Avner Ben Zaken Traveling With The Picat PDF

Avner Ben-Zaken
Traveling with the Picatrix:

cultural liminalities of science and magic
In his bold De hominis dignitate (On the Dignity of Man), dated 1486, Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola claimed that natural magic originated in Persia and India.
Zoroaster’s magic, Pico continued, was the same divine art conveyed to Persian
princes teaching ‘how to rule according to the dogma of the world republic’.
Toward the end of his oration, Pico discussed the origins of natural magic:
Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato, he explained, had acquired
magic’s secrets in far-off lands. For them, this Eastern philosophy was the most
sublime of all arts. From the Persians it had been conveyed to the Greeks and the
Arabs, who transferred it to Renaissance intellectuals (della Mirandola 1998, 29).
In recent years scholars have taken up Pico’s invitation and started explor-
ing the chain of transmission from the Arab world to European philosophers
and practitioners of natural magic during the Renaissance (Boudet, Caiozzo and
Weill-Parot 2011; Saif 2015). Important works focusing on the Picatrix have shed
light on the ways it contributed to the formation of a philosophical framework
around ideas derived from magic.1
Here, however, I would like to probe a complementary perspective and to
point out the connection between the multiple receptions of the Picatrix (Ghāyat
1 In the mid-1970s, Vittoria Peronne Compagni forcefully delved into the religious and moral
aspects of the Picatrix, showing its great effect on various fields of the intellectual life of the
Renaissance (see Perrone Compagni 1975; idem 1977). Eugenio Garin stressed the importance of
the text as a link between divinatory astrology and natural magic, stating its role in arguing that
‘the celestial powers, in fact, come to be caught, and placated or used, by imprisoning them in
fictitious material representations, talismans and amulets, capable of absorbing and concentrat-
ing astral forces’. Garin held that the Picatrix was for this process ‘as indispensable as the Corpus
Hermeticum or the writings of Albumasar for understanding a conspicuous part of the produc-
tion of the Renaissance, including the figurative arts’ (Garin 1983, 47). Paola Zambelli further un-
derscored the importance of the Picatrix to the rise of natural magic, brilliantly showing that the
text was read and digested even before the rediscovery of the Corpus Hermeticum (see Zambelli
2007, 9). Anthony Grafton ingeniously showed that the unacknowledged citation of the Picatrix
teaches us about methods of note taking and how knowledge was classified in the Renaissance
(see Grafton 2004). More recently Bernd-Christian Otto has insightfully pointed out the crucial
role cross-cultural and long term exploration of the history of several canonical works, such as
the Picatrix, have had for the progress of our understanding of the origins and role of magic in
Western civilisation (Otto 2016).
Open Access. © 2019 Avner Ben-Zaken, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed
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1034 Avner Ben-Zaken
al-ḥakīm [literally, ‘the purpose of the sage’])2 and the ways in which natural
magic challenged the tenets of late medieval philosophy of nature. The implied
presence of the work in the writings of three Renaissance philosophers – Marsilio
Ficino, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, and Tommaso Campanella – appears in con-
nection to their discussion of natural magic, which aimed at revising the prin-
ciples of natural philosophy by asserting such notions as action at a distance,
natural motion by agency, the centrality of the sun, the linear motion of light
rays, and the practical role of the individual, the magus, in making philosophy.
Such radical physical notions could not appear without the reviving interest in
ancient religions and without the rising demand to individualise not only the
practices for knowing God but also the practices for knowing nature.
I argue that such assertions indicate the central role the Picatrix played in
reviving ancient religious practices for knowing nature and combining them with
a contemporary philosophy of nature, pointing out that the origins of natural
magic are rooted in ancient eastern religions. Thus, the Picatrix played a central
role in, to use the words of Brian Copenhaver, the ‘rebirth of natural philosophy
that encouraged natural magic by grounding it in eclectic Aristotelian thought’
(Copenhaver 2015) and also in providing the impetus towards the first phase of
the scientific revolution, as Frances Yates long argued (Yates 1964).
1 The text
Picatrix is a talismanic text from eleventh-century Iberia.3 Although background
information about the text and its author are obscure, Maribel Fierro has attrib-
uted the work to a tenth-century Andalusian mathematician named Maslama b.
Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (Fierro 1996, 105–7). Originally written in Arabic, it was first
translated into Hebrew by an unknown translator. Alfonso X, as part of his cam-
paign to turn the Castilian vernacular into an imperial and intellectual language,
2 Since Renaissance scholars read the Picatrix from complete or incomplete manuscript copies
of the Latin translation, there was no single fixed text. Therefore, I am using the printed edition
prepared by David Pingree (1986), who meticulously compared the extant manuscripts and ex-
cerpts that have survived in European archives. To give a complementary view, I have provided
the relevant passages from the Arabic edition published by Hellmut Ritter in Leipzig in 1933. At
some points the two versions diverge, indicating that the Latin text had a life of its own.
3 Some scholars question whether the text was originally produced in Spain. Godefroid de Cal-
lataÿ argues that the text is rooted in the tradition of the Ikhwān al-safā’, the great occultist ency-
clopedia of the Iraqi Brethren of Purity and the Sabeism ḥarrānien, thus stressing that its origins
are in the Middle East and not Spain (see Callataÿ 2011).
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Traveling with the Picatrix: cultural liminalities of science and magic 1035
ordered its translation into Spanish in 1256 (Pingree 1981, 47; Avilés 2011, 95–123).
Christian scholars later produced a Latin version, explaining their choice of
title by spinning the following yarn: ‘The wise, noble, and honored philosopher
Picatrix (perhaps a distortion of Arabic name, perhaps Buqatris [Hypocrates])
compiled it from two hundred different books and many philosophers’.4 Practi-
tioners of natural magic copied, read, and circulated the text in Europe between
approximately 1450 and 1600, incorporating parts of it into the tenets of scholas-
tic philosophy.5 By the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century, several
key authors who modelled a universe strung along fields of forces, and who evi-
dently had access either to fragments, or the whole manuscript, of the Picatrix,
appropriated such selective approach to offer significant additions to explain
exceptional natural phenomena that were ignored by the traditional philosophy
of nature.
The author, or Picatrix as the Latin translation named him, divided the work
into four books, each containing about a dozen chapters. A glance at the table
of contents reveals the scope of the work, which includes philosophical exposi-
tions that provided the necessary grounding, according to the author, for anyone
interested in learning about natural magic. Among these doctrines one finds a
theory of magic, the role of the anima mundi (the soul of the universe) in generat-
ing motion, the centrality of the sun in dispersing the anima mundi, and the role
of the magician in exposing and controlling such physical-spiritual connections
through experimentation and the quantification and manipulation of the forces
of nature. However, the text does not merely elaborate on the ways bodies act at
a distance through the medium of spiritual-physical entities (forces, radiation,
heat). It also furnishes its readers with the practices needed to control such enti-
ties, including the manipulation of the influences of the heavenly bodies.
The author explains in his preface that he means to shed light on the nature
of magic, a secret closely guarded by ancient philosophers. Here was a turning
point, a moment when esoteric and scattered pieces of knowledge concerning
natural magic are collected into a kind of ‘guide for the perplexed’, making natural
magic accessible to the public. In addition to the somewhat vague reference to
4 Citation from the prologue of the Latin translation: ‘Hoc autem opus perfectum fuit anna
Domini MCCLVI, Alexandri MDLXVIII. Cesaris MCCXCV, et Arabum DCLV. Sapiens enim philoso-
phus, nobilis et honoratus Picatrix. hunc librum ex CC libris et pluribus philosophie compilavit,
quem suo proprio nomine nominavit’ (Magrīṭī 1986,1).
5 Nicholas Weill-Parot has argued that scholastics defined the proper use of the Picatrix by stress-
ing that talismans reinforce the traditional similitudo, correspondence of matter and form, em-
phasising that the components of talismanic images pertain to the natural characteristics of the
planets and by so doing rejecting the ceremonial constituents of the Picatrix (Weill-Parot 2011).
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‘two hundred books’, Picatrix mentions various specific sources of ancient reli-
gions, primarily Indian, Chaldean, and Nabatean texts, as well as Greek works
and Egyptian accounts concerning Hermes, showing an impressive mastery of
ancient Eastern religious cultures, themselves apparently acting at a distance on
this Andalusian writer. Conscious of his position in an idiosyncratic historical
moment, the author occassionaly stresses that he has been exposed to cultural
currents that brought with them pieces of magical knowledge and practices pro-
duced with reference to various cultural vantage points, all of which required him
to sort them out, standardise them, and collect them into a single book.
The book’s principle is stated at the outset: philosophy was crucial for
natural magic not as a metaphysical frame of reference but as the practical means
of revealing ‘the causes of reality’, and thus as a guide to manipulating it. The
author then defined philosophy of magic as having three substantial charac-
teristics: ‘it develops and does not decline, it is an active exploration and not a
passive one, it is ready to be exposed and it does not distance itself [from the true
seeker]’. The philosophy of magic also has three utilitarian factors: ‘it teaches, it
educates, and it is not ready to be perceived by those who turn their back to it’.
Thus, Picatrix prescribes the conditions for the study and the usage of natural
magic: ‘whoever desires to explore, ought to acquire a passion for the sciences
and thoroughly scrutinise their rules’, so as to utilise such knowledge, the secrets
of which ‘have a great purity with which you will be able to help many’.6 Natural
magic is difficult to understand since it deals with intangible spiritual-physical
entities, utilising ‘connections hidden from our senses and sight’. After all, the
word magic refers ‘to all things hidden from the senses’. The Picatrix states,
You should know that magic is by and large everything that enchants the intellect and that
the souls are drawn to it. Thus, the wondering, the attraction, and the praising [in magical
acts] are expressions of the actual difficulty the intellect has in grasping and understanding
it. The causes (forces of nature) are hidden from the ignorant, and it is a divine force that
is being expressed [in natural indications], so that the magus would perceive them. Thus,
[natural magic] is the science of perception of the hidden causes [of nature].
6 For the Arabic text see Magrīṭī 1933, 5.

