De fide et legibus by Guillermus Alvernus, Bp. of Paris - 1476

Augsburg: Günther Zainer, 1476. 19th-century gilt-ruled speckled calf (John Mackenzie; corners and hinges worn, spine crown neatly repaired), spine and red morocco label gilt, red edges.

            EDITIO PRINCEPS. WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE PROPOSED "A NEW PHILOSOPHICAL VISION OF MAGIC AS APPLIED KNOWLEDGE" (Hansen). Favoring the scientific investigation of nature, his "view is both comprehensive...and marked by insight into the heart of the situation...he sees remarkably clearly what magic is" (Thorndike).
            In his youth he read widely in books of judicial astronomy, magic and sorcery. Here he investigates superstitions associated with the stars, the elements, images, words, names, times, seasons, initiating actions, finding objects, dreams, auguries, constellations, sneezes, days, hours, figures, marks, images, alchemy, gemstones, minerals and metals. He discusses seeing the future in polished and reflecting surfaces like mirrors, two-edges swords, children's fingernails, egg shells, and ivory handles - a practice for which a boy or virgin was often employed.
            William was constantly quoted by later writers. He used in a literary nontechnical style and drew widely on Aristotelian, Islamic and Jewish thought. I count seventeen sources, among them Emuth, Artesius, Liber anguemis, Liber vaccae, Liber sacratus, The Nabataean Agriculture, al-Farabi, Ibn Gabriol, Maimonides and Hermes Trismegistus.
            Composed 1228-30 and his first work in print, On Faith and Laws forms part of his seven-part encyclopedia Magisterium divinale, of which only one other portion appeared independently. In good condition, bookplate of the Bibliotheca philosophica hermetica.
¶Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science II: 219; Hansen, "Bookish Magic" in Dictionary of the Middle Ages 8: 37; Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science II: 338-71 & passim; de Mayo, The Demonology of William of Auvergne by Fire and Sword passim; Quentin, Naturkenntnisse und Naturanschauungen bei Wilhelm von Auvergne 19-21 & 58-60; Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft I: 89-90; ISTC ig00708000; Goff G-711