"Gaudent brevitatem moderni": late-medieval revisions of magical theories on the example of the Almandal of Solomon

Journal title SOCIETÀ E STORIA
Author/s Damaris Gehr
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/139
Language Italian Pages 36 P. 1-36 File size 1951 KB
DOI 10.3280/SS2013-139001
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This article deals with some crucial moments in the editorial history of the Almandal, a pseudosolomonic treatise on the invocation of spirits and angels which circulated widely in Europe in two main versions approximately since the beginning of the thirteenth century. The author introduces a new version of the Almandal which has been preserved in the codex Halle, ULB, 14 B 36. A survey of all known manuscripts proves that the first version of the treatise, which was considered to be a Latin translation of an Arabic text, is in fact the result of the simplification of an earlier Latin text of greater complexity of which almost all traces are lost. The article establishes a new date of the second version of the Almandal and suggests that this version, which was considered to be a Christian adaptation of an Arabic text, is likely to be a Latin translation of a Hebrew text based on the Arabic tradition. The process of simplification and revision of Latin magical treatises, of which the Almandal is an example, is presented as a typical feature of the process of christianisation which characterises the western esoteric tradition during the last centuries of the Middle Ages.

Keywords: Redactional history and datation of the Latin Almandals; textual stratification, simplification and christianisation of medieval texts on learned magic; the Arabic and Hebrew Almandals; historiography on the Almandal; Liber iutarus of Honorius; Magica of Solomon.

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Damaris Gehr, "Gaudent brevitatem moderni": rielaborazioni della teoria magica nel tardo medioevo Sull’esempio dell’Almandal di Salomone in "SOCIETÀ E STORIA " 139/2013, pp 1-36, DOI: 10.3280/SS2013-139001