،‫ ولها قوى ثالث تدبيريات‬.‫ وتنجلي لينظر إليها وال تبعد‬،‫ وتشرق وال تخمل‬،‫وللحكمة خصوصيات ثالث ذاتيات وهي تنمو وال تدثر‬
‫ واعلم أن هذه النتيجة التي نحن بسبيل كشفها لم يكن لها وجود لوال وجود‬،‫ وال ُتقبل على من عنها يرغب‬،‫وهي أنها تزجر وتؤدِّب‬
.‫الحكمة‬
For the equivalent Latin text: ‘Quare scias quod hoc secretum quod in hoc nostro libro intendi-
mus discooperire acquiri non potest nisi prius acquiratur scire. Et qui scire intendit acquirere
studere debet in scienciis et eas ordinatim perscrutari quia hoc secretum haberi non potest nisi
per sapientem et studentem in seiencia ordinatim. In hoc autem secreto est magna puritas cum
qua te multum adiuvare poteris’. Magrīṭī 1986, 4.
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Beyond theoretical and linguistic analysis of the notion of magic, the Picatrix
draws a connection between the practice of magic and its disciplinary bounda-
ries within magic:
in practice, the subjects of this science are spirit in spirit and this is in the realm of imagi-
nation; spirit in substance, this is the realm of talisman; and substance in substance, this
is the realm of alchemy. In short, most of the causes of magic are hidden from the intellect
and it is difficult to perceive them.
However, by controlling that which the senses cannot detect, natural magic ‘vio-
lates’ the order of things. The original Arabic text stresses that ‘the word talisman
is actually the inverse writing of the word musalit, to conquer and dominate a
substance’, and, therefore, a talisman serves as a ‘violator’: ‘whoever makes an
image attempts to dominate the destiny of an object by violence’.7 The role of the
talisman is to violate and manipulate the order of nature, to expose the things
hidden from the senses.
The text goes on to integrate the Aristotelian philosophical tradition with the
practice of magic, dividing magic into theoretical (ʽilmī) and practical (ʻamalī)
knowledge.8 The theoretical relates to knowing the positions of the stars and the
ways their ‘rays project toward the center-earth’, propagate through planetary
spheres, and generate motion. Practical knowledge, on the other hand, relates
to ‘the combination of natural qualities with the virtue infused by the fixed
stars’, particularly elemental heat.9 Since the theoretical and the practical are
intertwined and mutually conditioned, the art of magic places man in the center,
bringing the theoretical down to earthly concerns, and lifting practices up to sub-
limities.
The seemingly effortless combination of various fields and its essentially
unique typology of knowledge gave the text its power of attraction. From Renais-
sance men such as the Florentine Neo-Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino,
7 Magrīṭī 1933, book 1, chap. 2, 7.

‫وحقيقة الطلسم انه معكوس اسمه وهو المسلط ألنه من جواهر القهر والتسليط‬
‘Et ymagines sapientes appellant telsam, quod interpretatur violator quia quicquid facit ymago per
violenciam facit et pro vincendo facit illud pro quo est composita’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 1, chap. 2.5.
8 Magrīṭī 1933, book 1, chap. 2.8.
‫إن السحر مقيد في قسمين علمي وعملي‬
‘Et dico quod nigromancia dividitur in duas partes, scilicet in theoricam et Practicam’, see
Magrīṭī 1986, book 1, chap. 2, 6.
9 Magrīṭī 1933, book 1, chap. 2.8–9.
‫والعملي هو الوقوف على المولدات الثالثة وما أثبت فيها من قوى الكواكب السيَارة‬
‘Practica vero est composicio trium naturarum cum virtute infusionis stellarum fixarum’, see
Magrīṭī 1986, book 1, chap. 2.6.
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through natural magicians like Cornelius Agrippa, and up to early modern politi-
cal utopians such as Campanella, radical thinkers started looking for a bottom-up
approach to the philosophy of nature. In mixing an Aristotelian philosophy of
nature with natural magic that was rooted in individual religious practices from
the ancient East, they provided a unified program for the exploration of nature,
which included explanations concerning the natural phenomena of action at a
distance. Such Renaissance men identified natural magic not only with ancient
Greek philosophy but actually with ancient eastern religious cultures.
The morphological readings of the works of Ficino, Agrippa, and Campanella
against the backgound of the Picatrix expose direct citations and excavate latent
remnants of the Andalusian grimoire, particularly with respect to four ideas
central to the connection between natural magic and early modern science –
the necessary agency for natural motion; the role of the virtuoso in violating the
order of nature, manipulating its laws, and exposing the existence of intangible
physical entities, such as forces; the centrality of the sun; and, finally, the linear
motion of rays and forces.
2 Philosophising magic: Ficino’s animated

cosmos
In writing one of the most influential works on magic, De vita libri tres (On the
Three Books of Life), dated 1489, Marsilio Ficino, a senior colleague of Pico’s,
relied on several sources. Scholars have pointed at a number of potential sources.
His Latin translation of the Greek body of Hermetic lore and al-Kindī’s De radiis
stellarum have been seen by some as evidence for the permeation of the theory of
rays (Saif 2015). Others suggest that the whole section III in De vita was influenced
by scholastic sources (Copenhaver 1984, 523f.). A reading of section III in De vita
against the Picatrix reveals that Ficino not only used the Picatrix as a source
but that it served as a crucial reference for his philosophical framing of astral
magic. Ficino applied generic names to the borrowed material, typically labeling
it ‘Arabian’, and sometimes simply reproduced passages from the Picatrix without
attribution.
Paula Zambelli has shown that Ficino had his reasons for this strategy.
Manuscripts of the Picatrix circulated widely. Indeed, so wide was their circu-
lation amongst those with philosophical interests in Tuscany that the rector of
the University of Pisa, Fillipo Valori, asked Ficino to borrow his copy of the text.
A student of Ficino, Michele Acciari, replied on his sick teacher’s behalf, high-
lighting the reading and writing strategies of Ficino, who read the Picatrix closely
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despite dismissing major parts of the text as superstitious. He nevertheless incor-

porated ‘whatever in it … was useful and worth reading, copying it into his own
book, De vita libri tres. The rest – whatever he found vain, ineffectual, or con-
trary to the Christian religion – he omitted’. Acciari writes of the text that ‘Ficino
himself warns you against reading it, because you will have to labour hard [to
understand it] but you will find little of any practical use, especially since what-
ever is in any way useful or important in that work may be read point for point
perhaps better and certainly more fully and clearly in his book De vita libri tres.
If you read the latter thoughtfully and carefully you won’t miss a thing from the
famous Picatrix’.10 Zambelli has forcefully concluded that Ficino was interested
in highlighting his own works, De Vita and the translation of the Corpus hermeti-
cum, at the expense of the Picatrix, despite this source playing a more central role
in his writings than he was willing to admit.
Ficino’s selective reading of the Picatrix perhaps also resulted from reading
partial versions of the text, which were circulated as incomplete manuscripts or
as excerpts in a number of folios. David Pingree has pointed out that Ficino drew
almost exclusively on books 3 and 4 of the Picatrix, raising the possibility that
he read an incomplete manuscript that included only the last two books [3, 4].
Indeed, just such a manuscript is known to have been circulated in his immediate
surroundings.11
Book 3 of De vita libri tres starts by posing a philosophical problem: if intellect
and matter belong to separate spheres, what then creates motion? Is there a phil-
osophical means of ‘taming’ the magical principle of action at a distance? Ficino
addresses this central question by trying to define the agency of natural motion.
If the universe were made up only of intellect and body, ‘then neither would the
intellect be attracted to the body nor would the body be drawn to the intellect’.
Agency is required. What permits an ‘attraction’ between bodies, Ficino implies,
is the soul that acts between body and intellect, a carrier of secondary qualities.
Agency, in the form of the soul, manifests itself as a spiritual-physical entity.
Such a soul, Ficino concludes, has to be universal and ought to be understood as
10 But for all of that enthusiasm, the subject matter appears to have been viewed by others as
off limits. When the nephew of ‘Giorgio the doctor’ (Paola Zambelli has identified the latter as
Giorgio Anselmi da Parma the Elder) wished to publish his uncle’s treatise on magic, the print-
ers whom he approached steadfastly refused (Zambelli 2007, 9). See also Delcorno Branca 1976,
464–71, esp. 470f.
11 The manuscript is Bodleian Library, Canonicianus classicus latinus 500; see Magrīṭī 1986,
xxii.
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‘equally connected with everything, even with those things that are at a distance
from one other’.12
With this declaration, Ficino framed previous magical or theological attacks
on the hegemonic philosophy of nature, not merely in order to topple this philoso-
phy but, rather, to tame practitioners of magic by imposing on them a philosoph-
ical framework. This meant harking back to authoritative sources that preceded
Aristotle. In contending that ‘the cosmos is animate just like any animate thing’,
Ficino alerts his readers to the fact that he has adopted this from the traditional
Neo-Platonist philosophy and from ‘Arabic astrologers’ who ‘thoroughly proved
it’. They also proved, he explains, that ‘by applying our spirit to the spirit of the
cosmos, made possible by physical science, we received celestial goods in our
soul and our body’. Just as our bodies need a spirit to function, so the anima
mundi is essential to the working of the cosmos, acting ‘by way of the rays of the
stars upon nature and upon our spirit’.13
Ficino’s attributions of passages from the Picatrix to ‘an Arabic astrologer’ or
‘Arabic writers’ serve to support current magical arguments about the animated
cosmos and to justify the principle of action at a distance. Such assertions played
an essential role in his effort to draw counters to a new natural philosophy that
would not only break with the teleological explanations for motion but would
also establish a new structure of the universe. It was the Picatrix that provided
him with such a metaphysical framework.
Only the last parts of the Picatrix delve into the theoretical tenets of magic,
with the author outlining a philosophical framework for natural magic in the
last chapter of book 3. He begins by discussing the confusing usage of ‘nature’:
‘nature’ was variously used to refer to the ‘complexion of the elements’, innate
heat, ‘forms and figures of the body’, and motion and spirit. Aristotelian natural
philosophers, Picatrix stresses, used the word even more equivocally, meaning
‘the body and all its properties’, the humors, ‘elements of heaven’, and ‘Godly
virtues that cause generation and corruption’. The initial philosophical challenge
taken up in the Picatrix is to sort out the word’s true meaning, setting it alongside
the magician’s fascination with action at a distance. The text stresses that ‘The
sages have defined “nature” as the beginning of motion and rest’ (my emphasis).
12 ‘Praeterea cum sit (ut dixi) media rerum, omnia suo in se modo continent et utrinque ratione
propinquo; ideoque conciliatur et omnibus, etiam aequaliter illis quae inter se distant, ab ea
videlicet non distanibus’ (Ficino 1989, book 3, chap. 1, 244).
13 ‘Quem sicut et quodvis animal multoque efficacius animatum esse, non solum Platonicae
rationes, sed etiam astrologorum Arabum testimonia comprobant. Ubi etiam probant ex applica-
tion quadam spiritus nostril ad spiritum mundi per artem physicam affectumque facta, traiici ad
animam corpusque nostrum bona coelestia’ (Ibid., book 3, chap. 2, 254).
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Such motion is generated through ‘the heavenly mediation between forms and
bodies’, a universal agency.14
Book 4 opens by arguing that the seemingly scattered spiritual-physical
agents, the forces of life (qūat al-ḥayāt) that rest in bodies, are actually representa-
tions of a single entity, the anima mundi (nafs al-kul). The anima mundi manifests
itself as the force that generates motion, as ‘a kind of property apart from material
things’, as spiritual phenomena (ashyāʽ al-rūḥaniyya), spiritual-physical entities
that cause objects to ‘move naturally and not by accident’. This property ‘governs
everything’ and exists simultaneously everywhere.15
If the anima mundi is the mediating agent that plays between bodies then it
has to be located in the midst of the cosmic order. Book 4 of the Picatrix describes
the five-tiered structure of the universe, assigning a place to the anima mundi:
1) First form [al-ṣūrah] (the order of things)
2) Intellect [al-ʻaql] (laws of causality)
3) Anima [al-nafs] (universal agent)
4) Nature [al- ṭabīʻah ] (motion and rest)
5) Elements [al-ʻanāṣir] (mixture of matter) 16
The particular location of the anima mundi determines its function in the cosmic
order. Lodged between the highest and the lowest spheres, the soul of the world
plays a mediating role in the universe; as the prime agent of natural change,
transforming divine laws into tangible light, it relies on light to set nature into
motion. ‘When the soul comes into agreement with the mind’, Picatrix explains,
‘it creates light and wisdom and other virtues’. Perpetually in flux, nature shifts
14 Magrīṭī 1933, book 3, chap. 12, 284f.

