, 1544 A. D., fol. 3.

[2663] CLM 489, fol. 1r-, “Incipit Prologus Libri Geomantiae editi a mro Bartholomeo Parmensi Astrologo. Erba collecta de libro magno Geomantiae quae introducunt novum discipulum ut sciat sufficienter principia eiusdem artis per quae poterit cognoscere tot et tanta de arte Geomantia quod per se sciat universales regulas artis doctrinae ac questiones quaerentium generales iudicare absque errore si Deus voluerit. Hoc quidem opus est Bartholomaei astrologi Natione Parmensis Compilatum Anno Domini MCCLXXXXV Mense Novembris Sole existente in primo gradu Sagittarii.”

Also contained in CLM 192, 240, and 398.

[2664] Vienna 3124, 15th century, fol. 198, “Liber de occultis. Secreta scientia philosophorum est ... / ... et pauce utilitatis”; fol. 199, “e libro de iudiciis astrologiae loci”; fol. 202, “Significationes planetarum de libro consiliorum. Saturnus dicitur de antiquis deus ... / ... Item significat Lavatrices panni petisequas ruffianas monachas,” etc.

Vienna 5438, 15th century, fols. 116v-128r, Judicium particulare de mutationibus aeris. “In coniunctione solis et lune considera ... / ... sibi perhibet per naturam.”

[2665] Houzeau et Lancaster, Bibliographie générale de l’astronomie, Brussels, 1887. They ascribe other astrological works to him.

[2666] “ad fortunam Dei sine certo numero et sine certa mensura longitudinis linearum.”

[2667] Thus in the Geomancy ascribed to Michael Scot, from which I happen to have notes on this point rather than from Bartholomew’s work, Acquisitio signifies a man of medium size, of handsome form, somewhat tall, with pleasing eyes, delicate nostrils, a graceful forehead, a subtle mind, a long neck, abundant hair, with his two front teeth larger than the others; a man of luxurious tastes and fond of money and ambitious for honor and power, kindly and loyal and giving many good things to others.

APPENDIX I

SOME MANUSCRIPTS OF THE LIBER ASTRONOMICUS OF GUIDO BONATTI

Boncompagni states that there are several MSS in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris and the following are noted in the old catalogue: of the 14th century, BN 7326 and 7327: of the 15th century BN 7328, 7329 (a fragment), 7441 (defective), 7442 (containing only the treatises on elections and revolutions), 7443 (only the treatise De imbribus et aeris mutationibus). Perhaps the following also has reference to Bonatti: BN 7316, 15th century, #20 (and last item), Guidonis Bonafors liber abbreviatus per Fratrem Hugolinum de Faventia ordinis sancti Augustini qui ea tantum excerpsit quae ad astrologiam judiciariam pertinebant.

Some MSS in English libraries are:

Arundel 66, 15th century, fols. 48-249, membr. folio maximo, a de luxe MS made for the use of Henry VII, whose portrait occurs at fol. 201.

Additional 26768, 15th century.

Savile 15 (Bernard 6561), a large MS in which it is the last treatise.

Peterhouse 86, 15th century. Here we have the _Liber introductorius_ in two parts, then come Nativities, Revolutions, Conjunctions, the 146 considerations, weather prediction, De partibus, and finally _tractatus principalis de electionibus_.

CU Trinity 1418, 15th century, contains portions of Bonatti’s work (James III, 445).

Other MSS are:

Vienna 2359, 14th century, fols. 1-38, _Guido Bonactus de Foro Livii, Liber introductorius ad iudicia stellarum_: fols. 39-50, Considerationes super iudiciis ...; fols. 51-52, _Introductorium sub breviloquio ad iudicia stellarum_; fols. 53-92, _Explicit tractatus interrogationum seu questionum_; fols. 93-119, _Tractatus de electionibus secundum dicta sapientum_; fol. 120v, Tabula magnitudinis et parvitatis diei; fols. 121-61, Tractatus super nativitatibus; fols. 162-6, _De imbribus et de aeris mutationibus_; fols. 167-200, _De revolutione annorum et mundi_; fols. 201-210, _Tractatus proiectionum quarumlibet partium_.

Vienna 3124, 15th century, some scattered parts from it.

Wolfenbüttel 2734, 14-15th century, in several hands, _Liber introductorias ad iudicia stellarum_ ... _editus a Guidone Bonacco de Forlivio_....

Amplon. Folio 381.

CLM 59, 15th century, contains some of its treatises.

Arsenal 1129, 15th century, fol. 207, Liber astronomicus.

Dukes of Burgundy 1462, 15th century, Guidonis de Forlino, De judiciis astrorum, “Ex hiis autem ad judicia....”

Magliabech. XX, 14, 15th century, mutilated, ending at VIII, 18, in 129 fols. _Incipit liber introductorius ad iuditia stellarum. Et est non solum introductorius ad iuditia set est Iuditiorum astronomie. Editus a Guidone Bonatto de Forlivio. Et collegit in eo ex dictis philosophorum ea que visa sunt._

Ravenna 356, 15th century, 6 fols, containing _De imbribus et de aeris mutationibus et que circa illa versantur_.

Vienna 3276, 14th century, fols. 275-80, _Die kunst augurium_, in German by Guido Astronomus, is perhaps an extract from Bonatti.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

LXVIII. ARNALD OF VILLANOVA

Recent research into his life--His twofold importance--Narrative of his life--In theological difficulties--Events of 1305--The close of his life--Arnald and the Inquisition--His works--Attitude to natural science--Magic excluded from medicine--Disapprobation of Sorcerers--The devices of sorcerers--Counter-magic against them--Arnald’s works and the Inquisition again--Incantations--Cures of old-wives--Ligatures and suspensions--Marvelous virtues in nature--Occult virtue defined--Due to the stars--Astrological medicine--Bleeding and the moon--Bernard Gordon’s personal experience--Operative astrology or magic--Seals or images--Experimental method--Further foibles of Arnald’s medicine--The affair of Bernard Délicieux.

[Sidenote: Recent research into his life.]

Arnald of Villanova has been rather unusually fortunate among medieval men of learning in the accurate research which within the last fifty years scholars have made into the sources for the facts of his career. Before that time all sorts of assertions and dates were current concerning his life, although even then those who took the pains to turn back to Astruc,[2668] could find in his work a tolerably correct account of Arnald’s biography. But now we have a much fuller treatment of his life and works by Hauréau in the Histoire Littéraire de la France,[2669] while the researches of Menéndez Pelayo[2670] in the Vatican library and the crown archives of Aragon have brought to light new documents of importance. Subsequently Chabás has discovered an old and authentic copy of Arnald’s last will and testament in the cathedral archives of Valencia.[2671] Further materials bearing upon his career appeared in Finke’s Acta Aragonensia,[2672] and have been written up by Diepgen in a monograph on Arnald’s political and theological activity after 1299.[2673]

[Sidenote: His twofold importance.]

Arnald’s personality and career have long attracted attention, not only because of his prominence as a practicing physician and writer on medicine and alchemy, and because of his close relations with several kings and popes. He also is noted for his connection with ecclesiastical history, his relations with the Spiritual Franciscans and the theologians of Paris, and for his criticisms of existing conditions in the church of his time,--criticisms which he combined with Joachimite ideas of a speedy end of the world and coming of Antichrist. These points long ago caused his inclusion in Matthias Illyricus Flacius’s Catalogue of Witnesses to the Truth who before our time attacked the primacy of the Roman pontiffs and the various superstitions, errors, and impious frauds of Popery,[2674] and more recently in Menéndez Pelayo’s Historia de los heterodoxos españoles. And it is true that Arnald composed a violent diatribe against the regular clergy of his day and also a Sword of Truth against the Thomists.[2675]

[Sidenote: Narrative of his life.]

