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Ghāyat Al-Hakīm
''Picatrix'' is the Latin name used today for a 400-page book of magic and astrology originally written in Arabic under the title ''Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm'' ( ar, غاية الحكيم), which most scholars assume was originally written in the middle of the 11th century, though an argument for composition in the first half of the 10th century has been made. The Arabic title translates as ''The Aim of the Sage'' or ''The Goal of The Wise''. The Arabic work was translated into Spanish and then into Latin during the 13th century, at which time it got the Latin title ''Picatrix''. The book's title ''Picatrix'' is also sometimes used to refer to the book's author. ''Picatrix'' is a composite work that synthesizes older works on magic and astrology. One of the most influential interpretations suggests it is to be regarded as a "handbook of talismanic magic". Another researcher summarizes it as "the most thorough exposition of celestial magic in Arabic", indicating the sources for the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuscript Of The Picatrix
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include ''any'' written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same. Before the arrival of printing, all documents and books were manuscripts. Manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, music notation, explanatory figures, or illustrations. Terminology The study of the writing in surviving manuscripts, the "hand", is termed palaeography (or paleography). The traditional abbreviations are MS for manuscript and MSS for manuscripts, while the forms MS., ms or ms. for singular, and MSS., mss or mss. fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella (; 5 September 1568 – 21 May 1639), baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet. He was prosecuted by the Roman Inquisition for heresy in 1594 and was confined to house arrest for two years. Accused of conspiring against the Spanish rulers of Calabria in 1599, he was tortured and sent to prison, where he spent 27 years. He wrote his most significant works during this time, including ''The City of the Sun'', a utopia describing an egalitarian theocratic society where property is held in common. Biography Born into poverty in Stilo, in the province of Reggio di Calabria in Calabria, southern Italy, Campanella was a child prodigy. Son of an illiterate cobbler, he entered the Dominican Order before the age of fourteen, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brethren Of Purity
The Brethren of Purity ( ar, إخوان الصفا, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century CE. The structure of the organization and the identities of its members have never been clear."Having been hidden within the cloak of secrecy from its very inception, the ''Rasa'il'' have provided many points of contention and have been a constant source of dispute among both Muslim and Western scholars. The identification of the authors, or possibly one author, the place and time of writing and propagation of their works, the nature of the secret brotherhood, the outer manifestation of which comprises the ''Rasa'il'' – these and many secondary questions have remained without answer." pg 25, Nasr (1964) Their esoteric teachings and philosophy are expounded in an epistolary style in the '' Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' (''Rasa'il Ikhwan al-safa), a giant compendium of 52 epist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jabir Ibn Hayyan
Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Arabic: , variously called al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī), died 806−816, is the purported author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The works that survive today mainly deal with alchemy and chemistry, magic, and Shi'ite religious philosophy. However, the original scope of the corpus was vast and diverse, covering a wide range of topics ranging from cosmology, astronomy and astrology, over medicine, pharmacology, zoology and botany, to metaphysics, logic, and grammar. Jabir's works contain the oldest known systematic classification of chemical substances, and the oldest known instructions for deriving an inorganic compound (sal ammoniac or ammonium chloride) from organic substances (such as plants, blood, and hair) by chemical means. His works also contain one of the earliest known versions of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals, a mineralogical theory that would remain d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Saxl
Friedrich "Fritz" Saxl (8 January 1890, Vienna, Austria – 22 March 1948, Dulwich, London) was the art historian who was the guiding light of the Warburg Institute, especially during the long mental breakdown of its founder, Aby Warburg, whom he succeeded as director. Life and work Saxl studied in his native Vienna under Franz Wickhoff, Julius von Schlosser and Max Dvořák, who oversaw his dissertation on Rembrandt. Then in Berlin Saxl studied under Heinrich Wölfflin, and spent 1912–13 researching in Italy for his only major work, a study of medieval illuminated manuscripts with astrological and mythological elements, marrying Elise Bienenfeld in 1913. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army as a lieutenant on the Italian front for the duration of World War I. In 1913 Fritz Saxl had joined what was then the Warburg Library at the Warburg Haus, Hamburg as librarian, and he returned in 1919, also lecturing at the University of Hamburg from 1923. On Warburg's death in 1929 S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Seznec
Jean Seznec (19 March 1905, in Morlaix – 22 November 1983, in Oxford) was a historian and mythographer whose most influential book, for English-speaking readers, is ''La Survivance des dieux antiques'' (1940), translated as '' The Survival of the Pagan Gods: Mythological Tradition in Renaissance Humanism and Art'' (1953). Expanding the scope of work by Warburg Institute scholars Fritz Saxl and Erwin Panofsky, Seznec presented a broad view of the transmission of classical representation in Western art. Career Seznec won a place at the French Academy in Rome in 1929, where he studied under Émile Mâle, whose methodology influenced his own work. At the outbreak of World War II, Seznec returned from his position in Florence as director of the French Institute, to enlist. His major work was published in 1940, just as France fell. After the war he accepted a position in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, where he taught from 1941 to 1949. He then was elected Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islamic Mathematics