‫لذلك حدها األوائل بأنها ابتداء حركة وسكون وحدها‬
‘Qua de causa primi sapientes sic diffiniverunt earn quod est terminus et
principium motus et quietudinis’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 3, chap. 12, 172.
15 Magrīṭī 1933, book 4, chap. 1, 291–92.
‫هذه الجملة هي العقل الفعَ ال المخرج لألنفس اإلنسانية في العلوم العقلية من القوة إلى الفعل وهذه الجملة هي مبادئ الكل بعد المبدأ‬
‫األول والمبدأ األول هو مبدع الكل‬
‘Et hoc genus est principium in omnibus post primum principium; et principium primum prin-
cipians omnia’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 4, chap. 1, 177.
16 Magrīṭī 1933, book 4, chap. 1, 291f.
‫وهي العالم األعلى والصورة االولى وهو العنصر األول ثم العقل ثم النفس ثم الطبيعة وهي السماء ثم العنصر الجرمي وهو العنصر‬
‫الجسماني‬
‘Sapientes vero antiqui in hoc sunt concordati, quod Deus quinque res disposuit et ordinavit per
gradus, quarum nobiliorem in summo gradu collocavit – videlicet materiam primam et formam
primam, que est tam quam prima minera omnium; secundo sensus sive intellectus, tercio spir-
itus, quarto natura celorum, quinto elementa et elementata’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 4, chap. 1, 174.
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when ‘mind comes into agreement with the soul’.17 The anima mundi thus serves
as the glue of the universe, fashioning universal harmony and balance. Towards
the end of the first chapter of book 4, the author gives his conclusive definition
of ‘nature’, naming as its characteristic trait the ‘perpetual motion’ (dāʼimat
al-ḥarakah) by which corporeal agents are perfected and completed, ‘living their
potential through the forces of nature’.18
Furthermore, the Picatrix’s philosophy of nature suggests that man can
control the various forms of anima mundi and, by doing so, can utilise natural
forces to change his destiny and to change his world. Moreover, man can do the
same with other parts of nature, shifting their animae toward the higher spheres
of the ‘first form’ and intellect, or closer to the lowest spheres, nature and ele-
ments, changing their properties and setting them in motion.
Ficino adopted this new cosmic order to replace Aristotelian metaphysics,
echoing Picatrix’s argument that ‘the relation of the anima mundi to the univer-
sal intellect is like the relation of our soul to the active intellect’. 19 He seems to
have projected the intermediary role of a mere anima, which was thought to stand
between the soul and body, onto the cosmic order, stressing the omnipresence
of the anima mundi. The relationship between the universal body and the uni-
versal soul is equal to [that between] our spirit and our active sense. The soul of
every being is the medium, Ficino argued, ‘by which the divine soul may both be
present to the crude body and impart life on it’.20 Some of these souls or, as Ficino
calls them, ‘spiritual bodies’, possess a physicality; this is clearly implied in his
17 I present the pertinent Arabic and Latin texts. Although in some places a discrepancy be-
tween the two texts occurs, all of my translations are made from the Arabic, which is to be con-
sidered the original text.
Magrīṭī 1933, book 4, chap. 1, 286f.
...‫ وجعل الطبيعة في افق النفس‬,‫وجعل النفس فى افق العقل تستمد النور والحكمة والفضائل عنه بقوى منه مشاكلة لها تفيض ذلك عليها‬
‘Sensum autem et intellectum posuit in primo circulo descendente ab eodem, qui similiter ab
eodem lumine descendit; sciencia etenim et nobilitas virtutis sibi convenientes ei vi ab illo em-
anantur’. Magrīṭī 1986, 174.
18 Magrīṭī 1933, 294.
‫وبعض االوائل حدها بانها دائمة الحركة وهي مع ذلك كمال الجسم الفعال الحى بالقوة الطبيعة‬
‘Et una pars sapientum antiquorum sic determinavit: natura est durabilis motus cum quo est
perfectio sive complementum corporis agentis et in potencia viva’. Magrīṭī 1986, 178.
‫نسبة نفس الكل الى عقل الكل كنسبة انفسنا الى العقل الفعال‬
‘Et spiritus universi est sensus universi. Idcirco omnes substancie incorporee complete in corpo-
ribus celestibus moventibus redundant, et hoc propter quietudinem sensus’. Magrīṭī 1986, 177.
20 ‘Que spiritus necessario requiritur tanquam medium, quo anima divina et adsit corpori cras-
siori et vitam eidem penitus largiatur’. Ficino 1989, book 3, chap. 3, 256f.
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statement that ‘besides this worldly body, generally apparent to our senses’,
some spiritual forces ‘escape the capacity of our weak senses’.21
Ficino’s conclusions regarding the anima mundi appear, as in the Picatrix,
toward the end of his book. He explains that the anima mundi is responsible for
all natural actions at a distance; standing in for various undetectable physical
entities, it causes all motion and rest. ‘The anima mundi’, he concludes, ‘gen-
erates and moves the forms of natural things by means of seminal forces it has
received from the divine’. The magus, then, can play with such seminal reasons,
shifting bodies closer to either the upper or the lower sphere, thus changing their
properties and setting them in motion.22
But what are the means by which the virtuoso magus can manipulate the
actions of the anima mundi? Picatrix argues that the heavenly bodies could be
manipulated by talismans designed to suit the properties of each planet. Such
talismans, made of materials that accord with the properties of the planet, are
fashioned to mirror the planet’s qualities. They were used during the periods of
the planets’ susceptibility to influence.
I have pointed out one of the structural similarities between De vita libri
tres and the Picatrix. In fact, Ficino broadly adopts the general scheme of the
earlier work. In a chapter titled ‘On the Powers of the Rays from Which Images Are
Thought to Obtain Their Force’, he outlines the ways by which one can control the
heavenly bodies through the use of images to attract heavenly influences. Images
can concentrate the power of the rays, since ‘by the rays’ intensity, matter – being
dry and far from any moisture – is immediately kindled and, once kindled, is
vaporised and dispersed in all directions, blowing out both flames and sulfur’.
Not all the physical effects of the rays are detectable, since ‘this fire is very dark
and, as it were, a sort of flame without light’.23 Although al-Kindī’s popular De
radiis stellarum extensively deals with the role of the sun’s rays, it seems that
the Picatrix was in fact more readily fitting for his argument, as it points out that
as the human body requires a soul to trigger motion so too does a universal soul
generate motion at the cosmic level. Both texts stress the mutually dependent
connection between heat and light, on the one hand, and motion, on the other:
21 ‘Quamobrem praeter corpus hoc mundi sensibus familiariter manifestum latet in eo spiritus
corpus quoddam excedens caduci sensus capacitatem’. Ibid., book 3, chap. 26, 384.
22 ‘Itaque per rationes eiusmodi animam mundi facile se applicare materiis, quas formavit ab
initio per easdem’. Ibid., 390.
23 ‘Sed ignem hunc putant valde caliginosum esse et quasi incendium quoddam luminis ex-
pers, sicut in coelo extat expers incendii lumen; ignis autem inter coelestem atque infernum
lumen cum fervor coniungit’. Ibid., 321.
Unauthenticated
bodies are endowed with rays and heat only due to their motion. But why were
rays so important to Ficino and his contemporaries?
In introducing astrological notions into the philosophy of nature, Florentine
philosophers focused on the following question: Does the influence of the planets
exist only in detectable and tangible forms (rays and heat), or does it manifest
itself also in intangible ways (forces and radiation)? De vita libri tres played a
central role in these discussions. It appeared just as a controversy regarding
the truthfulness of astrology and other occult sciences reached its climax.24 At
the two extremes were Ficino and Pico, the foremost philosophers of Florence,
starkly disagreeing as to whether the cosmos was ensouled or unsouled.
In his canonical work, Platonic Theology (Theologia platonica), first pub-
lished in 1482 and followed by a second edition in 1491, Ficino argued (book iv
chap. i) that ‘just as universal nature exists everywhere in the universal body,
so a universal soul exists everywhere in that universal nature’.25 Animated
nature is connected to man through incorporeal light, he explains in De vita
libri tres, stressing that the anima mundi, which is actually the omnipresent
‘incorporeal light’, links the tangible part of the world to its soul, the world to
the nature of man.
Disagreeing, Pico refused to hypothesise intangible properties with an occult
character; preferring instead to stress the sensible and placing the rays of the sun
at the center of his natural philosophy. In his attack on astrology, Disputationes
adversus astrologiam divinatricem (Disputations against Divinatory Astrology), he
reduces the effects of the heavenly bodies to physical properties, thereby detach-
ing man from predetermined cosmic phenomena. Light and heat become the
central agents of nature and the angle of the solar ecliptic at different locations
is held to be responsible for levels of heat and moisture, which in turn vary living
creatures into different species and affect their coming into being and passing
away.26 He believed that the planets and stars differ from the sun or moon inas-
much as they have very little influence on us, and perhaps none at all. The fetus,
he writes, derives its main characteristics from its constituent human seeds and
from the climate surrounding the mother, not from the moon and planets.27
24 For the cultural context of the controversy over the intangible effects of the planets, see ‘De-
fying Authority, Denying Predestination and Conquering Nature, Florence 1493’ in Ben-Zaken
2011, 65–100.
25 ‘Sicuti se habet natura ad corpus, sic anima ad naturum. Ergo quemadmodum in universo
corpore natura universalis est ubique, ita in universa natura ubique universalis est anima’. Fici-
no 2003, 286.
26 della Mirandola 1946, 1.203.
27 Ibid., 1.269.
Unauthenticated
In this regard, Pico only selectively echoes book 2 chapter 3 of the Picatrix,
which mentions sages who argued that ‘the effects of the heavens and their powers
in this world are nothing other than the increase and decrease of heat’.28 The Pic-
atrix takes a different approach and additionally stresses that these sages ‘did not
understand the wonderful occult properties of the planets’, since the increase
and decrease of heat convey with them spiritual forces that generate motion.
Furthermore, whereas Pico conceives of the manifested effects of the heavenly
bodies (the sun and the moon) as heat and light, the Picatrix (followed by Ficino)
argues that every moving body, even the most distant sphere, the eighth sphere,
generates heat, rays, and other undetectable physical-spiritual entities. In this
regard, the Picatrix explains that the motion of the heavens is the prime cause of
accidental heat, which, in turn, gives life to nature. Whereas Pico argues that the
heavenly bodies yield only a physical, measurable influence – rays and heat –
Ficino relies on the Picatrix to argue that the tangible influence was only the tip
of the iceberg, conceiving natural motion as the effect of intangible physical-
spiritual entities, that will later, in the seventeenth century, be named forces.
By appropriating, in addition to the Picatrix’s practical recipes and talis-
mans, the philosophical framework of the text, Ficino philosophically tames the
arguments of natural magic, bringing the occult into the light. The occult, for
him, does not mean spiritual entities detached from bodies; on the contrary, he
believed that all of the acclaimed spiritual entities were actually physical, playing
central roles in generating the motion in the universe. Such spiritual-physical
entities underlined the necessary agency and causality in the laws of nature,
which come into being in the form of forces of attraction, the radiation of rays,
and heat. Thus, Ficino appropriated and reworked arguments from the Picatrix,
presenting a middle ground in De vita libri tres. On the one hand, he narrows
astrological influences to physical properties, while, on the other, he modifies the
arguments of those who rejected astrology by expanding the range of heavenly
influence to include intangible physical properties.
The concept of anima mundi played a key role in shedding light on what
seemed to be occult knowledge and practices, and, thus, in transforming the
occult into a subcategory of natural philosophy. However, the emphasis on anima
mundi and its influence on the universe resulted in a view of man as a passive
observer of the ways of the universe. Perhaps because Ficino consulted an incom-
plete manuscript of the Picatrix, referring to it at times as an ‘Arabic miscellany’,
he left out a fundamental component of the complete work (especially books 1, 2,