Arnald was a Catalan, although Pope Clement V speaks of him as “a clerk of Valencia.” Arnald writes of his youth as a time of hardship and of himself as “a country practitioner” without literary culture. Yet he came to shine at courts and to defy synods of learned doctors of theology. He also mentions his early education in a Dominican convent and his study of medicine at Naples under John Calamida. During his entire life he seems to have been continually moving about, and his works speak of observations and operations in many towns of Spain, Italy, and France. Some of his treatises were written in Valencia, others in Barcelona, others in Naples, or in Gascony, Piedmont, Bologna, Rome, and even Africa. He was often called abroad to render medical services to popes and other potentates and was frequently employed in foreign diplomacy by the kings of Aragon and Sicily. By 1285 he had won a sufficient reputation as a physician to be called from Barcelona to attend Peter III of Aragon in his last illness. Peter gave him a castle in Tarragona. After that Arnald seems to have taught at Montpellier which was then under the jurisdiction of Aragon. Three later bulls of Clement V in 1309 making regulations for the medical faculty at Montpellier mention Arnald of Villanova as one of the persons by whom the pope has been advised in the matter, and speak of him as having “once long ruled” in that university.[2676] Astruc tells us that in the eighteenth century the house where he had lived was still shown in Montpellier, ornamented with sculptured figures which were interpreted as magic symbols.[2677]

[Sidenote: In theological difficulties.]

In 1292 Arnald composed a treatise on the significance of the holy name, Tetragrammaton, both in Hebrew and Latin, and on the declaration of the mystery of the Trinity. This and later essays of his in the field of religion were not well received by most theologians, who would have preferred that he confine his efforts to medicine. In 1299 Arnald was sent to Paris with a message from James II of Aragon to Philip the Fair. Here he was arrested by the inquisition, but was bailed out the next day, Nogaret being among those who stood security. Presently he was brought to trial before the bishop and the theological faculty of Paris for a work predicting the coming of Antichrist about the middle of the fourteenth century upon the basis of passages in Daniel and the Erythrean sibyl, and his book was ordered to be burned.[2678] Arnald protested to the king of France and later to a crowd of distinguished people at the bishop’s palace and appealed to Pope Boniface VIII. Finally he was allowed to leave France and in November, 1301, is found at Genoa.

Arnald submitted to Boniface VIII a slightly modified version of his work on Antichrist, accompanied by a tone of pious self-abnegation and considerable shrewd flattery of the pope as “Christ on earth” and “God of gods.” The theologians of Paris, however, had sent a portion of the original text to the pope with the result that Boniface kept Arnald in prison for a time and forced him to abjure his work in secret consistory, but finally said that Arnald had erred only in not submitting the work to him in the first place. After Arnald had treated Boniface successfully for the stone, that pontiff’s estimation of him greatly improved, and he received favorably a new work which predicted the history of the Mediterranean world for the next century until the coming of Antichrist, bewailed the worldliness of the clergy, but upheld the papal power, to which, of course, Arnald looked to further the ecclesiastical reforms which he had at heart. Boniface also presented Arnald with a castle at Anagni, but the sun proved too hot there for Arnald’s head. Early in 1302 he left the papal curia, in April he received permission from King James II to dispose of his property in Valencia. His writings on Antichrist and against certain of the clergy continued, and in February, 1304, he was at Marseilles complaining before the bishop of some Dominicans who had attacked his treatises. He then addressed himself to the new pope, Benedict XI, at Perugia, but was not well received, and complained that the pope had judged and punished him before hearing him. But Benedict’s brief pontificate was soon over and Clement V showed himself more gracious.[2679]

[Sidenote: Events of 1305.]

Meanwhile in April, 1305, Arnald returned to Barcelona where he found James II sick abed and very glad to see him and to entrust himself to his medical care rather than that of Ermengard Blasius (or Blasii)[2680] who had hitherto attended James. About this time Arnald seems to have interpreted a dream for James, but that monarch later repudiated Arnald’s account of the affair and they were estranged for a time.[2681] Arnald’s will, drawn up on July 20, 1305, by a public notary of Barcelona, informs us concerning his library, other property, generosity to the poor, and reveals the fact that he had a wife and children.

[Sidenote: The close of his life.]

Arnald, however, still had several years of life before him. A declaration has been preserved which he made in 1306 concerning the observance of certain statutes at the University of Montpellier.[2682] James II employed him in 1306-1307, and he corresponded with Clement V and Philip IV. In 1308-1309 he interpreted a dream for Frederick of Sicily and with him concocted a scheme for a crusade and reform of the church, in pursuance whereof he went to Rome, Barcelona, and Avignon, and carried letters back and forth between James and Frederick.[2683] Arnald had been with Clement V at Bordeaux and seems to have been with him again at Avignon in 1309, but he does not appear to have been the pope’s official physician,[2684] although very probably he rendered him some medical service. About this time he also seems to have written several treatises in medicine and alchemy, including his Preservation of Youth, for King Robert at Naples. Raymond Lull speaks of meeting him there and acknowledges his debt to his friend Arnald for one of his “Experiments.” A letter of December 6, 1311, from Escarrer at Naples to King James shows that Arnald died in the closing months of that year.[2685] In 1312 we find Clement V advertising by public letter for a medical treatise by Arnald intended for his perusal but which the death of the author had prevented from reaching its destination.

[Sidenote: Arnald and the Inquisition.]

Already during Arnald’s lifetime in 1305 the inquisitor of Valencia forbade the possession or reading of his books, a decree against which King James protested. Five years after Arnald’s death the inquisitor and provost of the church at Tarragona declared some statements in Arnald’s writings heretical, and Diepgen thinks that we have lost a number of his religious writings in Catalan in consequence;[2686] but this sentence appears to have no more lessened his medical influence than his trial at Paris had prevented his having intimate relations with the popes.

[Sidenote: His works.]

One indication of Arnald’s long continued influence in the learned world is that some seven so-called complete editions of his works were printed in the course of the sixteenth century.[2687] Besides this, some of his writings were published separately or appeared in miscellaneous collections, and some were translated into the vernacular languages. Some, however, still remain in manuscript form. The majority of his writings are medical, such as the Mirror of Medical Introductions, Breviary of Practice, Rule of Health, General Rules for the Cure of Disease, Commentary on the Regimen Salernitanum, Collection of Antidotes, and special treatises on the stone, gout, and epilepsy. But besides the works of alchemy ascribed to him there are other treatises on themes of especial interest to us, the Disapprobation of Sorcerers (Libellus de improbatione maleficiorum), Remedies against Sorcery, Judgments of Infirmities by the Motion of the Planets, and the treatise on Seals or astrological images. Although Arnald interpreted dreams for kings, the treatise on interpretation of dreams which is printed with his works is in the manuscripts either anonymous or ascribed to William of Aragon. Some of these other works too are perhaps not by him, but similar themes are occasionally touched upon in his more purely medical works. In the printed editions of his works is found a Latin translation of the treatise of Costa ben Luca On physical ligatures, which we have already discussed, and it is not unlikely that some of the aforesaid works are translations from the Arabic and not original compositions by Arnald. Some of his medical writings seem little more than repetitions of Galen, whose works he cites a great deal.

[Sidenote: His attitude to natural science.]

In one of his medical works Arnald states that the proverbs of Solomon show that what learned men have revealed in the world of nature can be adapted by convenient metaphor to moral instruction. But from this one should not jump to the conclusion that he thought that the chief use of natural science was to point a moral. On the contrary in almost the next sentence we find him affirming that “all true knowledge arises from the senses” and that the education of youth should begin with this sense knowledge, “graciously and efficiently demonstrated.” Thus Arnald would assign to natural science a leading place in education. As the mind went over this material, he thinks that it would reach many abstract conclusions, and could gradually attain “to the knowledge of insensible and occult and arduous and subtle things, as is illustrated by the whole course of theology and by the whole course of medicine.”[2688]

[Sidenote: Magic excluded from medicine.]

There are passages in Arnald’s works where, like Pliny, Galen, and other writers since them, he professes to exclude everything savoring of magic and superstition from his medicine. For instance, in his chapter on Those things whose use is permitted in the cure of epilepsy, a disease into whose treatment we have seen that magic is especially liable to enter, he would “repel the ignominious” enchanters, conjurers, and invokers of spirits, diviners and augurs, from the field of medicine as a godless crew who are servants of the devil. He cites the church fathers to show that all pagan divination is by demon aid. In the same chapter he disapproves of any use of “characters and superstitions” in medicine, and even forbids the use of the sign of the cross or Lord’s Prayer in collecting medicinal simples.[2689]

[Sidenote: Disapprobation of Sorcerers.]

