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Monday 20 April 2020

Unknown seal of Jupiter

In my researches through the wonderful manuscripts of the Biblioteca Laurenziana Medicea of Florence I`ve come across a manuscript so far overlooked by scholars of magic (to my knowledge at least) namely Plutei 89sup41. 

It contains a fragmentary version of the Book of the Uses of Psalms (a late version of which was published by David Rankine as the Book of Gold), but also various geomantical and astrological work, including a necromantic experiment I shall treat separately and a curious singular seal of Jupiter, depicted in f.80v, which I have extracted and cleaned: 


The seal is not part of larger work, nor is it accompanied by any indications or prescriptions, which can lead us to two possible explanations:

1. The seal is copied from a larger work because it suited the compilator`s needs, a work so far unknown to me and possibly completely lost.

2. The compiler created the seal, guided by necessity, by collating different seals related to Jupiter. 

The latter possibility seems more probable, since nearly all the elements of the work appear in other works. A curious exception is the triangular figure, so far not known to me from Western manuscripts, but quite common in construction to Arabic and Indian magic texts, using the same principles as the magic squares. 

A closer look at the names and figures? Glad you asked. 



Character set 1

Cedech is a latin deformation of Tzedek, the Hebrew name for Jupiter. 
Astrological signs of Cancer (exaltation of Jupiter), Sagittarius and Pisces (domiciles), with a Jupiter glyph in between. 
Unidentified Hebrew name, [He], [Yud/Vav/Resh/Daleth], [Vav,Zayin], [Thav].


Character set 2
Similar to Agrippa, Characters of Jupiter OP.1, signs 4,3,2 and 1. The numbers 34 and 136 are also Jupiter`s numbers in Agrippa. 


Character set 3
Similar to Agrippa, Characters of Jupiter OP.1, signs 5, 6, 7 and 8. The fifth character is unknown. 



Character set 4
Similar to Agrippa, Characters of Jupiter OP.1, signs 11 and 9. The number 34, associated with Jupiter, and Zadechiel, the angel of Jupiter. The shapes and order of the characters, as well as the forms of the names (Cedech/ Zadechiel) makes us think that the compiler did not use Agrippa directly, but perhaps a manuscript version of it or one of his sources. 



Character set 5
Presumably the seal of Aries (sigla in the outer ring). Part of the Fire Triplicity. Unidentified.





Character set 6
Presumably the seal of Leo (sigla in the outer ring)
Part of the Fire Triplicity. 


Character set 7
Presumably the seal of Sagittarius (sigla in the outer ring), part of the Fire Triplicity. Numbers 294 and 35 do no make much sense in the scale of numbers attributed to Jupiter. The rest of the characters seem Hebrew letters deformed. 

The Names 

Astrades Nascegeon Sexagip Tori Teticiten Filiops Ncrisel are the angels of Jupiter in the widely-distributed work of Zael De Imaginibus, on which I am currently working. For comparison I will reproduce below  the names of the angels of Jupiter  in three other Italian manuscripts:

- F (Firenze BML Plutei.89sup.038) fol.8v
-D (Darmstadt Hs.1410) fol.73v
-I (Paris BnF Ital.1524) fol.72r

Names
Ms. F
Ms. D
Ms. I

Nascegeon
Nastegeon
Nascegeon
Vascegeon
Sexagip
fesagip
Sesigip
Sayagap
Tori
rexs
Tors
Cors
Teticiten
temitcen
Lanetutem
Centucena
Filiops
fulops
Fieliops
Feliops
Ncrisel
Versiel
Nersiel
Versiel
Astrades
Astromdex
Astrandex
Ascrandex


Numeric figures

After first publishing this article I`ve become aware of manuscript CPG.263, which contains the triangle as well as the square. 



The triangular figure is isolated from a seal meant to be represented as averse-reverse, being based upon the Amicable Numbers (many thanks to Dan Ciubotaru for bringing them to my attention). Their use can be traced to Thabit ibn Qurrah, and I am currently researching Arabic instances of this seal. 


The square of Jupiter can also be traced to CPG.263. It`s sequence is identical, quite different from the one published by Agrippa and made famous afterwods. So there is a great chance that CPG.263 or at least a dependent version was available to our Florentine humanist magician. 

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