Grimoires and ManuscriptsA website by Studio Esoterico CornelioThe art of the magical book
A book of magic is not made of words alone. In medieval codices and in the printed volumes of the early modern period, the layout of the page, the images, the materials and even the title page tell a story of their own. This section follows the magical and alchemical book as an object: from the miniatures of the Splendor Solis to the diagrams of the Ars notoria, from the seals of the Key of Solomon to the secret alphabets of Trithemius and Agrippa, from parchment and inks to the presses of Venice and Lyon. We meet the cheap booklets of the Bibliothèque bleue and the pedlars who carried them to the villages, the false title pages of French grimoires, the books of secrets of Alessio Piemontese and Della Porta, the emblems of Alciato and the engravings of the Atalanta fugiens. Finally we tell of the collectors who saved these volumes, the nineteenth-century editions of Mathers and Waite, the enigma of the Voynich manuscript and the digital libraries that today make accessible to all a heritage long kept hidden.
1.Splendor Solis and the Miniatures of Alchemical Manuscripts
From the Aurora consurgens to the Splendor Solis: how fifteenth and sixteenth-century illuminators painted the stages of the alchemical work.
2.Magical Diagrams: the Notae of the Ars Notoria and Lull's Wheels
Circles, wheels and geometric figures in medieval books of magic: the notae of the Ars notoria, the wheels of Ramon Lull and the grimoire circles.
3.Seals and Pentacles: the Figures of the Key of Solomon
A history of seals in grimoires: from the Sigillum Dei of the Sworn Book to the pentacles of the Key of Solomon, Agrippa's magic squares and the Goetia.
4.Secret Alphabets: Theban, the Celestial Scripts and the Grimoires
The Theban alphabet of Trithemius, Agrippa's celestial scripts and John Dee's Enochian language: a history of secret characters in magical books.
5.Parchment and Inks: the Material of Books of Magic
Skins, paper, iron gall ink and gold: the materials of magical manuscripts and the symbolic value grimoires gave to virgin parchment.
6.Presses and Grimoires: Printing Magical Books in Venice and Lyon
How printing changed the circulation of occult knowledge: the workshops of Venice, the rue Mercière in Lyon, the Index of Prohibited Books and manuscripts.
7.The Bibliothèque bleue of Troyes: Popular Books in Blue Covers
From the Oudot presses in Troyes, cheap booklets in blue paper: chivalric romances, almanacs, the Grand Albert and Petit Albert across France.
8.Books on Their Backs: Colportage and the Pedlars of Grimoires
French colporteurs, the Tesino pedlars who sold Remondini prints and the 1852 commission: how books of popular magic travelled on foot.
9.Memphis 1517 and Other Deceptions: the False Imprints of Grimoires
Impossible dates, exotic cities and imaginary printers: why the French grimoires of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lied on their title pages.
10.From Ashmole to Keynes: Collecting Books of Magic and Alchemy
Elias Ashmole, Hans Sloane, Newton's alchemical papers and the great collections of Glasgow, Yale and London: how occult collections were formed.
11.MacGregor Mathers and the Nineteenth-Century Rediscovery of Grimoires
From The Kabbalah Unveiled to the Key of Solomon and Abramelin: how Mathers turned British Museum manuscripts into modern printed books.
12.Arthur Edward Waite, Bibliographer of Grimoires and Ceremonial Magic
The Book of Black Magic of 1898, his translations of Lévi and of alchemical texts: Waite and the first critical look at French and Latin grimoires.
13.The Secrets of Alessio Piemontese, a Sixteenth-Century Bestseller
Venice 1555: a book of secrets by the mysterious Alessio Piemontese conquers Europe. Its history, contents and attribution to Girolamo Ruscelli.
14.Della Porta, Isabella Cortese and Natural Magic in the Books of Secrets
Giovan Battista Della Porta's Magia naturalis, the Secreti of Isabella Cortese and Leonardo Fioravanti: secret knowledge in sixteenth-century Italy.
15.Andrea Alciato and the Birth of the Emblem Book
Augsburg 1531: Alciato's Emblematum liber joins motto, image and epigram. The origins of emblematics and the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo.
16.Atalanta Fugiens: the Alchemical Book to Look at and to Sing
Oppenheim 1617: Michael Maier publishes fifty alchemical emblems with engravings, epigrams, discourses and musical fugues. The story of a unique book.
17.From the Rosarium to the Mutus Liber: Alchemical Iconography in Print
The woodcuts of the Rosarium philosophorum, the Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, the Musaeum hermeticum and the wordless Mutus liber of La Rochelle.
18.Grimoires Online: Digitising Magical and Alchemical Manuscripts
Digital libraries, high-resolution images and the IIIF standard: how digitisation has changed the study of grimoires and alchemical codices.
19.The Voynich Manuscript, the Illustrated Book No One Can Read
Early fifteenth-century vellum, an unknown script and plants that do not exist: the Voynich manuscript, from the court of Rudolf II to Yale.
20.Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Dreams, Hieroglyphs and Aldus's Finest Book
Venice 1499: the enigmatic illustrated romance printed by Aldus Manutius, with its woodcuts, false hieroglyphs, the Colonna acrostic and alchemical readings.