In his Libellus de improbatione maleficiorum[2690] Arnald questions the power of sorcerers or necromancers to invoke demons and compel them to give responses or to work wonders. By adopting a very similar argumentation to that of the early fathers he arrives at the familiar theological conclusion that men are purposely misled in these arts of sorcery and necromancy by the demons who have invented the fiction of an art and a procedure to cover their own iniquitous ends. Arnald is not concerned to emphasize this conclusion especially, however; his object is rather simply to show that demons cannot naturally be compelled by man to obey him. He argues that the human mind, which is joined to a body, is of inferior grade to separate or incorporeal substances and so cannot command them. He also holds that demons who are spiritual beings cannot be coerced by human use of natural objects such as gems or even by human use of the influence of the stars. He denies that demons are distributed in any particular quarters of the heavens, or that they are subject to man at any particular hours of the day. He denies that spirits can be coerced by the light of the celestial bodies, asking, if this is so, why they are invoked at night and in darkness rather than at midday. He admits that it is the opinion of many that a spirit can be coerced by the special virtue of Saturn or of Jupiter or some other star; but he questions whether man can master this special virtue of a planet, “since no terrestrial substance naturally governs a star, although some philosophers have said that the human soul sometimes commands the nature of the elements.” He also raises the familiar objection that the invokers of spirits are usually inferior to other men in virtue and intelligence, whereas those who lead pure and rational lives should by rights be the ones to control the influence of the stars, if any men can. Arnald further denies that artificial figures and characters or words uttered by man can overpower demons, since these artificial products derive such virtues as they have from things of inferior nature or the stars or the human artificer, and he has already insisted that none of these can coerce spirits. He justly observes that to contend that necromancers can control the demons through superior demons is “stupidly said” and begs the question. He therefore concludes that God alone can control the evil spirits and that He would delegate His power, if at all, only to saintly men and not to such wicked sinners as the invokers of demons are. The Histoire Littéraire de la France, in its brief account of this treatise, says, “It goes without saying that Arnald does not think all sorceries purely imaginary; however, it should be stated that he tries to demonstrate that demons are less at the beck and call of sorcerers than is commonly thought, and that many so-called instances of sorcery are merely pathological cases.” This last has reference to the close of the treatise where Arnald makes the commonplace medieval observation that persons suffering from melancholy are to be humored in their delusions.

[Sidenote: The devices of sorcerers.]

That Arnald did not regard all sorceries as purely imaginary is further indicated by the long list of remedies against them collected in his Remedia contra maleficia. All but one or two of the suggestions made by Petrus Hispanus in the chapter on counteracting witchcraft and dispelling demons in the Thesaurus pauperum are found again in Arnald’s treatise. He also adds others and prefaces his list of cures by a description of the devices employed by sorcerers to impede conjugal relations. The sorcerer usually secretes in the mattress or pillow of the nuptial bed such objects as the two halves of an acorn, granulated beans, written characters, the filth of a bat, or the testicles of a live cock. Arnald recommends that such articles be searched for and removed, or preferably taken to a priest; or that the couple sleep in another bed or house.

[Sidenote: Counter-magic against them.]

In the case of the divided acorn he more explicitly recognizes the validity of the sorcerer’s sympathetic magic by prescribing an equally magical counter-ceremony. The husband and wife are each to take one-half of the nut and place the two halves together, and, after an interval of six days, eat them. Apparently Arnald believes that humans can be bewitched by use of natural substances and written characters, although in the other treatise he denied that demons could be so invoked. But now he goes farther and lists natural antidotes and preventives against demons as well as sorcery. Thus keeping the heart of a vulture or certain herbs in the house is said to cause demons to flee, although we have heard him deny that demons can be attracted by natural substances. Less surprising is the use of the sign of the cross, of holy water, masses, and the writing of the Tetragrammaton and other names. Interesting rites for the protection of newly married couples against witchcraft of unknown origin are suffumigations of the nuptial chamber with the gall of a certain fish, or the leaves and fruit of a bramble bush, or the pulverized tooth of a dead man.[2691]

[Sidenote: Arnald’s works and the Inquisition again.]

The Histoire Littéraire de la France, remarking that this treatise by Arnald was forbidden later by the Spanish Inquisition, adds, “No one will hold that decision against them” (On ne leur reprochera pas cette décision). But one wonders if the Inquisition also condemned the Thesaurus pauperum of Pope John XXI, which we have seen contained many of the same remedies against witchcraft. Only another proof that censors never know what is in the books that they condemn! But perhaps the medieval or papal inquisition would not have made such a slip. Certainly the Spanish Inquisition had grown very captious, if, as the Histoire Littéraire says, it also forbade Arnald’s treatise on astrological medicine and some alchemistic works ascribed to him.

[Sidenote: Incantations.]

Arnald’s attitude in the matter of incantations is as inconsistent as his position regarding the effect of natural substances on spirits. In one passage of his Breviarium[2692] he condemns the incantations employed in cases of childbirth by the old-wives of Salerno. Taking three grains of pepper, the enchantress would say over each a Lord’s prayer, substituting for the words, “Deliver us from evil,” the request, “Deliver this woman from the pangs of childbirth.” Then she would administer the grains one after another in wine or water so that they should not touch the patient’s teeth, and finally she would repeat thrice in the patient’s ear this incantation, accompanied each time by a Paternoster,

Bizomie lamion lamium azerai vachina deus deus sabaoth, Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini, osanna in excelsis.

Arnald declares that such diabolical practices should be shunned by all the faithful. Yet in the same treatise[2693] he tells of an almost identical procedure by which a priest cured him of over a hundred warts within ten days. The priest touched the warts, made the sign of the cross, turned to a parietary and kneeling repeated the Lord’s prayer, substituting for the words, “Deliver us from evil,” the request, “Deliver Master Arnald from the wens and warts on his hands.” After which, instead of the three peppercorns he plucked the tips of three of the stalks of the parietary, at the same time repeating three Paternosters, and placed those three tips in the ground in a damp and secluded spot. “And,” concludes Arnald, “when they began to wither, my warts began to disappear.” It is true that the couplet of jargon, which perhaps Arnald regarded as alone diabolical, is omitted and that a priest rather than a witch performed the rite, but the Lord’s prayer is still used as an incantation and the ceremony with the stalks is a clear case of magic transfer of disease and of sympathetic magic. In a third passage of the same treatise[2694] Arnald suggests the following “good prayer” against quinsy, “Lord Jesus Christ, truly our God, by the power of thy name Jesus and by the prayer of thy servant Blasius,[2695] deign to free A. thy servant.” The popularity of The Breviary of Practice from head to soles of feet, in which these passages occur is indicated by the fact that it had been printed three times during the later fifteenth century before any complete edition of Arnald’s works had been published.[2696]

[Sidenote: Cures of old-wives.]

Arnald does not always speak ill of the cures of the old-wives. At Rome he saw a poor woman cure quinsy sore-throat with a plaster of her own,[2697] and at Montpellier a good wife cured by some secret method a man who was threatened with death by a continuous hemorrhage.[2698]

[Sidenote: Ligatures and suspensions.]

It was not inappropriate that Arnald should have translated the treatise of Costa ben Luca on Incantations, Adjurations, and Suspension from the Neck, or that at least that treatise should appear among his works, in view of the specimens of prayers and formulae which we have just given and of the more numerous instances of ligatures and suspensions in his works which we shall next illustrate. In his De parte operativa he says that there are plants, stones, and parts of animals which, if suspended about the neck or bound about the body or sewn into the clothing, produce impotency, a belief which his Remedia contra maleficia have already illustrated. In his treatise on wines he states that coral suspended from the neck so that it touches the abdomen prevents disturbances of the stomach. In his work on epilepsy[2699] among other suspensions he mentions some which he has tried with boys, the wood of certain trees bound with silver. Kings are taught to suspend an emerald about their children’s necks as soon as they are born as a protection against epilepsy, or the gem may be worn in a ring as an amulet against that disease. “Socrates recites this marvelous experience,” of the two stones found in swallows’ gizzards and how one may be worn in skin as an amulet. In his Treatment for Gout Arnald tells how “some experimenters” bind a frog’s legs on the patient’s feet, right foot on right, and left on left; while “another philosopher and experimenter” binds on the stone magnet, and still others use the talon of an eagle or the foot of a tortoise.