‫فعل الفلك انما هو بحرارة ازيد او انقص‬
Unauthenticated
and 3 of the Picatrix), the practice of natural magic, as well as any discussion of
the virtuoso magician who is able to transform his world. As Perrone Compagni
has argued, Ficino’s selective usage aimed at creating in De vita a more purified
version of the Picatrix that left out materials that might contradict religion.29
The Picatrix’s other central theme was the practice of philosophy and magic –
the practical aspect of philosophy, the making of philosophy without philoso-
phy, and the aspiration of making and changing the world by practice, which
impacted subsequent generations of readers. The next significant station in the
circulation of the Picatrix, Cornelius Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia libri tres,
brought that issue to the fore.
3 Legitimising practice: Agrippa’s virtuoso

Whereas Ficino was located at the crossroads of Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew texts
on natural magic and philosophy, Agrippa moved restlessly from one place to
another, gathering sources and knocking over what seemed to him artificial cul-
tural and disciplinary fences. He could have encountered the Picatrix in several
places: Spain, Italy, or even central Europe.30 Perhaps it was Johann Reuchlin’s
borrowings from the Picatrix (The Book of Wonderful Word), presented as a lecture
at the University of Dole in 1512, that brought the text to his attention; Vittoria
Perrone Compagni has identified in Reuchlin’s essay a number of unattributed
borrowings from the Picatrix (Perrone Compagni 1977, 317f. and 325).
At any rate, Agrippa also had practical reasons to refer to the Picatrix. While
Ficino used the text to promote his project to philosophise natural magic, Agrippa
was out to legitimise the practice of natural magic. To that end, he attacked the
hegemonic scholastic philosophy of nature for a teleological approach that
treated practice as irrelevant to natural philosophy. Taking his convictions into
the law court of Metz, he defended a woman from a village named Woippy who
was accused of practicing magic, arguing that her work never exceeded the legit-
imate use of natural forces (Ziegeler 1973, 150–8). At the same time he worked on
his alternative program of science, De occulta philosophia libri tres (Three Books
of Occult Philosophy), written in the first decade of the century but only published
in 1531–1533. He had good reasons to hesitate, since the work legitimised ritual
29 For the reasons for the selective reading and usage of the Picatrix by Ficino, see Perrone
Compagni 2011.
30 Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, 362 (630); Vienna, Österreichische National-
biblothek, 3317 (Philos. 156); Magrīṭī 1986, xvi–xvii.
Unauthenticated
magic and emphasised the virtues and skills necessary for the would-be magician.
Cautious as to when and where he published, Agrippa also wrote dedications
that aimed to reduce the danger of ecclesiastical condemnation. Furthermore,
to soften the landing of his bold magnus opus, he preceded its publication with
another book in which he openly promoted natural magic as the prime program
for the sciences, transforming the magician into an experimental virtuoso. The
Picatrix suited such an enterprise.
Whereas the previous generation of natural magicians tried to mix natural
magic with scholasticism, Agrippa boldly treated the two bodies of knowledge
as conspicuously contradictory. His De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et
artium (On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and the Arts), dated 1527,
took aim at the hegemonic scholastic philosophy of nature. In the preface he calls
the attention of the reader to the tyranny of scholasticism: ‘I find’, he writes, ‘a
most detestable custom that has invaded all or most schools of learning to swear
their students never to contradict Aristotle, Boetius, Thomas, Albertus or some
such school deity: from whom if anybody would even slightly divert, he would
be proclaimed heretic, a criminal against the holy sciences deserves only to be
consumed in fire and flames’.31 Scholasticism, thus, ‘captivates the minds of stu-
dents and authors, depriving them of the liberty of searching after and following
the truth’,32 turning ‘Arts and Sciences’ into a destructive force. For Agrippa, tra-
ditional study of the sciences entailed working within institutional divisions, spe-
cialisation which eventually yielded a narrowed view of science. Natural magic,
by contrast, was a multicultural field, an interdisciplinary mixture of theory and
practice. As such, enthusiasts such as Agrippa believed that every human being
is able to discover and manipulate the hidden secrets of nature.
De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium was written to break
through the wall of scholasticism; it drove toward that end by cynically sur-
veying its derivative sciences. In chapters 41, 42, and 43, Agrippa appraises
and differentiates magic, natural magic, and mathematical magic, presenting
them as the products of intersecting cultural currents that he traces from antiq-
uity up to his own day. The noun magus, for instance, came from Persian and
31 ‘Praeterea in multis ac ferme omnibus gymnasijs peruersus mos, ac damnabilis cosuetudo

