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PSEUDO-ARISTOTLE, Secreta Secretorum, in the Latin translation of Philip of Tripoli, manuscript on paper [France, late 15th century]
A 15th-century manuscript copy of ‘Secret of Secrets’: the most important and most read medieval best-seller on alchemy, magic, geomancy and the occult.
193 x 140mm. 59 leaves, apparently complete, modern foliation in pencil 1-59 followed here. 26-36 lines, some contemporary annotations (some spaces for initials left blank, a few minor spots and marginal staining). 19th-century mottled blue paper wrappers with paper label ‘19’, pink paper endleaves (upper cover and first leaf detached).
Provenance: Zisska & Kistner: Handschriften, Autographen, seltene Bücher, 20 May 1996 lot 2 – Sotheby’s, 22 June 1999, lot 81.
Content: First prologue and index ff.1-4v; second prologue ff.5-7; Secreta secretorum ff.7-59v, opening with chapters on kingship (f.7) and on virtue, justice, mercy, on maintaining health, sleep, and other matters which affect the well-being of mankind, on the seasons, diet, different foods, wines, baths, etc. The second part (beginning f.32v) is on the nature of the universe, with chapters on astronomy, plants and medicine.
The Secreta Secretorum is a pseudo-aristotelian treatise which purports to be a letter from Aristotle to his student Alexander the Great on an encyclopaedic range of topics, including statecraft, ethics, physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine. The legend of the transmission of this extraordinary book was documented in the Middle Ages: the second prologue in the present manuscript recounts that the translator Johannes travelled the world until he reached an oracle of the sun built by Esculapides. Here, we are told, a hermit entrusted him with an ancient Greek manuscript, which he then translated into Chaldaic and thence into Arabic. This ‘Johannes’ was probably the 9th-century scholar Abu Yahya ibn al-Batriq (died 815 CE), one of the main translators of Greek-language philosophical works for Al-Ma'mun, working from a Syriac edition which was itself translated from a Greek original. The Arabic version was translated into Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish, and twice into Latin: the first for the Portuguese queen c.?1120 by the converso John of Seville; the second for Guido, bishop of Valencia in c.?1232 at Antioch by Philip of Tripoli (preserved today in c.350 copies). See L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, II, 1923, pp.267-78 and Steven J. Williams, The Secret of Secrets: the scholarly career of a pseudo-Aristotelian text in the Latin Middle Ages, 2003).
A 15th-century manuscript copy of ‘Secret of Secrets’: the most important and most read medieval best-seller on alchemy, magic, geomancy and the occult.
193 x 140mm. 59 leaves, apparently complete, modern foliation in pencil 1-59 followed here. 26-36 lines, some contemporary annotations (some spaces for initials left blank, a few minor spots and marginal staining). 19th-century mottled blue paper wrappers with paper label ‘19’, pink paper endleaves (upper cover and first leaf detached).
Provenance: Zisska & Kistner: Handschriften, Autographen, seltene Bücher, 20 May 1996 lot 2 – Sotheby’s, 22 June 1999, lot 81.
Content: First prologue and index ff.1-4v; second prologue ff.5-7; Secreta secretorum ff.7-59v, opening with chapters on kingship (f.7) and on virtue, justice, mercy, on maintaining health, sleep, and other matters which affect the well-being of mankind, on the seasons, diet, different foods, wines, baths, etc. The second part (beginning f.32v) is on the nature of the universe, with chapters on astronomy, plants and medicine.
The Secreta Secretorum is a pseudo-aristotelian treatise which purports to be a letter from Aristotle to his student Alexander the Great on an encyclopaedic range of topics, including statecraft, ethics, physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine. The legend of the transmission of this extraordinary book was documented in the Middle Ages: the second prologue in the present manuscript recounts that the translator Johannes travelled the world until he reached an oracle of the sun built by Esculapides. Here, we are told, a hermit entrusted him with an ancient Greek manuscript, which he then translated into Chaldaic and thence into Arabic. This ‘Johannes’ was probably the 9th-century scholar Abu Yahya ibn al-Batriq (died 815 CE), one of the main translators of Greek-language philosophical works for Al-Ma'mun, working from a Syriac edition which was itself translated from a Greek original. The Arabic version was translated into Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish, and twice into Latin: the first for the Portuguese queen c.?1120 by the converso John of Seville; the second for Guido, bishop of Valencia in c.?1232 at Antioch by Philip of Tripoli (preserved today in c.350 copies). See L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, II, 1923, pp.267-78 and Steven J. Williams, The Secret of Secrets: the scholarly career of a pseudo-Aristotelian text in the Latin Middle Ages, 2003).
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