Mathematics during the Golden Age of Islam, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, was built on Greek mathematics (Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius) and Indian mathematics (Aryabhata, Brahmagupta). Important progress was made, such as full development of the decimal place-value system to include decimal fractions, the first systematised study of algebra, and advances in geometry and trigonometry. Arabic works played an important role in the transmission of mathematics to Europe during the 10th—12th centuries. Concepts Algebra The study of algebra, the name of which is derived from the Arabic word meaning completion or "reunion of broken parts", flourished during the Islamic golden age. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a Persian scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad was the founder of algebra, is along with the Greek mathematician Diophantus, known as the father of algebra. In his book ''The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing'', Al-Khwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Majriti
Abu al-Qasim Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majriti ( ar, أبو القاسم مسلمة بن أحمد المجريطي: c. 950–1007), known or Latin as , was an Arab Muslim astronomer, chemist, mathematician, economist and Scholar in Islamic Spain, active during the reign of Al-Hakam II. His full name is Abu ’l-Qāsim Maslama ibn Aḥmad al-Faraḍī al-Ḥāsib al-Maj̲rīṭī al-Qurṭubī al-Andalusī. Achievements Al-Majrīṭī took part in the translation of Ptolemy's '' Planisphaerium'', improved existing translations of the '' Almagest'', introduced and improved the astronomical tables of Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, aided historians by working out tables to convert Persian dates to Hijri years, and introduced the techniques of surveying and triangulation. According to Said al-Andalusi, he was the best mathematician and astronomer of his time in al-Andalus. He also introduced new surveying methods by working closely with his colleague ibn al-Saffar. He also wrote a b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alphonso X Of Castile
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, Kingdom of León, León and Kingdom of Galicia, Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the April 1257 Imperial election, election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germany on 1 April. He renounced his claim to Germany in 1275, and in creating an alliance with the Kingdom of England in 1254, his claim on the Duchy of Gascony as well. Alfonso X fostered the development of a cosmopolitan court that encouraged learning. Jews, Muslims, and Christians were encouraged to have prominent roles in his court. As a result of his encouraging the translation of works from Arabic and Latin into the vernacular of Castile, many intellectual changes took place, including the encouragement of the use of Castilian language, Castilian as a primary language of higher learning, science, and law. Alfonso was a prolific author of Galician-Portuguese lyric, Galicia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain. Spanish is the official language of List of countries where Spanish is an official language, 20 countries. It is the world's list of languages by number of native speakers, second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's list of languages by total number of speakers, fourth-most spoken language overall after English language, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani language, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance languages, Romance language. The largest population of native speakers is in Mexico. Spanish is part of the Iberian Romance languages, Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Lilly
William Lilly (9 June 1681) was a seventeenth century English astrologer. He is described as having been a genius at something "that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all" having developed his stature as the most important astrologer in England through his social and political connections as well as going on to have an indelible impact on the future course of Western astrological tradition. Born the son of a yeoman farmer in Leicestershire, Lilly travelled to London as a youth to take up a servant's position. Seven years later he secured his fortune by marrying his former master's widow, allowing him the leisure to study astrology. In 1644, during the English Civil War, he published the first of many popular astrological texts, and in 1647 he published Christian Astrology, a huge compendium of astrological technique. This was the first of its kind to be printed in the English language rather than Latin, and is said to have tutored "a nation in crisis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole (; 23 May 1617 – 18 May 1692) was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices. Ashmole was an antiquary with a strong Baconian leaning towards the study of nature. His library reflected his intellectual outlook, including works on English history, law, numismatics, chorography, alchemy, astrology, astronomy, and botany. Although he was one of the founding Fellows of the Royal Society, a key institution in the development of experimental science, his interests were antiquarian and mystical as well as scientific. He was an early freemason, although the extent of his involvement and commitment is unclear. Throughout his life he was an avid collector of curiosities and other artefacts. Many of these he acquired from the traveller, botanist, and collector John Tradescant the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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