inoleuit, quod initiandos discipulos iureiurando adigunt Aristoteli aut Boethio, aut Thomae, aut
Alberto, seu alio cuiuis suo scholastico Deosese nunquam repugnaturos: a quibus se quis latu
unguem diuersum senserit, hunc haereticum scandalosum, piarum aurium offensiuum, igne
flammisque absumedum proclamant’. Agrippa von Nettesheim 1575, Ad Lectorem.
32 ‘Denique quàm impia tyrannis, captiuare ad praefinitos autores studiosorum ingenia, et adi-
mere discipulis libertatem indagandae et sequendae veritatis’. Agrippa von Nettesheim 1575, Ad
Lectorem.
Unauthenticated
‘signifies a priest, wise man, or philosopher [who worked with] both natural
magic and mathematical magic’.33 In chapter 42, Agrippa defined natural magic
as the ‘highest power of natural science, the active part of natural philosophy,
which by means of natural virtues, applied jointly and felicitously, elicits admi-
rable operations’. The Ethiopians and the Indians – the first to use ‘the virtue of
herbs, and stones, and other natural things’ – set the standard. They also defined
the role of the magic virtuoso, which was to consider ‘the strength and force of
natural and celestial beings, and having worked diligently to discover their affec-
tions, [render] visible the hidden and concealed powers of nature’. Among these
masters Agrippa names Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus, but the only author-
ity whose biography he set down is ‘the author of the book to Alfonsus, written
under the name of Picatrix, who into natural magic mixes much superstition, as
indeed the rest have done’.34
The Picatrix, however, argues that the successful natural magician, the virtu-
oso, had to acquire not only a knowledge of the natural world but also the skills
needed to extract such secrets publicly. ‘You should know’, the text stresses, ‘that
the practice of magic [ʻamal, experimenta] discovers the secrets of sciences; by
work and experiments doubts are unfolded’.35 If there is an agency in nature that
causes motion and rest, the book indicates, then man carries within himself such
agency and, through self-reflection, he discovers the ‘virtue that cares for and
governs his body’, employing experiments to extend this insight into the realm
of nature.
Agrippa borrowed this line of argumentation and used it to set the founda-
tion for his greatest work, De occulta philosophia, affirming natural magic as a
33 ‘Exigit etia hic locus ut de Magia dicamus: nam & ipsa cum Astrologia sic coniuncta, atq;
cognate est, ut qui Magia sine Astrologia profiteatur, is nihilagat, sed tota aberret via. Suidas ma-
giam à Magusies & nomen, & originem traxisse putat. Comunis opinion est nomen esse Persicum
cui adstipulantur Porphyrius, & Apolieus, & significare eorum lingua idem quod facerdotem sa-
piente sive Philosophum. Magia itaque omnem philosophiam physicam, & mathematicam com-
plexa etia vires religionum illis adiungit: hinc Goetiam, & Theurgiam in sequoq continet. Qua de
cosa Magiam plerique bifariam dividunt in naturalem videlicet & caeremonialem’. Agrippa von
Nettesheim 1575, chap. 41.
34 ‘Author libri ad Alphonsum, sub picatricis nomine editus, qui tamen una cum naturali magia
plurimum superstitiones admiscet quod quidem fecerunt & alii’. Agrippa von Nettesheim 1575,
chap. 42.
‫واعلم أيها الباحث أن العمل يخرج مكنون العلوم وبه تنحل الشكوك فانه عند حصول معرفة المطلوب تنحل الشكوك‬
‘Illum autem qui in hac sciencia se intromittere intendit scire oportet quod propter opera et ex-
perimenta que fiunt in hoc mundo scienciarum profunditates et secreta sciuntur, et ex operibus
et experimentis solvuntur dubia’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 3, chap. 12, 170.
Unauthenticated
science based on firsthand explorations of the secrets of nature. For him, the Pic-
atrix offered both lessons in natural magic and the historical and philosophical
authority for the primacy of induction in the exploration of nature.
Agrippa mentions the Picatrix several times in De occulta philosophia and in
a few additional places he ascribes its content to ‘Arabs’. For instance, in book 1,
chapter 12, titled ‘How Superior Bodies Control Inferior Things, and How the Stars
and Signs Control the Bodies, the Actions, and the Dispositions of Men’, Agrippa
writes that, ‘according to the doctrine of the Arabs, the Sun rules over the brain,
the heart, and the rest of the feeling organs’.36
However, it is when Agrippa offers his description of the virtues and skills
possessed by those who practice natural magic that he draws most tellingly on
the Picatrix. Early in his discourse, Agrippa explains that its purpose is to show
‘how magicians collect virtues from the threefold world’. His decision to divide
his treatise in three parallels the structure of the universe, made up as it was of
elementary, celestial, and intellectual matter. The role of the natural magician,
therefore, is to climb a ladder of philosophy by seeking ‘after the virtues of the
elementary world, relying for assistance on natural philosophy in the various
combinations of natural things, then the [virtues of the] celestial world via the
rays, and their influences thereof, according to the rules of astrologers and doc-
trines of mathematicians’. By so doing the natural magician is practically ‘joining
the celestial ventures to the elementary world’.37
Agrippa subsequently elaborates on the qualifications of the virtuoso. Magic
necessarily relies on other disciplines. ‘Whoever wishes to study natural magic’,
Agrippa suggests, must be knowledgeable about natural philosophy, ‘wherein are
discovered the qualities of things, and in which are found the occult properties
of every being’. He also has to be skillful in mathematics, ‘and in the aspects,
and figures of the stars, upon which depend the sublime virtue and property
of everything’. He has to be learned in theology, ‘wherein are manifested those
immaterial substances’. Only after climbing these rungs on the ladder of philos-
ophy will he be ‘able to understand the rationality of magic’. Agrippa concludes
that natural magic addresses not only agency in the world but also acts as a medi-
ator between different bodies of knowledge, since ‘there is no world that is the
36 ‘Scias itaque iuxta Arabum traditionem Solem praeesse cerebro et cordi, <femori, medullis,
oculo dextro et spiritui vitae>’. Agrippa von Nettesheim 1992, book 1, chap. 22, 129.
37 ‘Hinc elementalis mundi vires varris rerum naturalium mixtionibus a medicina et naturali
philosophia venantur; deinde coelestis mundi radiis et influxibus iuxta astrologorum regulas et
mathematicorum disciplinas coelestes virtutes illis connectunt’. Ibid., book 1, chap. 1, 85.
Unauthenticated
product of magic alone, nor any labor that is exclusively magical, that does not
comprehend these three faculties’.38
Agrippa may have drawn from the Picatrix the notion of the magus as mixing
not only matter but also intellectual disciplines and cultural practices, a view
of natural magic as interdisciplinary, while the magus is seen as an agent con-
necting the upper and lower worlds, the angelic and the celestial worlds to the
elementary world. This magical virtuoso brings together distinct bodies of knowl-
edge (pertaining to each world), giving natural magic the crucial role of mediating
and connecting the various detached disciplines of arts and sciences. The Picatrix
stresses that the magus, in the practical process of making images and miracles,
‘produces techniques and skills’ and is able to understand forms of things in
nature by virtue of the exclusive human nature (which includes all other forms
in nature): ‘the talismans are more powerful than any other optional thing since
they were fashioned according to the universal nature. They (talismans) are like
miracles since they use the general form and substance of nature, which in turn
make miracles and other marvels’. If the talismans include the universal form of
nature, then the craftsman, the magus, who created them encapsulates the struc-
ture of the universe, since ‘the image of man contains of the image of the spirit of
the universe’.39 Agrippa counterpoises forms for acquiring knowledge: the medi-
eval scholastic vita contemplativa versus the occultist vita activa. Since man was
created in the form of God, the magus, the individual practitioner, is able through
an active exploration of nature to connect to the spirit of the universe.
One finds echoes of the Picatrix in other aspects of Agrippa’s work too. It
appears to have informed his thinking on how the virtuoso connected differ-
ent worlds and crossed disciplinary boundaries. The magus not only alters the
mixture of matter in this world, he also connects matter, bodies, spirits, and
forms, to their celestial origins – to the single universal source of the anima
mundi. He does this by making images and measuring matter.
38 ‘Nullum enim opus ab ipsa magia perfectum extat nec est aliquod opus vere magicum, quod
tres facultates non complectatur’. Ibid., book 1, chap. 2, 86–9.
‫ان الطلسمات انفذ من االختيارات النها مستعملة بطبيعة الكل وهي كالمعجز الستعمالها الخواص الطبيعية وذلك ان الخواص تفعل‬
‫العجائب من االفعال‬
The Latin translation mistakenly marked this paragraph in chapter 6, whereas in the original
Arabic text it is the end of chapter 5.
‘Operatur industria et arte. et similiter ab aliis industria et arte retrahitur. Et invenit magiste-
ria subtilia et eorum subtilitates,et facit miracula et ymagines mirabiles. et scienciarum formas
retinet….Et generalis forma hominis est archa forme spiritus in generali. et spiritus generalis
est archa sensus generalis. et sensus generalis est archa luminis unde sensus procedit’. Magrīṭī
1986, book 1, chap. 6, 26f.
Unauthenticated
In De occulta philosophia, the making of images is the most evident trace of

Agrippa’s reading of the Picatrix. He echoes his source at one point, writing, ‘The
magicians affirm that both by the mixture and application of natural things and
by images, seals, rings, glasses, and some other instruments, if [the events take
place] opportunely under a specific constellation, a celestial illustration may be
made, and some wonderful thing may be received by images’. Since the beams
of the celestial bodies are animated, they ‘transport marvelous gifts, and a most
violent power’, and the image can attract and manifest these ‘wonderful powers’.
In order for the image to become more powerful it has to correspond to the natural
properties of the objective heavenly body and also to have its form.40
Later on, Agrippa mentions his sources, saying, ‘There are besides in the
zodiac thirty-six images, according to the number of the faces’ of which ancient
mathematicians – and later ‘the Arabians’ – wrote.41 He further echoes the Pic-
atrix in a description of the planets. The image of Saturn, imprinted on a lode-
stone, shows ‘a man the face of a hart and the feet of a camel, seated on a dragon,
holding in his right hand a scythe, in his left an arrow’.42
Moreover, the Picatrix links the practice of natural magic with the mathemat-
ical and quantifying practices that enabled the virtuoso to discover the hidden
laws of nature, endowing him with the ability to channel a natural force to the use
of man. Quantity is the foundation of this science, for magic is part of the quadriv-
ium. Quantity is divided into two parts, corresponding to geometric and algebraic
laws of nature: ‘continuous quantity (line, surface, body, time, and place) and
discrete quantity (numbers and words)’.43
40 ‘Coelestium enim corporum radii animati, vivi, sensuales, dotes mirificas potentiamque ve-
hementissimam secum ferentes, etiam repentino momento ac subito tactu mirabiles in imagin-
ibus imprimuntur viresetiam in materia minus apta; efficaciores tamen largiuntur imaginibus
virtutes si non ex qualibet, sed certa materia fabricentur, cuius videlicet virtus naturalis cum
specifica simul opera conveniat figuraque imagines similis sit figurae coelesti’. Agrippa von
Nettesheim 1992, book 2, chap. 35, 251f.
41 ‘Post quem scripserunt de illis etiam Arabes’. Ibid., book 2, chap. 37, 354.
42 ‘Faciebant enim ex operibus Saturni, ipso ascendente, in lapide qui magnes dicitur imagi-
nem hominis cervinum valtum et cameli pedes habentis, super cathedram vel draconem sed-
entis, in dextra falcem, in sinistra sagittam tenentis; quam quidem imaginem sperabant sibi ad
vitae longitudinem profuturam’. Ibid., book 2, chap. 38, 358.
‫والكم ايضا كذلك الن الكم كما قيل في التعاليم ينقسم بالقسم االكبر الى قسمين وهما المتصل والمنفصل والقسم المتصل منهما ينقسم الى‬
‫ والقسم المنفصل منهما ينقسم الى القول والعدد‬.‫خمسة اقسام وهي الخط والسطح والجسم والزمان والمكان‬
‘Et similiter quantitas est radix istius sciencie eo quod ipsa in quadrivio operatur. Secundum
suam primam divisionem dividitur in duas partes, que quidem partes sunt ipsa quantitas con-
tinua et discreta. Quantitas vero continua dividitur in partes quinque. que sunt linea. superfi-
cies. corpus.
Unauthenticated
In the same vein, Agrippa elaborated on the quantification of natural magic,