[Sidenote: Marvelous virtues in nature.]

As these ligatures and suspensions suggest, Arnald was a believer in marvelous virtues in stones, plants, animals, and human beings, and he discusses the general subject of occult virtue at some length. He accepts the notion that the magnet cannot attract iron in the presence of adamant.[2700] A way to discover whether an epileptic has been cured is to make him inhale smoke from burning horn of goat or pulverized agate; if not perfectly cured, he will straightway fall in a fit.[2701] Fumigation of a villa or manor with a cow’s left horn keeps away locusts.[2702] Arnald enlarges upon the great virtue of wine in which a heated gold plate has been extinguished four or five times. Some persons merely hold a gold-piece in the mouth while drinking wine, but Arnald deems it wiser to reduce the gold to potable form, although he admits that there may be some efficacy in the other method, since merely holding silver in the mouth quenches thirst and holding coral in the mouth comforts the stomach.[2703]

[Sidenote: Occult virtue defined.]

In the eighteenth chapter of his Mirror of Introductions to Medicine Arnald defines occult virtue or proprietas, as he also calls it. Briefly it is a property which is not immediately perceptible to the senses as are heat and cold, color, odor, and taste, and also one for which reason cannot account and whose existence cannot be learned by reasoned experiment but only by chance discovery. This is because such occult virtue depends on two things: the mixture of the elements in the object possessing it and its “specific form.” But the ratio of components in compounds “varies infinitely” and cannot be learned by reason, and the same is true of their “specific forms.” Nor can they be discovered by rational experiment which requires some objective to aim at. Therefore the only way to discover the occult virtue of an object is to happen upon its manifestation by chance. Again in his Repetitio super Canon ‘Vita Brevis’[2704] Arnald declares that “properties” cannot be learned by reason but only by experience or revelation.

[Sidenote: Due to the stars.]

Such occult virtue, or at least the “specific form” upon which it partly depends, is ascribed by Arnald as usual to the influence of the stars. It is owing, for example, to “the specific influence of the heavens” that gold is “something arcane, most perfect in its equable temperament, composed of a marvelous proportion of the virtues of the elements, and which has not its like among compounds.”[2705] The gold made by alchemists may resemble it in color and substance but not in this occult virtue. Arnald, indeed, holds what Aquinas and others denied, that different individuals of the same species may be endowed by the stars with diverse properties.[2706] This is in his opinion the explanation why one sapphire will harm and another cleanse the human eye. “It leaps into the eye and is received in its bosom without injury and comes out loaded with foreign matter.”

[Sidenote: Astrological medicine.]

From the occult virtue of terrestrial objects we are thus led as usual to the superior influence of the stars, which occupies a prominent, or better, fundamental place in Arnald’s works. He affirms that “since it is evident that God, the supreme artificer and begetter, has committed the government of nature to the motions of the stars, their influence upon the human body is no slight one.”[2707] Or he cites Galen as saying that philosophers assert that all things on earth are formed and fulfilled by the course and working of the heavenly bodies.[2708] The hour of collecting medicines is often very important[2709] and the physician should also know how the air about us is altered by the stars.[2710] Astrological medicine is also found in Arnald’s treatise on preserving youth and retarding age,[2711] and in his Judgments of Infirmities by the Motion of the Planets, where he also associates the members of the human body with the signs of the zodiac. This he does for the seven planets in his treatise on epilepsy.[2712]

[Sidenote: Bleeding and the moon.]

Arnald alludes a number of times to the practice of bleeding according to the phases of the moon. In his Regulation of Health he discusses how the age of the moon and its location, conjunctions, and aspects must be taken into account.[2713] In his General Rules for the Cure of Disease[2714] he says that the influence of the moon should be regarded by physicians in their pharmacy as well as their blood-letting, as anyone who operates long and intelligently will find by experience. Astrological authors prove it, but medical authors generally remain silent on this point. Arnald finds support, however, in Galen’s Critical Days and other works, and in the more recent works of Gilbert of England, who cautions to observe the moon in bleeding and advises against blood-letting in dog-days or on Egyptian days. Arnald would also include cauterization, other surgical operations, and the administration of drugs, and there is much observance of dog-days in his Treatise against the stone. On the other hand, Arnald rejects as false and worthless the statement in the Regimen Salernitanum that the months of April, May, and September are lunar and that in them are the days on which bleeding is prohibited.

[Sidenote: Bernard Gordon’s personal experience.]

Bernard Gordon, a medical contemporary of Arnald, notes in his Phlebotomy, written in 1307, that wise astronomers agree that bleeding should not be practiced when the moon is in Gemini, because at that time the vein will not give blood or it will open again or the patient will die. He goes on to narrate, however, that once having made all preparations to bleed himself, it suddenly occurred to him that the moon was then in Gemini. He persisted with the operation, however, which would seem to indicate that he did not really believe that it would prove disastrous; and he records that as a matter of fact that particular bleeding did him more good than any other one he ever underwent. Yet as the Histoire Littéraire notes,[2715] he reproduced the opinion of the astronomers without comment in his Prognostications. Which suggests that clergy who practiced in private arts of divination which they condemned in their writings were not the only ones whose preaching and practice might be divergent; Bernard defies astrological medicine successfully in personal practice but he continues to preach it in his writings. But to return to Arnald.

[Sidenote: Operative astrology or magic.]

Arnald believes that a human operator can accomplish great things by availing himself of the influences of the stars, an idea which he develops especially in the treatise entitled, De parte operativa. In the first place, there is the negative consideration that the force which pours forth unceasingly from the stars is not absorbed unless bodies are in a condition to receive it, and that they may be put into such a favorable condition by art as well as by nature. More positively, everything produced by art or nature receives from the sky some property of acting upon other bodies or of being acted upon by them. So any man who knows the influences of the stars and how to prepare objects to receive them, can produce great and marvelous changes in inferior things. Arnald thinks that “the juggleries of the magicians and the illusions of the enchanters” and the operations of sorcerers and those who fascinate, have efficacy in no other way, except of course as demons may lend their aid. In other words, astrology is the basis of magic.

[Sidenote: Seals or images.]

Arnald speaks particularly of gems to which either Nature, the marvel-worker, or some erudite artist has given efficacious powers by engraving them with images in accordance with the constellations.[2716] In his medical works he states that a lion on a lead seal prevents one from feeling pain in an operation for the stone,[2717] and that an image of a man holding a dead serpent in his right hand and its tail in his left hand is an antidote for poison.[2718] That Arnald also employed such methods in actual medical practice is shown from the fact that Pope Boniface VIII set great store by a seal in the form of a lion which Arnald had prepared for him when he was suffering from the stone.[2719] Arnald’s separate treatise on seals gives detailed directions for engraving one for each sign of the zodiac. The following example is typical of the others and also further illustrates Arnald’s propensity to pious incantations: “In the name of the living Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, take the purest gold and melt it as the sun enters Aries. Later form a round seal from it and say while so doing, ‘Arise, Jesus, light of the world, thou who art in truth the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world and enlighteneth our darkness.’ And repeat the Psalm, Domine dominus noster. After doing this much, put the seal away, and later, when the moon is in Cancer or Leo and while the sun is in Aries, engrave on one side the figure of a ram and on the circumference arahel tribus juda v et vii, and elsewhere on the circumference let these sacred words be engraved, ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,’ and in the center, ‘Alpha and Omega and Saint Peter.’” These instructions are perhaps some relic of gnosticism. Arnald then states the virtues and powers of the seal: “Moreover, this precious seal works against all demons and capital enemies and against witchcraft, and is efficacious in winning gain and favor, and aids in all dangers and financial difficulties (vectigalibus), and against thunderbolts and storms and inundations, and against the force of the winds and the pestilences of the air. Its bearer is honored and feared in all his affairs. No harm can befall the building or occupants of the house where it is. It benefits demoniacs, those suffering from inflammation of the brain, maniacs, quinsy sore throat, and all diseases of the head and eyes, and those in which rheum descends from the head. And in general I say that it wards off all evils and confers goods; and let its bearer abstain as far as possible from impurity and luxury and other mortal sins, and let him wear it on his head with reverence and honor.”

