Grimoires and ManuscriptsA website by Studio Esoterico CornelioAuthors and libraries
The history of magical books is also the history of those who wrote, copied, collected and sometimes burned them. This section introduces the medieval and Renaissance authors whose names are linked, rightly or by legend, to the grimoire tradition: from Albertus Magnus to Michael Scot, from Roger Bacon to Ramon Llull, from Pietro d'Abano to Trithemius, down to Marsilio Ficino and John Dee. Alongside them stand the libraries that preserved these texts or shaped their fate: ancient Alexandria, the Laurentian Library in Florence, the Vatican Library and its collections, the court of Rudolf II in Prague, the English collections of Elias Ashmole, Hans Sloane and Henry Wellcome, and the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. One chapter is devoted to the Index of Forbidden Books, which for four centuries decided what a Catholic was allowed to read. Every article carefully separates documented facts from uncertain attributions and from legend.
1.John Dee and the Library at Mortlake, the Richest in England
How John Dee gathered thousands of books and manuscripts at Mortlake, what his 1583 catalogue reveals, and where his surviving volumes are kept today.
2.John Dee's Angelic Diaries: the Long Journey of the Manuscripts
From the sessions with Edward Kelley to Meric Casaubon's 1659 edition and the chest recovered by Ashmole: the eventful history of John Dee's papers.
3.Trithemius at Sponheim: a Book-Loving Abbot in Humanist Germany
Johannes Trithemius turned the poor library of Sponheim Abbey into a collection of some two thousand volumes and became a founder of bibliography.
4.Trithemius's Steganographia: Cryptography Disguised as Magic
Begun around 1499, Trithemius's Steganographia looked like a book of conjurations but was largely a cipher system. Its history and rediscovery.
5.Pietro d'Abano, the Paduan Physician Who Became a Legendary Magus
A fourteenth-century physician and philosopher, author of the Conciliator, Pietro d'Abano was tried by the Inquisition and turned into a magus by legend.
6.Albertus Magnus between Natural Science and Books of Secrets
A thirteenth-century theologian and naturalist, Albertus Magnus wrote on stones and plants; the Speculum astronomiae and the Secreta made him a magus.
7.Michael Scot, Translator and Astrologer at the Court of Frederick II
Dante placed him among the soothsayers, yet Michael Scot was a major translator of Aristotle and Averroes and astrologer to Emperor Frederick II.
8.Roger Bacon: the Opus maius, the Brazen Head and the Voynich
The Franciscan Roger Bacon sent his Opus maius to the pope in 1267. How a theorist of experimental science became the magician of English legend.
9.Ramon Llull, the Combinatory Art and the False Llull the Alchemist
The Majorcan Ramon Llull invented an Art of principles and combinatory wheels; after his death a whole library of alchemical texts was ascribed to him.
10.The Library of Alexandria between Documented History and Myth
Founded by the Ptolemies in the third century BC, the Library of Alexandria was the heart of ancient philology. What we really know about its end.
11.The Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam
Born from a private collection and opened in 1984, the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica gathers Hermetism, alchemy, Böhme and Rosicrucian texts.
12.The Index of Forbidden Books and the Censorship of Magical Books
From 1559 to 1966 the Index of Forbidden Books decided what Catholics could read. The ninth Tridentine rule and the fate of books on magic.
13.The Vatican Library and Its Collections: from Nicholas V to the Barberini
Founded by Sixtus IV in 1475, the Vatican Library absorbed the Palatina, Urbino and Barberini collections: a guide to its holdings and astrology codices.
14.Christina of Sweden, Alchemy and the Reginensis Collection
The queen who abdicated in 1654 brought to Rome a library partly born of the Prague war booty. Her codices now form the Vatican's Reginensis collection.
15.The Wellcome Library in London: Medicine, Alchemy and Magic
The pharmacist Henry Wellcome collected books, manuscripts and amulets from every culture. His London library is now a key resource on alchemy and magic.
16.Elias Ashmole: Alchemy, Astrology and the Birth of the Ashmolean
Antiquary, astrologer and collector of alchemical texts, Elias Ashmole gave Oxford the museum opened in 1683 and a vast archive of manuscripts.
17.Hans Sloane, the Sloane Grimoires and the Birth of the British Museum
The physician Hans Sloane left the nation over seventy thousand objects and thousands of manuscripts, including copies of the Key of Solomon and Dee papers.
18.Rudolf II's Prague: Library, Wonders and Alchemists
Tycho Brahe, Kepler and alchemists such as Maier worked at Rudolf II's court in Prague. The Codex Gigas, the Voynich and the dispersal of 1648.
19.The Laurentian Library: the Medici Codices and Michelangelo's Hall
From the collection of Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici to Michelangelo's reading desks: the Laurentian Library and its manuscripts of philosophy and astrology.
20.Marsilio Ficino and the Pimander: Hermes Trismegistus Comes to Florence
In 1463 Ficino translated the Hermetic treatises for Cosimo de' Medici, printed in 1471 as the Pimander. So began the natural magic of the Renaissance.