Picatrix 

Picatrix is the name used in Christian Europe for a text originally written in Arabic, probably in the 10th or 11th century, entitled غاية الحكيم Ġāyat al-Ḥakīm. This title is sometimes translated as "The Aim of the Sage" or "The Goal of The Wise".1

Under the name Picatrix, the work became available in the West through a Latin translation of the 13th century, based on an earlier Spanish translation, both of which appear to have been produced at the court of Alphonso The Wise.2

One of the most influential interpretations suggests it is to be regarded as a "handbook of talismanic magic".3 Another researcher summarizes it as "the most thorough exposition of celestial magic in Arabic", indicating the sources for the work as "Arabic texts on Hermeticism, Sabianism, Ismailism, astrology, alchemy and magic produced in the Near East in the ninth and tenth centuries A.D."4

The odd Latin title is usually explained as a sloppy transliteration of one "Buqratis", mentioned several times in the second of the four books of the work.5 However, another interpretation, perhaps more convincing, suggests that Picatrix is a translation of the first name of the individual often indicated as the author of the work, (pseudo) Maslama al-Majriti. Maslama derives from the Arabic root s-l-m, of which one of the meanings offered in Arabic lexica is "to sting". According to this view Maslama would have been translated as Picatrix, which is a feminine variant of the Latin picator "one who stings or pricks" (nomen agentis), based on the supposition of the translator that Maslama was a feminine form.6

Attributions of authorship range from "the Arabic version is anonymous" to the assertion that the author is "the celebrated astronomer and mathematician Abu l-Qasim Maslama b. Ahmad Al-Majriti".78

The work is divided into four books, which exhibit a marked absence of systematic exposition. It has significantly influenced West European magical thinking from Marsilio Ficino in the 1400s, to Thomas Campanella in the 1600s. The edition in the British Library passed through several hands: Simon Forman, Richard Napier, Elias Ashmole and William Lilly.

The Spanish and Latin versions were the only ones known to western scholars until Wilhelm Printz discovered an Arabic version in or around 1920.9

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Notes

  1. ^ However the Arabic translated as "goal" (ghaya, pl. ghayat) also suggests the sense of "utmost limit" or "boundary".
  2. ^ David Pingree, 'Between the Ghāya and Picatrix. I: The Spanish Version', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 44, (1981), pp. 27-56
  3. ^ Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Chicago, 1964; Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, Chicago, 1966
  4. ^ David Pingree, 'Some of the Sources of the Ghāyat al-hakīm', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 43, (1980), pp. 1-15
  5. ^ This is sometimes explained as a distortion of "Hippocrates", see: Willy Hartner, 'Notes On Picatrix', in Isis, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 438
  6. ^ J. Thomann, 'The Name Picatrix: Transcription or Translation?', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 53, (1990), pp. 289-296
  7. ^ H. Kahane et al. 'Picatrix and the talismans', in Romance Philology, xix, 1966, p 575; E.J. Holmyard, 'Maslama al-Majriti and the Rutba 'l-Hakim', in Isis, vi, 1924, p 294.
  8. ^ One recent study suggests that the authorship of this work should be attributed to Maslama b. Qasim al-Qurtubi (d. 353/964). See Maribel Fierro, 'Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), Author of the "Rutbat al- Ḥakīm" and the "Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)"', in Studia Islamica, No. 84, (1996), pp. 87-112
  9. ^ Willy Hartner, 'Notes On Picatrix', in Isis, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 438-440

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See also

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