[Sidenote: Experimental method.]

Arnald’s pages have supplied some evidence of the continued vogue of that “experimental knowledge” and “experimental science” of which Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon and others of the early thirteenth century wrote. In a passage not yet noted[2720] Arnald recognizes the difficulty of medical experimentation and, like Petrus Hispanus and John of St. Amand, makes some suggestions as to how it should be conducted. They are, however, not novel. We have also heard him speak of experimenters, of a “philosopher and experimenter,” of “the long experience of any intelligent operator”, and of “rational experiment” which “always presupposes a determined object.” We have also heard him admit that the occult virtues of natural objects can be hit upon only by chance experiment or by some sort of revelation. And since these last two channels are as open to the common people as to the learned, it is possible that knowledge of occult virtues should be attained sooner by uneducated men than by others.[2721] This is not necessarily the case, however, and in a third treatise he speaks of a truth having been verified by experience until it has come to the notice of illiterate men and women. This truth is that the weakened powers of age can to some extent be restored, and as a proof of this assertion Arnald presently adduces the invention of eye-glasses,[2722] which are likewise mentioned by his contemporary, Bernard Gordon.[2723] We also have observed in Arnald the usual inclination to base marvels upon experience, as in “the marvelous and elect experiment” of Socrates or the cure of gout by binding on frog’s legs.

[Sidenote: Further foibles of Arnald’s medicine.]

In conclusion some foibles of Arnald’s medicine may be noted which do not exactly fall under any of the preceding heads. In the treatment of mania in the Breviarium he advises as a last resort that the skin be cut in the form of a cross and the skull perforated so that the noxious vapors may escape from the brain.[2724] In another place he warns against washing the head too often, “since thereby many have lost their sight before their time.”[2725] He advises to lave the eyes not with cold but with tepid water, and recommends as especially beneficial to the eyes washing with one’s own urine when one rises from bed in the morning, or with one’s own saliva. Throughout this same work he repeatedly recommends the most awful concoctions as remedies, but perhaps the climax in the way of a series of complicated recipes occurs in his Treatise against the Stone,[2726] a disease for which he had treated the pope. In his collection of antidotes[2727] we again run across the Potion of St. Paul and the opiates supposed to have been discovered by the emperor Hadrian and the prophet Esdras.

[Sidenote: The affair of Bernard Délicieux.]

The trial of Bernard Délicieux[2728] before the inquisition should perhaps be mentioned at this point as a connecting link between Arnald of Villanova of whom we have just treated and Raymond Lull to whom the next chapter will be devoted, especially as the tendency of this affair would appear to be to bring both of them into disrepute with the inquisition and under suspicion of magic. Thus two citizens of Albi testified that on the eve of Benedict XI’s death Bernard Délicieux or Delitiosi sent a leather chest wrapped in waxed cloth to Arnald of Villanova at the papal court, the imputation being that Arnald helped Bernard to poison the pope. Furthermore, Bernard was found to have in his possession a book of nigromancy which he said Raymond Lull, a Catalan of Majorca, had given to him at Rome. No doubt this evidence against Raymond and Arnald is very flimsy; Bernard himself was freed of the charge of poisoning;[2729] still, it may have done them some harm.

FOOTNOTES:

[2668] Jean Astruc, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier, Paris, 1767. A much cited book, but seemingly rare in this country.

[2669] HL 28, 26-104, with corrections and additions based on Menéndez Pelayo’s researches at pp. 487-90.

[2670] Menéndez Pelayo, Arnaldo de Villanova médico Catalán del siglo XIII, Madrid, 1879; and Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, Madrid, 1880, I, 449-87, 720-81.

[2671] Roque Chabás, in Boletín de la real Academia de la Historia. vol. 28, p. 87. I have not seen this, but have used Leopold Delisle, Testaments d’Arnaud de Villeneuve et de Raimond Lulle, 20 juillet 1305 et 26 avril 1313. Extrait du Journal des Savants, June, 1896.

[2672] H. Finke, Acta Aragonensia, vol. II (1291-1327), 1908.

[2673] P. Diepgen, Arnald von Villanova als Politiker und Laientheologe, 1909, in Abhandl. z. Mittl. u. Neuer. Gesch., Heft 9. Diepgen proposed to treat later of Arnald’s medicine and investigate the genuineness of several works ascribed to him.

[2674] Catalogus testium veritatis qui ante nostram aetatem Pontificum Romanorum Primatui Variisque Papismi superstitionibus erroribus ac impiis fraudibus reclamarunt. Nova hac Editione emendatior, etc., 1608.

[2675] Vatican MS 3824, Confessio ... de spurcitiis pseudo-religiosorum. Eulogium de notitia verorum et pseudo-apostolorum. Gladius veritatis adversus thomistas. And other anti-clerical or theological treatises.

[2676] The bulls are printed by M. Fournier, Les Statuts et Privilèges des Universités Françaises. II (1891), 21-3.

[2677] Astruc (1767), p. 153

[2678] Diepgen (1909), 17-21. Denifle et Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, II, 86-90, give Arnald’s letter notifying James II of Aragon of his detention at Paris, and his appeal to the pope, both dated in October, 1300.

[2679] In this paragraph I have followed Diepgen (1909), pp. 23-36, 44-46.

[2680] Noted as a translator; see Translatio Canticorum Avicennae cum commentario Averrois ex arabico in latinum, Venetiis, 1492. This work was executed in 1283 according to Peterhouse 101, 13-14th century, II. In 1307 he translated the treatise on poisons of Moses Maimonides for Clement V at Barcelona; see Peterhouse 101, III, and Corpus Christi 125, fols. 1r-13v. Before that in 1302 he had translated at Montpellier another medical work of Maimonides, De asinate; see Gonville and Caius 178, 14-15th century, fols. 130-65.

Steinschneider (1905), p. 6, speaks of “Armengab (oder Armengaud, nicht Armengand) Blasii, in Montpellier, Arzt Philipps des Schönen, gest. 1314 übs. aus dem Hebr.” But Fabricius speaks of Armegandus or Ermengardus Blasii, and the aforesaid MSS give such forms as “dymengandus blasii,” “a mag. hermengaldo blasii,” “a mag. Armengando blazini,” “a mag. Armegando blasii de monte pessulano magistro in medicina.”

[2681] Diepgen (1909), 83-88.

[2682] Listed but not printed by Fournier, Les Statuts et Privilèges des Universités Françaises, II (1891).

[2683] Diepgen (1909), 48-82.

[2684] One of the above-mentioned papal bulls of 1309 speaks of “our cherished sons, masters William of Brixia and John of Alesto, our physicians and chaplains, and also of Master Arnald of Villanova, physician”; while the other two bulls speak of “our cherished sons, Arnald of Villanova and John of Alesto, our physician and chaplain.” Thus William and John, rather than Arnald, seem to be the pope’s private physicians.

[2685] Diepgen (1909), p. 94.

[2686] Ibid., p. 99.

[2687] They will be found listed in HL 28, 50-51. I have used the edition published at Lyons, in 1532.

[2688] Regule Generales Curationis Morborum, Doctrina VI. “Cum omnis vera cognitio a sensu oriatur et ab his quae sensibilia sunt habeat ortum, necessario ipsa sensibilia debent gratiose et efficaciter demonstrari iuvenibus et adiscentibus, cum tunc intellectus discurrens per ea abstrahit multa media et multas conclusiones. Unde per sensibilia venit intellectus ad cognitionem insensibilium et occultorum et arduorum et subtilium, ut declaratur per totum processum theologiae et per totum processum medicinae.”

[2689] De epilepsia, cap. 25. A similar passage in a work contemporary with Arnald, Bernard Gordon’s Tractatus de decem ingeniis curandorum morborum, pp. 228-9 of the Venice, 1496, edition, reads: “Tertio quod medicus operatur secundum artem seu per canones Galenis et Hippocratis et aliorum sapientium et in hoc condemnatur omnis ars auguriandi sicut est ars geomantica et suspendendi herbas ad collum et omnia emperica et forticinia et fassina et alia quam plurima quae non est bonum revelare propter abutentes qui conscientia neglecta utuntur magis et quibusdam ingeniis fatuis et cum omni sollertia pessima et mala lege et multa similia quae non sunt tunc narrabilia.... Et testor deum et nimirum quod numquam vidi hominem malitiosum in medicina qui diu duraret dies suos.”