saying that mathematical learning was a ‘necessity’ since all things ‘are gov-
erned by number, weight, measure, harmony, motion, and light’.44 By combining
expertise in natural philosophy and mathematics – by using the laws of arith-
metic, music, geometry, optics, and astronomy, together with measuring tools –
the magician virtuoso ‘may do many wonderful things’.45 He may, for instance,
produce ‘images that speak and foretell things to come’. Above all, ‘numbers, that
have more of form in them, are effective’ at finding their counterparts in the celes-
tial world, which leads to discovering ‘the effects of good and bad things’. Thus,
Agrippa concluded, images and numbers both described the forms of nature.46
Agrippa’s and Ficino’s readings of the Picatrix converged around one par-
ticular image: the sun. Both were drawn in by the idea that talismans func-
tioned as did the sun, and that the sun is the center of influences, the source
of all spiritual-physical entities. If one could create an image that encapsulated
the sun’s qualities, it would, naturally and ineluctably, possess great practical
powers.
The Picatrix argues that heavenly bodies influence nature through unde-
tectable spiritual-physical entities that can be captured and used by means of
images. It also argues that the sun, the source of those entities, governs the whole
universe by its rays. But which natural images, forms not made by man, could
tempus et locus; et quantitas discreta dividitur in duas partes, videlicet numerum et verbum’.
Magrīṭī 1986, book 2, chap. 7, 58.
44 ‘Mathematicae disciplinae ad magiam tam sunt necessariae atque cognatae ut qui hanc
absque illis profiteatur, is tota aberret via frustraque laboret minimeque desideratum adsequa-
tur effectum. Quae cunque enim sunt et fiunt in istis inferioribus naturalibus virtutibus, omnia
haec ‘numero, pondere, mensura’, harmonia, mootu et lumine fiunt atque reguntur et omnes
res, quas videmus in istis inferioribus, habent radicem et fundamentum in illis’. Agrippa von
Nettesheim 1992, book 2, chap. 1, 249.
45 ‘Hinc magus, expertus philosophiae naturalis et matheseos, cognitisque mediis scientiis
ex his utrisque existentibus, arithmetica, musica, geometria, optica, astronomia, et quae de
ponderibus, mensuris, proportionibus, articulis et iuncturis scientiae sunt, cognitisque etiam
mechanicis artibus ex illis resultantibus, quid mirum si supra caeteros homines arte et ingenio
praecellens, mirabilia multa operetur, quae etiam prudentissimi quique et scientissimi valde ad-
mirentur?’ Ibid., book 2, chap. 1, 250.
46 ‘Loquuntur autem de numero rationali et formali, non de materiali, sensibili sive vocali
nuero mercantorum . . . numerum naturalem et formalem et rationalem vocant, ex quo magna
sacramenta emanant tam in naturalibus, quam divinis atque coelestibus. Per illum havetur via
ad omnia scibilia indaganda et intelligenda; per illum havetur proximus accessus ad prophetiam
naturalem: atque ipse abbas Ioachim in prophetiis suis alia via quam per numeros formales non
processit’. Ibid., book 2, chap. 1, 253.
Unauthenticated
perfectly capture such influences and win universal appreciation from all reli-
gions and cultures?
In book 3, chapter 5, the Picatrix offers a rather peculiar injunction for a pre-
sumably Muslim writer. The author give practical instruction to the magus on the
process of preparing talismans: ‘Then we are making seven forms [talismans]
on stones, each one in the form of the hour of the planet, [although the forms
vary from planet to planet] they all convey the form of the cross, which is the
mastery form of all the planets’. The cross holds a spiritual power since it ‘con-
nects to everything similar to its form and resists everything that is dissimilar to
its form’, universally affecting all objects in nature. The Picatrix tackles a practi-
cal consideration – how to transform three-dimensional objects of nature, and
their functional relations, into a two dimensional representation on talismans?
In coping with this problem the text makes a radical implication – the form of
the circle merely describes the location of objects in space whereas only linear
forms, like the cross, can describe fractions of rays, their function, power, and
influences. The text alleges physical and geometrical considerations: the sun rays
are understood in terms of their length and breadth, formal qualities also found
in the cross, ‘we drew the form of the cross since every planet carries its [cross]
form, since every physical body has a surface, and the surface is made of length,
breadth, and the form of breadth and length is actually the cross itself. And for
this reason we hold the cross [as a universal form] since the spirits do not resist
to it’. Taking this a step further, the Picatrix describes the cross as possessing ‘a
universal mastery’ in manipulating the influences of the heavenly bodies, ‘we
said that there is no person who is not subjected to the rule of the seven planets,
and therefore, if the spirits connect to the image of the cross then it gives the man
who carries it bravery and power’.47 Since light plays a role as an agent between
47 Magrīṭī 1933, book 3, chap. 5, 184–185.

‫من كل حجر من هذه االحجار صورة ساعة الكوكب الذي ذلك الحجر من قسمته وتكون هذه السبع الصور حاملة للصليب‬...
‫ فالجل هذا ما شكلناه بشكل الصليب الن كل ذى‬....‫وانما ذكرنا ان يكون صليبا النؔ ا قد قلنا ان كل شىء يتصل بشكله وينافر غير شكله‬
‫جرم واقع تحت شكله الن ظاهر الجسم السطح وهو ما كان له طول وعرض وشكل الطول والعرض هو الصليب فاتخذنا لهذه العلًة‬
ً ‫ليكون‬
.‫شكال ال تنافره الروحانية وهذا قال من سرا ٔىر هذا العلم‬
‫ونقول انه ال يخلو من ان يكون كل الناس تحت حكم السبعة كواكب المذكورة فاذا اتصلت الروحانية بهذه الصورة واصابت محمولها‬
.‫كانت له عزة وقوة‬
‘Causa vero propter quam dicimus hanc figuram in forma crucis fiendam esse est quemadmodum
diximus, scilicet quod omnia in suis viribus colligantur figuris ex sua qualitate existentibus, et
fugiant a contrariis. Et nos querimus potencias spirituum planetarum ut sue figure coniungan-
tur, et non cognoscimus figuram spiritus nec ad ipsam attingere possumus experimento nisi per
figuram hominis, animalis vel alterius rei. Et ideo concluditur quod omnis virtus predictorum
maxi me consistit in figuris. Idcirco, quia videmus omnes figuras et formas arborum et plantarum
esse in suis figuris diversas necnon et figuras animalium et similiter minerarum, qua propter
Unauthenticated
objects in nature, drawing linear lines can describe the functional influential
relations between objects and the form of a cross thus utterly encapsulates such
relations.
Ficino echoes the Picatrix, observing (3.18) that whereas some saw the circle
as the fittest symbolic representation of the heavens, ‘the more ancient authori-
ties, as we have read in a certain “Arabic miscellany”, preferred above all other
figures the cross’. He emphasises that ‘bodies apply their power as soon as it has
diffused to a plane, and a primary plane is best marked out by a cross’. The cross,
more than any other image, ‘possesses length and breadth and of all figures it
possesses the highest degree of rectilinearity, and it has four right angles’. Since
the effects of the celestials appeared most strongly ‘through the perpendicularity
of rays and of right angles’, the stars are much more ‘potent when they occupy the
sky’s four angles casting their rays upon each other to form a cross’. This was why
‘the ancients said that the cross served as a receptacle for the strength of the stars;
it therefore possessed the greatest power among images, receiving the forces and
spirits of the planets’.48
In De occulta philosophia Agrippa adopts a similar line. In one of the few
places (2.23) in which he alludes to the Picatrix, the cross is presented as the uni-
versal figure of natural magic: ‘The Arabs confirmed that the figure of the cross
has very great power, that it is the strongest of receptacles for celestial powers
and intelligence’. He adds that the cross ‘is strengthened by the straightness of
angles and rays; stars are most potent when they stand in the four corners of
heaven and the projection of their rays forms a cross’.49
nullo modo cognoscere possumus proprie figuras ipsorum spirituum planetarum, ideo sapientes
huius artis antique tamquam universalem figuram crucem elegerunt, et hoc propter quod omnia
corpora apparent sua superficie et quia superficies figurarum habet longitudinem et latitudinem,
et figura longitudinis et latitudinis proprie consistit in cruce. Idcirco hanc figuram tam quam
universalem magis tram diximus in talibus operandi et tamquam receptricem virium spirituum
planetarum eo quod aliqua figura non divertitur ab ea’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 3, chap. 5, 107.
48 ‘Postermi quidem imaginum auctores universam earum formam ad coelisimilitudinem ac-
cepere rotundam. Antiquiores autem, quemadmodum in quodam Arabum collegio legimus,
figuram cruces conctis anteponebant, quia corpora per virtutem agunt ad superficiem iam dif-
fusam. Crucem ergo veteres figuram esse dicebant tum stellarum fortitudine factam, tum earun-
dem fortitudinis susceptaculum; ideoque habere summam in imaginibus potestatem, ac vires et
spiritus suscipere planetarum’. Ficino 1989, book 3, chap. 18, 334.
49 ‘Figuram autem crucis Aegyptii atque Arabes summam potentiam habere confirmabant
quodque sit omnium coelestium virium atque intelligentiarum firmissimum receptaculum, quia
ipsa sit figura omnium rectissima, continens quatuor angulos rectos sitque prima superficiei
descriptio, habens longitudinem et latitudinem; dicebantque eam rectitudinem angulorum
atque radiorum resultat; suntque stellae tunc maxime potentes, quando in figura coeli quantuor
Unauthenticated
Since astronomers focused on the location of planets and on the structure of

the universe, the mathematical language used to describe them ought to be geom-
etry, with the circle as its prime form. Despite this, Picatrix, Ficino, and Agrippa,
as well as other thinkers working on natural magic, focused on the functioning of
the heavenly bodies, the ways in which they linearly influence each others’ forces
and rays. They thus claim that the proper mathematical language with to describe
these bodies and forces ought to be a geometry of fractions of linear lines, with
the cross as its prime form.
Uniting the notions of the anima mundi, the centrality of the sun, and the
role of the virtuoso through the form of the cross, which they made a universal
and natural image, Picatrix, Ficino, and Agrippa offered a religious and politi-
cal symbol under which society could be organised. Thus, the readers of the Pic-
atrix went beyond philosophical discussions, laboring to legitimise the theory
and practice of natural magic. Furthermore, they laid the foundations for a new
discussion in which natural magic could serve as an ideological framework for
bottom-up political and scientific utopias, centered around the symbols of the
sun and the cross. Such societies had existed, they claimed, in the ancient East.
4 Politicising magic: Campanella’s ‘Republic

