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Book/Printed Material Fragment of the Picatrix.

About this Item

Title

  • Fragment of the Picatrix.

Summary

  • The document presented here is a two-page fragment of the work known in medieval Europe as the Picatrix. This was a book of astronomy, astrology, mystical and occult knowledge, alchemy, and magic composed in Arabic in Moorish Spain some time before the middle of the 11th century. The version known in Europe was a Latin translation of a lost Arabic original, dating from around 1250. The original work was often attributed to the astronomer and mathematician Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majriti (died circa 1004), but this attribution was disproved by modern scholarship. The title "Picatrix" is thought to be a distortion of the name of the great Greek physician Hippocrates. The fragment shown here dates from the 14th century and was long preserved in the Piarist library in Podolínec, northern Slovakia. It is now in the collections of the Slovak National Library. The German Arabist Wilhelm Printz discovered the Arabic original of the Picatrix in around 1920, the title of which (Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm) has been translated as "The Aim of the Sage" or "The Goal of The Wise."

Created / Published

  • [place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [1300 to 1399]

Headings

  • -  Spain
  • -  1300 to 1399
  • -  Astrology, Arab
  • -  Literature, Medieval
  • -  Magic
  • -  Occultism

Notes

  • -  Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
  • -  Original resource extent: 4 folios.
  • -  Reference extracted from World Digital Library: Willy Hartner, "Notes on Picatrix," Isis: A Journal of the History of Science 56, no. 4 (Winter 1965).
  • -  Original resource at: Slovak National Library.
  • -  Content in Latin.
  • -  Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.

Medium

  • 1 online resource.

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021667701

Online Format

  • compressed data
  • pdf
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

Rights & Access

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Credit Line: [Original Source citation], World Digital Library

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Fragment of the Picatrix. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, to 1399, 1300] Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667701/.

APA citation style:

(1300) Fragment of the Picatrix. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, to 1399] [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667701/.

MLA citation style:

Fragment of the Picatrix. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, to 1399, 1300] Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021667701/>.