[2690] Also rather inappropriately entitled in the MSS (BN 6971, fol. 65; 7337, fol. 110; 17847, fol. 53), Quaestio de possibilitate et veritate imaginum astronomicarum. The treatise is addressed to “Reverendissimo patri et non ficte bonitatis exemplo dei provisione presuli valentino....”

I have somewhat altered the order of Arnald’s arguments in order to make them more comprehensible and readable.

[2691] Of these the first two are not given in the Thesaurus pauperum.

[2692] Breviarium, III, 4.

[2693] Breviarium, II, 45.

[2694] Ibid., II, 1. Possibly this particular passage is a later gloss, as it is marked Additiones, but HL 28, 62-3, regards it as Arnald’s, and marvels that a man of his zeal for science and truth should believe in the efficacy of such procedure.

[2695] Presumably Ermengard Blasius, mentioned above, and his colleague at Montpellier.

[2696] Breviarium practicae a capite usque ad plantam pedis, cum capitulo generali de urinis et tractatu de omnibus febribus, peste, empiala et liparia, Milan, 1483; Venice, 1494 and 1497.

[2697] Compend. medic. pract. II, 1; cited HL 28, 43.

[2698] Breviarium, I, 38; cited HL 28, 34.

[2699] De epilepsia, caps. 24 and 4.

[2700] De parte operativa, fol. 127.

[2701] Breviarium, I, 22.

[2702] De venenis.

[2703] De vinis, fol. 263v.

[2704] Fol. 276.

[2705] De vinis, fol. 263v.

[2706] De parte operativa, fol. 127; Antidotarium, cap. 2.

[2707] De epilepsia, cap. 1.

[2708] Regulae generales curationis morborum, Doctrina iv.

[2709] Antidotarium, cap. 3.

[2710] Medicinalium Introductionum Speculum, cap. 13.

[2711] De conservanda iuventute et retardanda senectute.

[2712] De epilepsia, cap. 1.

[2713] De regimine sanitatis, cap. 37, fol. 78v.

[2714] Doctrina iv.

[2715] HL, 25, 330.

[2716] Antidotarium, cap. 3.

[2717] De parte operativa, fol. 127.

[2718] Antidotarium, cap. 3.

[2719] Diepgen (1909), p. 25.

[2720] Medic. Introd. Spec., cap. 20.

[2721] Repetitio super Canon ‘Vita Brevis’, fol. 276.

[2722] De conserv. iuvent. et retard. senectute, “Palam autem est quia obiectum politicum et diaffanum est aggregatum visus eius congregans disgregatum.”

[2723] Bernard’s mention of eye-glasses in his Lilium medicinae, Venice, 1496, Partic. III, cap. v, fol. 94, is both more incidental and more specific. At the close of his “ninth experiment” for the eyes, a formidable mixture, he says, “et est tantae virtutis quod decrepitum faceret legere litteras minutas sine ocularibus.” Magnifying lenses have of course been mentioned earlier by Grosseteste; see above p. 441.

Bernard Gordon also mentions “experimenters,” Lilium V, 12, fol. 159, “et dicunt experimentatores.”

[2724] Breviarium, I, 26.

[2725] Ibid., I, 13.

[2726] Tractatus contra calculum.

[2727] Antidotarium.

[2728] HL 29, 276; Lea, Hist. of Inquisition of Middle Ages (1888) III, 452; but especially B. Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux et l’Inquisition Albigeoise, Paris, 1877.

[2729] Diepgen (1909), pp. 36-7. The further articles by Diepgen on Arnald, alluded to above on p. 842, note 3, appeared in Arch. f. Gesch. d. Med., V., 397-9; VI (1913) 380-91; and in Arch. f. Kulturgesch., IX (1912) 385-403, “Arnoldus de Villanova de improbatione maleficiorum.”

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LXIX. RAYMOND LULL

Life and works--Orthodoxy questioned--His natural science not unusual--His Art Universal--Circular figures employed in theology--Figure of a tree used in medicine--Lull and alchemy--His attitude to astrology--To the condemnation of 1277 at Paris--His book on medicine and astrology--An uncomplimentary allusion to thirteenth century medicine--Necromancy and divine names.

[Sidenote: Life and works.]

Ramon Lull or Raimond Lulle or Raymund Lull or Raymond Lully, to mention some of the forms of his name which have prevailed in different languages and times, appears to have been one of the most energetic and versatile characters of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century.[2730] Born in 1235 or 1236 or possibly a year or two earlier at Palma in the island of Majorca, he seems to have spent his youth as a pleasure-loving courtier, if not libertine, and to have initiated by the composition of love verses the long series of poems and treatises in Catalan which make him a prominent figure in the history of medieval Spanish literature.[2731] At about the age of thirty he underwent a conversion not unlike that of Saint Francis and thenceforth devoted himself to learning and religion. This combination was characteristic of him and he has been charged with holding that all the mysteries of the Faith could be proved and comprehended by reason and with “removing all distinction between natural and supernatural truth.”[2732] His chief contribution to learning was the method of his Art, of which more presently. But he was a voluminous writer upon a great variety of themes, some of which border more closely on the field of our investigation. Some of these works at first sight may seem to have little connection with what appears to have been Lull’s main object in life, namely, the conversion of the Mohammedan world and the rescue of the holy sepulcher.[2733] But his crusading and missionary methods were somewhat peculiar, involving not only a long preparatory educational period, especially in the study of oriental languages, but also the refutation of Arabian philosophy, particularly that of Averroes, and toward that goal the conciliation of philosophy and theology in the Christian world. In 1276 he persuaded the king of Aragon to establish a school for the study of Arabic in Majorca, and in 1311 at the Council of Vienne he persuaded the pope to authorize chairs in Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean and Arabic at Rome, Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca. He failed, however, in his effort at this council to obtain a prohibition of Averroistic teaching in Christian universities. Lull himself, besides teaching in his own school in Majorca, lectured on his Art at Paris, Montpellier and elsewhere. But he also was an active field missionary, converting Saracens not only in the Balearic Isles but also in Cyprus and Armenia, while he went three times to North Africa. On the first occasion he was imprisoned and then banished, on the last he was stoned to death. This martyrdom, added to his fame as a poet and scholar, has made him the national saint of the Balearic Isles, but he actually has only been beatified and not canonized. He appears to have been a member of the third order of St. Francis. His will, drawn up in 1313 and brought again to light in 1896, shows that he had children.[2734] His death occurred on the 29th of June, 1315.

[Sidenote: Orthodoxy questioned.]

The chief reason why Lull has never been canonized is the doubt that has prevailed as to his complete orthodoxy, a matter more than once questioned. Eymeric (1320-1399) when Inquisitor-General of Aragon attacked the doctrines of Lull, listing five hundred passages in his works as heretical and claiming that Gregory XI had condemned two hundred in a bull of 1376,--which has not been found. It is thought that the bull meant is one against a converted Jew, Raymond of Tárrega who had turned renegade and written works on magic. At any rate in 1386 another inquisitor at Barcelona cleared the views of Lull from suspicion. The University of Majorca established by King Ferdinand the Catholic became a great center of Lullism. Then in the middle of the sixteenth century Lull’s works were placed on the Index Expurgatorius, but were removed before the close of the century. It may seem strange that the relations between Lullism and the Inquisition and Index were not more cordial, since they are often both represented as pursuing the same quarry, Averroism, of which we are told, “Lullism always provided its strongest foes.”[2735] But we rather suspect that “Averroism” was in the nature of an air-drawn phantom whose assailants were apt to injure one another.

[Sidenote: His natural science not unusual.]

Probst regards Lull as in advance of his age in his use of observation and experimental science and his knowledge that the world was round and acquaintance with the mariner’s compass.[2736] This knowledge, however, he really shared with his times and we can scarcely regard him as a precursor of Columbus nor even quite as an equal of Roger Bacon in these respects, exaggerated as we believe the estimates to be which have often been made of Roger’s importance. But Probst shows a similar tendency to exaggerate the scientific importance of Lull at the expense of his period.

