Studies on Magic: Seals of the Four Emperors in Cod.Mag.06

Cod.Mag.06 is one of the most astounding manuscripts of magic in the Leipzig collection, bearing the title Nigromantia sive Cabala nigra et alba Doct. Joh. Fausti mit allen dazugehörigen Beruff und Beschwerungen unter seines Famuli Nahmen Gottfried Wagner herausgegeben und zu London gedruckt. Anno 1411 d. 11. April loosely translatable as The Necromancy or the Black and White Cabala of Doctor Johannes Faust, with all the associated callings and weighings, published and printed under his servant s name, Gottfried Wagner, in London, Year 1411, the 11th of April.

Complex Circle, fol.31r

A magical book nonetheless if we believed it s colophon, since the first printed book in London would be produced only in 1473, and still a few good years before the very birth of the hystorical Faust...

Besides all the wonderous diagrams of circles, belts and pentacles, the book contains the seals of 72 demons and their names and descriptions, certainly different from the classical ones of the Goetia, together with 8 seals of the Four Emperors and six additional seals set aside from the others, in the same hierarchy.

Our atention will go now to the Four Emperors, two of whom have one seal each and a series of characters separate from the seal mentioned beneath the description, on fols.8r-9r, while the other two only have the characters. This might clue us in as to multiple sources used in compiling the treatise.

Seal of Oriens