Item #65385 "Picatrix" Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti; ( Studies of the Warburg Institute Vol. 27 ). Hellmut RITTER, Martin Plessner, Translated into German from the.
"Picatrix" Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti; ( Studies of the Warburg Institute Vol. 27 )

"Picatrix" Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti; ( Studies of the Warburg Institute Vol. 27 )

London: The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1962. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. Large octavo. Text in GERMAN (short Foreword in English). lxxviii + 436 pp. Oatmeal colored cloth with brown titling to upper board and spine, tables, indexes. The "Gayat al-Hakim" ("The Aim of the Sage" - often known by the title of its Latin translation: "Picatrix") is arguably the most important magical work of the Arab world, and without doubt that with the greatest influence on the Western hermetic tradition. There really seems little certainty as to its origins, although it appears to have been written in Arabic in Spain in the eleventh century CE (much of the Iberian peninsula was then under Moorish rule). By the middle of the thirteen century (CE) it had been translated into Spanish and then Latin. In 1933 the first scholarly edition of the original Arabic text, edited by Helmut Ritter, was published as Vol. XII of the Studien der Bibliothek Warburg. In 1962, after many years of work (and the disruption of a World War) this painstaking translation from the Arabic into German by Ritter and Martin Plessner was published as Studies of the Warburg Institute Vol. 27. In 1986, David Pingree, published a scholarly edition of the Latin test: "The Latin Version of the Ghayat al-hakim," as Vol. 39 of the same series. Since then various translations, mainly drawn from the Latin version, have been published, but for those with a facility for German (and not Arabic) this remains the best way to access the original Arabic text. From the collection of Clive Harper with his discrete book-label neatly tipped in at the rear. Harper is well- known as the bibliographer of Austin Osman Spare, for updating the Aleister Crowley bibliography in the 2011 Teitan Press collection of Gerald Yorke's writings, and as someone who has lent his expertise to numerous other publications. The label can easily be removed without affecting the page, although it would be a shame not to preserve this record of the book's provenance. Page edges a little dusty, someone has written a few numerals rather heavily on the front free endpaper, and while these have now been erased they have left an imprint which fortunately does not go beyond the endpaper (the numerals were only 3/4 inch high, and most people would not even notice that they'd been there). Else a lovely, tight and clean near Fine copy (issued without a dust jacket). Scarce. Item #65385

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