[Sidenote: His Art Universal.]

Lull’s chief original contribution to medieval learning bore scant relation indeed to the methods of observation and experiment. His famous Art came to him as a sudden inspiration in the midst of long study and reflection and was, he and his followers believed, received by direct divine illumination. Hence his title, “the illuminated Doctor.” In reality the method of his Art leads us to infer that it occurred to him by some process of sub-conscious association with the employment of the planisphere in astronomy or the use of a revolving wheel and tables of combinations of letters of the alphabet such as we have noted in the geomancies and modes of divination ascribed to Socrates, Pythagoras, and other philosophers. Lull’s idea seems to have been the invention of a logical machine which would constitute the same sort of labor-saving device in a scholastic disputation or medieval university as an adding machine in a modern bank or business office. By properly arranging categories and concepts, subjects and predicates in the first place, one could get the correct answer to such propositions as might be put. Another advantage of this method would be that a sceptical Arab, who might refuse to listen to or view with suspicion the verbal arguments of a missionary, would be irresistibly convinced of the truth of the doctrines of Christianity by this machine, or at least mechanical method, which would impress him as impartial and reliable Lull’s diagrams and mechanical devices included a tree, intersecting triangles, and concentric circles divided into compartments, of which one rotated something like the planet; in the signs while the other remained stationary like the sphere of the fixed stars.

[Sidenote: Circular figures employed in theology.]

In questions of theology a circle was employed whose center stood for God while its circumference divided into sixteen “chambers” representing kindness, grandeur, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth, glory, perfection, justice, beneficence, pity, humility, dominion, and patience. One hundred and twenty more “chambers” were formed by combining pairs of the foregoing. Another circle shows the rational soul in the center represented by four squares and has its circumference divided into sixteen compartments representing appropriate qualities. A third circle, devoted to principles and meanings, enclosed five triangles in a circumference of fifteen compartments; while a fourth circle divided fourteen compartments of its circumference between the seven virtues and seven vices respectively rendered in blue and red. Other “figures” dealt with predestination, fate, and free-will, truth, and falsity. The following is a specific instance of the way in which these were combined. When the rational soul is troubled and uncertain in the circle of predestination, because the chambers of ignorance and merit, science and fault, mingle together, it forms a third figure representing doubt.

[Sidenote: Figure of a tree used in medicine.]

In medicine the figure of a tree was employed. At its roots a wheel divided into quarters signifying bile, blood, phlegm, and atrabile. The tree had two trunks, on one of which bloomed the principles of ancient medicine. Its first branch, the natural, bore seven flowers: the elements, complexions, humors, members, faculties, operations, and spirits; and four figures dependent on these, namely, ages, colors, shapes, and sexes. The second non-natural branch produced six flowers: air, exercise, food and drink, sleep and activity, emptiness and surfeit, and the accidents of the mind. The third bough, or contrary to nature, had three flowers: disease and its causes and results. The other main trunk had two boughs. One divided into hot and cold, moist and dry, and the four degrees of each. The other bore three triangles and a square. The red triangle represented the source, the middle, and the end; the green triangle stood for difference, agreement, and contrariety; the yellow triangle comprised majority, minority, and equality.[2737] The square divides into four colors: red for being; black for privation; blue for perfection; green for imperfection.[2738] Such are some of the diagrams of the Lullian art, intended presumably to be worked by cranks or levers. There is really nothing magical about them; they are purely mechanical and representative and illustrative. But in their make-up they are certainly suggestive of a Gnostic or Ophite diagram or of a geomantic wheel, and possibly may sometimes have been suspected of being magical by outsiders.

[Sidenote: Lull and alchemy.]

The use of the word “Art” for this logical machinery and graphic method of Raymond Lull perhaps also led to the notion that he was an alchemist and exponent of the Hermetic art. Various works of alchemy were ascribed to him but are regarded as spurious; perhaps some of them are by the Jew, Raymond of Tárrega, already mentioned. No work of alchemy is mentioned in the lists of his writings drawn up in 1311 and 1314,[2739] and the sixth part, devoted to metals, of his Libre de les Maravels is unfavorable to alchemy.[2740] In his Latin Questions Soluble by the Demonstrative or Inventive Art he again adduced reasons against transmutation.[2741] De Luanco has collected other passages from Raymond’s undisputed works unfavorable to alchemy and the alchemists.[2742] We have seen, however, that a writer may criticize most or all other alchemists sharply and question various doctrines and methods of alchemy and yet have his own way of getting around the difficulties whether theoretical, such as the permanence of species, or practical. There is therefore something to be said for the position of Barber who, while recognizing that the treatises current under Raymond’s name are spurious, adds, “We can well believe that he wrote as well as thought on alchemy.”[2743] And it was Berthelot’s opinion that while the works ascribed to Raymond are spurious, “nevertheless it is incontestable that those writings were composed by persons who believed themselves his disciples.”[2744] These spurious works were in existence at an early date and Raymond is cited as an alchemist from the fourteenth century on.

[Sidenote: His attitude to astrology.]

If Lull was an opponent of the art of transmuting metals rather than an adept in alchemy, he was at least a believer in astrology as several of his works show. It is true, and this is the more important to note as suggesting how Lull’s utterances on the subject of alchemy may also have been misunderstood, that the Histoire Littéraire de la France, in describing Raymond’s Tractatus novus de astronomia, written in 1297, gives the impression that it is directed against astrology, stating that Lull says that he has written it “to dissuade princes and magnates from trusting in the divinations of astrologers,” and adding, “Less worthy of praise is the second part of the work where the author assumes to apply to astronomy the principles of his art universal.”[2745] An examination of the treatise itself in manuscript[2746] shows that it is only of certain astrologers and diviners who deceive princes by false judgments from the stars that Raymond would have royalty beware. He writes his book not because “astronomy” (i.e. astrology) is false but because it is so difficult that often judgments made by the art turn out false, and because he wishes to investigate and discover new methods by which men can have greater knowledge of “astronomy” and its judgments. When he comes to speak of the properties of each planet, he remarks that “astronomers” attribute many properties to Saturn but do not prove them. He intends to employ his Art in investigating Saturn’s properties, and comes to the conclusion that men born under that planet are, among other traits, ponderously grave, suspicious by nature, disposed to toil and to build great edifices, and ambitious to hold office.[2747] Later on we find him spending many pages in listing different combinations of the planets in the signs as fortunate or unfortunate.[2748] All this, of course, is judicial astrology rather than astronomy. He “proves” also that the sky is animated by a moving and circular soul or spirit, and he states that “astronomers” recognize in their judgments that this soul of the sky is the cause of things caused in our inferior world.[2749] After a while, however, he does reprove “the philosophers who invented the science of astronomy” for “certain points in this science in which they have erred,” namely, in making it necessary and inevitable. Lull holds that God can alter nature as the smith alters the direction of his falling hammer, and that the human mind has free will to resist the influence of the stars.[2750] But this criticism of astrology is neither novel nor entirely justified. Lull never disputes but always accepts the theory that the heavenly bodies shed their influence and virtue upon inferiors. He does, however, speak slightingly of the art of geomancy and its practitioners.[2751]

[Sidenote: To the condemnation of 1277 at Paris.]

