The Arabic occult text beloved by the Italian Renaissance

Majriti, Maslama ibn Ahmad al-. Kitab ghayat al-hakim [Picatrix].

[Levant, late 19th century CE].

Large 4to (200 x 253 mm). 190 ff. Arabic manuscript on paper. Black naskh script with important words and phrases, as well as astrological symbols, picked out red. Early 20th century red leather, with flap.

 9,500.00

Widely considered "the most thorough exposition of celestial magic in Arabic" (Pingree, p. 1) and the source text, little known outside the Arab world until the 20th century, of the massively influential Latin 'Picatrix': This manuscript is a complete copy of the original Arabic source text under its original title, "Kitab ghayat al-hakim". It has been credited as an early precursor to experimental science and was in many ways the basis of Renaissance natural magic. The authorship of Maslama al-Majriti (ca. 950-1007 CE) is contested, but it is generally agreed that the author was a resident of Muslim Spain in the late Golden Age of Islam, perhaps later in the 11th century. Al-Majriti, a renowned alchemist and scholar from Al-Andalus, was however commonly named as the author in premodern scholarship.

The work itself is a fantastic compendium of divination, natural magic, astrology, and alchemy, drawing not only on Arabic sources but also on a wide array of traditions including Hermeticism and Ismailism. The manuscript includes, written into the text, lines of talismanic designs and astrological symbols, and instructs its reader in the occult and esoteric arts.

Condition

In excellent condition.

References

David Pingree, "Some of the Sources of the Ghayat al-hakim" in Journal of the Warburg and Courtald Insititutes 43 (1980), pp. 1-15.