Welcome to my very quiet corner of academic studies on magic. This page is not about practice of magic or modern theories on magic, but about classical texts, manuscripts and translations.
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Saturday 27 July 2013
Opus Zoal or a mistitled image magic work
My fascination towards graphical representations in manuscripts took me to a lesser known tract in the image magic section.
The Codex Latinus Monacensis 849, also known as the CLM 849 or the Munich Manual, published by Richard Kieckhefer, is already notorious, but its contents have not been transcribed in full. The bulk of the material has been transcribed in Latin in the second part of proffesor s Kieckhefer s book, a part of it has been traslated, but some of the appended material has not.
One striking treatise is placed at fols 147r-154v and Kieckhefer reffers to it as a treatise of astral magic, Opus Zoal et angellorum et spirituum eius.
The title lead me to believe that this was a work atributed to Zoal or Zoel, a common misspeling of Sahl ibn Bishr al Israili (786-845), due to the astral nature of the treatise and its incipit, an author whose De Imaginis I am also transcribing now.
But on page 147r we find: Opus Almusterij et angellorum et spirituum eius.
The first chapter deals with the things associated with Saturn, like it s sign, month, metal, stone, animal, birds and so fort, wit it s seals and angels:
The second one deals with Jupiter, and so forth.
Opus Zoal reffers to Saturn, Zohal in Arabic, while Almusterij is Jupiter, Al-Mushtari in Arabic.
I have a hunch that the material is closely related to the Picatrix.
It will also give me a chance to get back to my paleography studies.
Source of images: CLM 849, Bayerische Staadtsbibliothek, Munchen
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