In the same year 1297 in which Raymond wrote the treatise just summarized he also published an imaginary dialogue dealing with the 219 opinions which had been condemned at Paris in 1277.[2752] In this dialogue “Socrates” undertakes the defense of philosophy while Raymond supports theology and the articles of condemnation. We have seen that a number of the opinions condemned were astrological in character. Raymond does not join in active condemnation of all of these, passing over a number in silence and perhaps intentionally evading them. On article 30, “that superior intelligences create rational souls without the motion of the sky; but that inferior intelligences create the vegetative and sensitive souls by means of the motion of the sky,” Raymond’s comment is that creation is the proper function of God. To Socrates’ repetition of the sixty-first article, “that God can do contrary things, that is, by means of a celestial body which is diverse in its whereabouts,” Raymond replies that God can act directly and produce contraries without the intervention of any heavenly body, if He wishes to, as He did in creating the four elements with their contrary qualities of hot and cold, dry and moist. Raymond adds, however, that God would not produce sins, since He is perfect in goodness. In reply to articles 92 and 102, that the heavenly bodies are moved by a soul and by appetitive virtue just like an animal, and that the soul of the sky is intelligence, Raymond answers that in his opinion it is correct to say that the sky has a motive soul but not a vegetative or sensitive or imaginative or rational soul. “If, however, I am not speaking the truth in this, I am prepared to receive correction; but I believe that I am speaking truly.” Raymond also upholds human free will as in the preceding treatise. The close of the present dialogue is, at least on the surface, an edifying instance of submission to ecclesiastical authority. Socrates asks Raymond if the theologians believe as he has been saying. Raymond replies that he believes so, since he has proved his own statements and believes them to be true, and he knows that the venerable lords and doctors of theology who are pillars of the Christian Faith believe only what is true. If, however, he has erred, it is unwittingly and unintentionally, and he humbly supplicates those most powerful masters to correct the words of their weak servant. Socrates chimes in that he has merely been repeating for his part what the ancient philosophers said, but that if any of it is contrary to Christianity, he does not want to believe it. He therefore proposes that they go to Paris and submit the book to the theologians there for their approval or correction, as his desire is to see “great concord between my lords the masters in theology and in philosophy.” It seems evident that behind his humble tone Lull is trying to soften down the condemnation of 1277 and substitute a somewhat more conciliatory attitude.

[Sidenote: The book of Raymond on medicine and astronomy.]

Lull’s attitude to astrology is further illustrated by a treatise in which he applies the method of his Art universal to the subject of astrological medicine.[2753] “Since the science of medicine is very difficult on account of its principles being so secret,” Raymond proposes to investigate them by means of his Art. His treatise has three divisions: the first, concerning the inferior world of the elements and the body of the human patient; the second, concerning the regions of the celestial bodies; and the third, consisting of questions. Raymond denotes the four elements by the letters from a to d, and the combinations of heat or cold with humidity and drought by the letters from e to h. He then introduces a figure with two circles representing the eighth sphere and the zodiac, since the motion of the planets controls that of the human body. These two circles are each divided into eight “houses,” which correspond to sixteen pairs of letters consisting of each of the four elements joined with each of the four letters denoting pairs of qualities, namely, ae, af, ag, ah, be, bf, bg, bh, ce, cf, cg, ch, de, df, dg, and dh. Raymond then discusses such topics as fevers, the pulse, evacuation, diet, bleeding, bathing, the color of the urine, digestion and indigestion, pains, appetite, and the method of grading medicines. The relation of his letters and “houses” to these matters may be seen from his statement that the house of ae causes one kind of appetite, that of be another, and so on. Coming to the second section of his treatise, Lull treats of the planets and signs and relates the conjunctions of the various planets with one another to his eight letters and their combinations. In the third part he puts illustrative problems and solves them by reference to his preceding text.

[Sidenote: An uncomplimentary allusion to thirteenth century medicine.]

We might think Lull an opponent of medicine, if we attended only to a passage in his Contemplation of God.[2754] Here he complains that doctors of the body are more sought after, better paid, more scrupulously obeyed than are physicians of the soul. They go well clad on good steeds, and amass wealth by working all sorts of impositions upon their patients, boasting of their knowledge of diseases of which they are really ignorant, prolonging the period of illness in order to increase their pay, and prescribing syrups and the like in large quantities because they share in the profits of the apothecaries. They try out potions on their patients which they would never take themselves, and there is no other art in the world so risky and over which there is so much disagreement. These remarks of Raymond are, however, the sort of satirical observations on medical practice that might be made at almost any period, so that it is difficult to tell if they are especially applicable to the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Necromancy and divine names.]

In closing we may note two brief indications of Lull’s belief in two other occult subjects, namely, necromancy and the power of divine names. Of necromancy he of course did not approve but in the treatise just cited he adduces the art of necromancy as evidence for the existence of God, since it requires the services of demons and they are no other beings than fallen angels who owe their existence to God.[2755] This somewhat tortuous theistic argument we have already heard advanced by Justin Martyr. In his treatise in Catalan on The Hundred Names of God Raymond asks, “Since God has put virtues in words, plants, and stones, how will He not have put far greater virtue into His names?”[2756]

FOOTNOTES:

[2730] A number of works on Lull have appeared recently: M. André, Le bienheureux Raymond Lulle, 3rd edition, Paris, 1900; S. M. Zwemer, Raymund Lull, First Missionary to the Moslems, New York, 1902; W. T. A. Barber, Raymond Lull, the illuminated doctor: a study in medieval missions, London, 1903; J. H. Probst, Caractère et origines des idées du bienheureux Raymond Lulle, Toulouse, 1912. By Barber also the article “Lullists” in ERE. The fullest discussion of Raymond’s writings seems to remain, however, that in HL 29: 1-386, which includes works still in MSS. The most accessible edition of the works in print is perhaps that of Salzinger, Mainz, 1721-1742, in ten folio volumes. The Revista Lulliana was started at Barcelona in 1901.

[2731] A. Helfferich, Raymond Lull und die Anfänge der catalonischen Literatur, Berlin, 1858.

[2732] William Turner, in CE.

[2733] A. Gottron, Ramon Lulls Kreuzzugsideen, Berlin, 1912.

[2734] Don Francisco de Bofarull y Sans, El Testamento de Ramón Lull y la Escuela Luliana en Barcelona, Madrid, 1896, 96 pp. Extract from vol. 5 of Memorias de la Real Acad. de Buenas Letras de Barcelona. L. Delisle, Testaments d’Arnaud de Villeneuve et de Raimond Lulle, 20 juillet 1305 et 26 avril 1313; Extrait du Journal des Savants, June, 1896.

[2735] Barber in ERE.

[2736] Probst (1912) chapter 8, “Lulle Savant,” especially pp. 156-7, 164-5, 171. The chapter appears to be written almost entirely from secondary sources and shows an insufficient knowledge of the middle ages in general.

[2737] I have seen in Digby 85, fols. 152r-86v, Speculum medicine (of Lull) which is mainly devoted to a discussion of these three triangles.

[2738] For this and the preceding paragraph on the circles employed in theology I have followed the descriptions in HL 29: 75 ff. and 87 ff.

[2739] HL 29: 271.

[2740] HL 29: 354. The work is in Catalan; the other nine parts treat of God, angels, elements, sky, plants, beasts, men, Paradise, hell.

[2741] HL 29: 139. Quaestiones per artem demonstrativam seu inventivam solubiles.

[2742] J. R. de Luanco, Ramon Lull considerado como alquimista, Barcelona, 1870.

[2743] “Lullists” in ERE.

[2744] Berthelot, La chimie au moyen âge, vol. I.

[2745] HL 29: 309.

[2746] I have used CLM 10544, fols. 287r-368r, to which the following citations apply, and CLM 10597, which includes only the portion concerning the twelve signs and seven planets.

[2747] Fol. 291v-292r.

[2748] Fol. 342v et seq.

[2749] Fol. 336r.

[2750] Fols. 357-9.

[2751] Fol. 360r.

[2752] P. O. Reicher, Raymundus Lullus und seine Stellung zur Arabischen Philosophie, mit einem Anhang enthaltend die zum ersten Male veröffentlichte “Declaratio Raymundi per modum dialogi edita” (contra aliquorum philosophorum et eorum sequacium opiniones erroneas et damnatas a venerabili Patre Domino Episcopo Parisiensi) pp. 95-221, in Beiträge, VII, 4 and 5 (1909).

[2753] Digby 85, early 15th century, fols. 131-49r, “Liber Raymundi de medicina et astronomia” (In Antonius, Bibl. Hisp. Vet. II, 129, “Liber de regionibus infirmitatis et sanitatis”). According to Macray the opening words are “Quoniam scientia medicine est multum difficilis,” but the first word appears as “Quum” in my notes on the MS. “Explicit Medicina Raymundi in Monte Pessulano anno Christi 1403,” on which Macray comments, “(sic; rectius 1303)” but perhaps 1403 is the date of this copy. This MS contains other works by Lull on his Art and on medicine.

[2754] HL 29: 230. Liber contemplationis in Deum.

[2755] HL 29: 233.

[2756] HL 29: 265-6; Els cent Noms de Deu.

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