of supernal spirits’
Tommaso Campanella never explicitly mentions the Picatrix but his familiarity
with it can be found in the book’s structure, places mentioned, and reference
to particular ancient cultural practices. While Ficino lived at the center of the
Renaissance circulation of texts, and Agrippa was a wandering ‘center of circu-
lation’, Campanella lived in a dungeon in Naples; how he came to read Picatrix
remains a mystery. We have some indications that early in his life, before he was
imprisoned, he practiced astrological magic, as is implied in Atheismus trium-
phatus (Atheism Conquered), which he wrote from 1606 to 1607. Moreover, since
he alludes to the Picatrix in La città del Sole (The City of the Sun), which he wrote
in 1601, it seems likely that Campanella encountered one of the circulating man-
uscripts of the text prior to his imprisonment in 1598, about a century after Ficino
first mentioned it in print.
obtinent cardines atque radiorum suorum in si invicem proiectione crucem constituunt’. Agrip-
pa von Nettesheim 1992, book 2, chap. 23, 319f.
Unauthenticated
Campanella was perhaps the last Renaissance intellectual who considered

notions of natural magic in philosophical terms. He was surely aware of his
historical position, reflected in his cautious attitude, and selectively mentions
sources that fit with the religious and cultural circumstances of his time. An indi-
cation of why Campanella would not have been quick to unveil his debt to the
Picatrix is found in the title of his work on astrology: Six Books of Astrological
Matters, in Which Astrology, Purged of All the Superstitions of the Arabs and Jews,
Is Treated Physiologically, in Accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the Doctrine
of St. Thomas, Albert, and the Greatest Theologians; So That They May, without
Suspicion of Evil, Be Read with Profit in the Church of God.50 To deflect a familiar
Christian criticism of astrology, he proleptically attacked the very works on which
he drew heavily. Campanella’s sources, he explained, would instead be Persian,
Egyptian, and Babylonian.
Although the Picatrix is not mentioned by name, its implied presence is
detectable. In the first chapter of book 4, the Picatrix discusses the spirits of
objects and their senses, stressing that ‘matter is divided into two parts, that is to
say, the spiritual and the corporeal’,51 and that sensus mundi is substance equally
distributed in all bodies, [something] distinct from matter’52; and finally that God
‘planted it in those bodies’ but it is intangible, though physically manifest in the
sun’s rays.53 In De sensu rerum et magia (On the Sense of Things and on Magic),
which appeared in 1620, Campanella not only imitated the structure of the Pica-
trix but also reformulated its arguments, particularly those regarding the concept
of sensus mundi – the intellect, soul, or spirit that resides in matter and is the
prime cause of natural motion. Echoing the Picatrix, Campanella writes that the
Arabs conceive of space as a godly entity sustaining all things. ‘Without contra-
dictions he lovingly receives all things, and nothing dies for him, but the body
is dead in respect of it’. According to his Arab sources, natural bodies cannot
be dead objects but are an extension of the being of God. ‘The attraction is the
sense of space’, thus objects have senses that rely on the sensus mundi, namely
the visible sun, to connect them to the anima mundi and to propagate and receive
50 Campanella 1629.
.‫أن ألجوهر مع هذا ينقسيم قسمين روحاني وجسماني‬
‘Sed materia dividitur in duas partes, videlicet in spiritualem et corporalem’. Magrīṭī 1986, book
4, chap. 1, 175.
52 ‘est substancia equali pondere omnibus suis partibus, a materia remota’. Magrīṭī 1986, book
4, chap. 1, 177.
53 ‘et plantavit earn in istis corporibus que sunt secundum lumen Solis, quod est ex eo qui per
radios ipsa corpora attingit’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 4, chap. 1, 178.
Unauthenticated
spirits, forces, and other influences, which in turn transform matter and generate
motion and rest.54
But more than any other work, it is Campanella’s La città del sole (The City of
the Sun), his scientific and political utopia, that bears the impress of the Picatrix.
Here he mingles natural magic, talismanic art, experimental science, and heli-
ocentrism by way of cross-cultural exchanges. He sets the work on the mythical
island of Taprobane in the Indian Ocean; there one can find ‘Adam’s footprint
after his fall from grace’. The inhabitants, practitioners of natural magic, had
‘come from India, flying from the sword of the magi’. The Solaris, as these people
were called, followed Brahma and Pythagoras, and children were inculcated with
a social ethic at a tender age, ensuring that the political order arose from the
bottom up (Campanella 1995, 6f.).
This very idea occurs in the Picatrix. In a pendant to comments on the
cross-cultural transmission of natural magic, the author mentions that from the
ancient Chaldeans up to his own time and place people had described a utopian
city of philosophers, a community of sun worshippers who employed talismans
to guarantee political order. The Chaldean magi asserted that, ‘Hermes built, in
the east of Egypt, a city twelve miles in length, in which he set a citadel that had
four gates on its four sides. At the eastern gate he put the image of an eagle, at the
western gate the image of a bull, at the southern gate the image of a lion, and at
the northern gate he built the image of a dog’. The purpose of these images was
to attract ‘certain spiritual essences’ that would act as gate keepers, ‘allowing no
one to pass through the portals without their permission’. At the summit of the
citadel, Hermes built a tower, which attained a height of thirty cubits, and on
the summit of the tower he set a sphere, ‘the color of which changed with each
of the seven days’. Around the city he placed diverse and changing images, by
means of which the inhabitants were made ‘virtuous and freed from sin, wicked-
ness, and sloth’. The name of the city was Adocentyn (madīnat al-Ashmūnīn), and
its people were ‘deeply learned in the ancient sciences, their profundities and
secrets, and in particular in the science of astronomy’.55
54 ‘Ex quo Arabes quidam putarunt spatium esse Deum ipsum,quia omnes sustinet res, nullis
contrariatur omnesque recipit benigne, nec unquam moriuntur illi, & perillud, sed hoc corpus &
per modo respectu illius corporis mortuum est’. Campanella 1623, 25.
‫وممن عن بهذا الشٲن جيل يسمون القبط وهم اعلم الناس قاطبة بهذا العلوم وهم الذين يقولون ان هرمس االول بنى بيت تماثيل يعرف‬
‫ وهو الذى بنى المدينة الشرقية‬,‫بها مقادير النيل عند جبل القمر وعمل للشمس هناك هيكال وكان يختفى عن الناس فال يرونه وهو معهم‬
‫من مصر وكان طولها اثنى عشر ميال وجعل فيها حصنا له اربعة ابواب من جهاته االربع وصنع على الباب اشرقي صورة عقاب‬
‫وعلى الباب الغربي صورة ثور وعلى الباب الشمالي صورة اسد وعلى الباب الجنوبي صورة كلب وأسكن فيها الروحانيات فكانت‬
‫تنطق اذا قصدها القاصد وتسمع لها اصوات مفزعة فال يجسر احد على الدنؔ و منها اال باذن الموكؔ ل بها وغرس فيها شجرة عظيمة‬
‫تتلون كل يوم بلون حتى تنقضى سبعة‬ ؔ ‫تحمل كل صننف من الفاكهة وجعل في اعلى القصر منارا طوله ثالثون ذراعا وعلى رأسه ؔقبة‬
Unauthenticated
Adocentyn stood at the crossroads of a number of cultures, as does Cam-

panella’s utopian city. The parallels continue: Campanella describes the repub-
lican order of the City of the Sun as being constituted through the abstraction of
the forces of nature into talismanic images. On the top of a civic dome, ‘nothing
is seen over the altar but a large sphere, upon which the heavenly bodies are
painted, and another globe upon which there is a representation of the earth’.
The temple has ‘seven golden lamps always burning, and these bear the names
of the seven planets.’56
The governing power of the sun and its centrality, and the cross as its geomet-
rical representation, led to the notion that the heavenly bodies are the natural
republic, harmonically aligning the laws of nature with the laws of religion and
society. The perfect earthly republic will, therefore, have to be organised along the
same tenets. In the Picatrix such a political application of natural magic is clearly
‫وولد فيه سم ًكا وجعل حول المدينة‬

ؔ ‫ايام ثم تعود الى اللون االول وتكسو المدينة من ذلك اللون لو ًنا جدي ًدا وجعل حول المانر ما ًء كثيرً ا‬
‫المضار وكانت تسمى مدينة الشمونين وهذا مذكور ايضا ً في ‘اخبر مصر’ وهٶالء القوم اعنى‬ ؔ ‫طالسم ممن كل صنف تدفع عن اهلها‬
.‫القبط ساكنون بمصر وهم العارفون باخبار البرابى ونقوشاتها وما اودع فيها من العلوم‬
‘Sunt etenim magi qui in hac sciencia et opere se intromiserunt Caldei; hinamque in hac perfec-
tiores habentur sciencia. Ipsi vero asserunt quod Hermes primitus quandam domum ymaginum
construxit ex quibus quantitatem Nili contra Montem Lune agnoscebat; hic autem domum fecit
Solis. Et taliter ab hominibus se abscondebat quod nemo secum existens valebat eum videre.
Iste vero fuit qui orientalem Egipti edificavit civitatem cuius longitude duodecim miliariorum
consistebat, in qua quidem construxit castrum quod in quatuor eius partibus quatuor habebat
portas. In porta vero orientis formam aquile posuit, in porta vero occidentis formam tauri, in me-
ridionali vero formam leonis, et in septentrionali canis formam construxit. In eas quidem spirit-
uales spiritus fecit intrare qui voces proiciendo loquebantur; nec aliquis ipsius portas valebat
intrare nisi eorum mandato. Ibique quasdam arbores plantavit, in quarum medio magna con-
sistebat arbor que generacionem fructuum omnium apportabat. In summitate vero ipsius castri
quondam turrim edificari fecit, que triginta cubitorum longitudinem attingebat, in cuius sum-
mitate pomum ordinavit rotundum, cuius color qualibet die usque ad septem dies mutabatur. In
fine vero septem dierum priorem quem habuerat recipiebat colorem. IlIa autem civitas quotidie
ipsius mali cooperiebatur colore, et sic civitas predicta qualibet die refulgebat colore. In turris
quidem circuitu abundans erat aqua, in qua quidem plurima genera piscium permanebant. In
circuitu vero civitatis ymagines divers as et quarumlibet manerierum ordinavit, quarum virtute
virtuosi efficiebantur habitantes ibidem et a turpitudine malisque languoribus nitidi. Predicta
vero civitas Adocentyn vocabatur. Hic autem in antiquorum scienciis, earum profunditatibus et
secretis atque in astronomie sciencia erant edocti’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 4, chap. 3, 188f.
56 ‘Sopra l’altare non vi è altro ch’un mappa-mondo assai grande, dove tutto il cielo è dipinto,
ed un altro dove è la terra. Poi sul cielo della cupola vi stanno tutte le stelle maggiori del cielo,
notate coi nomi loro e virtù, c’hanno sopra le cose terrene, con tre versi per una; ci son I poli e I
circoli signati non del tutto, perché manca il muro a basso, ma si vendono finiti corrispondenza
alli globbi dell’altare. Vi sono sempre accese sette lampade nominate dalli sette pianeti’. Cam-
panella 1995, 3f.
Unauthenticated
in place. The text states, ‘The Nabatean sages have said that the power and works
of the heavens and stars originate in the sun. . . . The fixed stars are the sun’s hand-
maidens; they serve, obey, and are humbled by him’.57 In Atheismus triumphatus,
Campanella says of the sun: ‘It is endowed with a vivid and simple beauty; it is the
nobler cause of lower things […] continually benefitting us by pouring out light,
heat, and influences, generating, changing, producing all things; on account of
all this the pagans could easily be led to think that it is a god’.58 He takes the idea
a step further in La città del Sole, pointing out that the Solaris [just like the Naba-
teans] worship the Sun and in their morning prayer direct their prayers to the east,
calling the Sun ‘our father in heaven’. Further, they ‘honour the Sun and the stars
and conceive them as living bodies, icons of God and celestial temples; though,
they do not worship the stars, but mostly the Sun. […] they worship God under
the image of the Sun, which is the icon of God and his face and living image, from
which comes light and heat to everything. And indeed, they built a temple designed
like a lighthouse Sun, in which priests pray to God in the Sun and stars’.59 The
City of the Sun functions as a republican polity that is ordered through talismanic
symbols, magical worship, and education aimed at developing natural talents;

‫واما النبط فانها تزعم ان الفعل كله في العالم للشمس وحدها والكنهم لما علموا ان القمر معين لها على افعالها من غير حاجة منها اليه‬
‫وال الى غيره وكذلك ايضا السبة المتحيرة فانها تتبع الشمس في الفعل اتباعا وتطيعها طوعا وتسجد لها وتسبح ليال ونهارا وهي الدهر‬
‫داءمة في طاعتها ومستمرة في مرضاتها قوال وفعال واالفعال كلها للشمس وحدها عندهم وساءر السبعة مشاركة لها في بعض افعالها‬
...‫وكذلك الكواكب الثابتة عبيد لها تسبحون ويسجدون لهم شركة في االفعال دون حاجة اليوم وجعلة صالتهم للشمس‬
‘Neptinorum sapientes dixerunt quod potencie et opera celorum et stellarum sunt Solis simplic-
iter, et ideo quia vident et intelligunt quod Luna iuvat eum (hoc est, quantum in suis effectibus),
non quod Sol indigeat ea nec aliis planetis; et similiter alii quinque planete sequuntur Solem in
suis effectibus et obediunt et humiliantur eidem, et secundum disposiciones Solis in predictis
effectibus procedunt. Et ideo omnes effectus sunt in Sole secundum eorum opinionem primitus
radicati, ceteri vero sex planete iuvant eum in suis effectibus. Et similiter stelle fixe ancille sunt
eidem, serviunt, obediunt et humiliantur ei, et in suis effectibus iuvant ipsum, non propter in-
digenciam quam habet ex eis. Et he gentes Soli hanc oracionem facere solebant’. Magrīṭī 1986,
book 3, chap. 8, 138.
58 ‘Minore tandem reprebensione dignos deprehendi eos, qui adorant Sidera, Caelum & Solem:
quonia m hac portiones Mundi se onstendunt, à corrupione distantes, & pulcheritudine vivida,
simplicique donatae sunque nobiliores rerum interiorum causae, & in sublimi regione degunt,
continuò beneficientes nobis, lucem essundendo, calorem , & influentias: generando, alterando
Omnia que producendo: qua ob res magis movere possunt Gentes ad credendum quòd sint Dii’.
Campanella 1631, 111.
59 ‘Onorano il sole e le stelle come cose viventi e statue di Dio e tempi celesti; ma non l’adorano,
e più onorano il sole. Nulla creatura adorano di latria, altro che Dio, e però a lui serveno solo
sotto l’insegna del sole, ch’è insegna e volto di Dio, da cui viene la luce e ‘lcalore ed ogni altra
cosa. Però l’altrare è come un sole faro, e li sacerdoti pregano Dio nel sole e nelle stelle’. Cam-
panella 1995, 35f.
Unauthenticated
its structure mirrors that of the universe. This became an idée fixe for Campanella
and in his other writings, such as Astrologia, he repeats that, ‘I certainly have the
faith that the stars are a republic of supernal spirits’,60 echoing the Picatrix’s (2.10)
description of the heavenly bodies as a celestial commonwealth centered around
the sun. The talismanic form of the Sun, the Picatrix says, is a king,61 and just like
a king it governs from the center its kingdom. The plants and the stars derive in the
most efficient way their light, heat, motion and influences from the sun, making
the celestial commonwealth a representation of perfect natural order.
The City of the Sun, Campanella’s homage to the political practices of the
East, is an attempt to revisit Adocentyn, a cultural alternative to scholastic
Europe, a place where natural magic builds up rational, meritocratic, scientific,
and state institutions.62 In a sense, Campanella follows the Picatrix’s description
of Adocentyn, which Pico echoes in asserting that the Persian kings trained their
60 ‘Firmissimè credo, quod & gentibus omnibus credibile videtur, teste Philone & Origene, sy-
dera esse Respub. Spirituum supernorum, cum in mundum corporcum ex mentali egrediantur.
Nam activissima res est ignis lucidissima, sensitivissima, idcircò maximè conveniens spititibus
potestate & sapientia decoratis’. Campanella 1638, III, XI, ix, i, 52.
‫صورة الملك جالس على كرسي‬
‘Forma Solis secundum opinionem Picatricis est forma regis in cathedra sedentis et in eius capite
coronam habentis, et formam corvi ante ipsum habentis et sub eius pedibus figuram Solis quam
antediximus. Et hec est eius forma’. Magrīṭī 1986, book 2, chap. 10, 66.
62 It was not unheard of for Campanella to use Arabic sources. In his critique of Scholastic
science, its culture and practices, and the geocentric ancient universe, he set his eyes on Eastern
cultures, which he saw as the bearers of an alternative scheme of science and politics, even la-
tently guarding scriptural remnants of the ancient heliocentric cosmology. Noel Malcolm (2005)
has argued that Campanella’s interest in the Near East and the Ottomans went beyond the use
of foreign sources, stressing the East as the site of a philosophy, a practice, and a politics that
emerged by natural magic. Luigi Amabile’s early reconstruction of the reasons for Campanel-
la’s imprisonment pointed out the connection between his political activity and his intellectual
work in natural magic and in politics of apocalypse (see Amabile 1882, vol. 1, 226–28; vol. 3, doc.
7, 15–17). The details of the conspiracy of which Campanella was accused are striking. In June
1599, an Ottoman fleet commanded by Mūrat Reis was anchored near Reggio Calabria. Mūrat
Reis was actually an Italian, originally Scipione Cicala, captured as a boy and recruited to the
devshirme, the Ottoman institute for training captive boys as bureaucrats and soldiers. The now
successful Mūrat Reis had stopped at Reggio Calabria merely to see his mother in Messina. But
Campanella and his partners visited Mūrat Reis on his ship, urging him to invade Calabria so as
to intensify the apocalyptic process, which, they hoped, would cause the pope to flee to a uto-
pian retreat called La città del sole. For Malcolm, the conspiracy shows that Campanella adopt-
ed from the Ottomans the political institutions that he later presented in his scientific-political
utopia. See Malcolm 2005, 41–67. On the conspiracy and its relation to Campanella’s thought,
see Ernst 2010, 67–85.
Unauthenticated
sons in natural magic so that they could ‘know how to rule according to the
dogma of the world republic’.
5 Conclusion
For Renaissance thinkers unfriendly to the establishment, natural magic offered
an alternative program for the philosophy of nature. Moreover, these rebels
presented natural magic as a scientific practice, a culture deeply grounded in
non-European contexts. For Ficino and Pico, natural magic originated in the
ancient Near East and was brought to Renaissance Europe through cross-cultural
exchanges that involved Kabalistic texts and Arabic works on magic. For Agrippa,
natural magic carried a new program for science, as well as new practices and
new personas. For him, the magus – the new experimental naturalist – was a
figure that first came to life in the ancient East. For Campanella, natural magic
offered a bottom-up construction of natural philosophy that also entailed a new
organisation of society, in which reason and firsthand experience order both
nature and society. In imagining this alternative, they eventually returned their
science to its historical point of origin, the East. Ficino, Agrippa, and, in a sense,
Campanella, pushed the argument further, laying a foundation for a heliocentric
worldview, initiating the search for the hidden forces of nature, and casting the
virtuoso magician as the godfather of natural philosophy.
The explicit and implicit presence of the Picatrix in the writing of these key
figures indicates that the text played a central role in stirring discussions that
aimed at turning natural magic into philosophy of nature, transforming the
magus into an experimentalist, and converting the practice of natural magic into
an institutional system of education.
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Traveling with the Picatrix:

6 For the Arabic text see Magrīṭī 1933, 5.

7 Magrīṭī 1933, book 1, chap. 2, 7.

2 Philosophising magic: Ficino’s animated

despite dismissing major parts of the text as superstitious. He nevertheless incor-

14 Magrīṭī 1933, book 3, chap. 12, 284f.

28 Magrīṭī 1933, book 2, chap. 3, 63.

3 Legitimising practice: Agrippa’s virtuoso

31 ‘Praeterea in multis ac ferme omnibus gymnasijs peruersus mos, ac damnabilis cosuetudo

In De occulta philosophia, the making of images is the most evident trace of

In the same vein, Agrippa elaborated on the quantification of natural magic,

47 Magrīṭī 1933, book 3, chap. 5, 184–185.

Since astronomers focused on the location of planets and on the structure of

4 Politicising magic: Campanella’s ‘Republic

Campanella was perhaps the last Renaissance intellectual who considered

Adocentyn stood at the crossroads of a number of cultures, as does Cam-

‫وولد فيه سم ًكا وجعل حول المدينة‬

57 Magrīṭī 1933, book 3, chap. 8, 229.

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