Natural Magick: 3rd Edition – Giambattista della Porta (Black Letter Press)

Description

Revised and Edited by Paul Summers Young

Cover Design by Andrei Bouzikov

 

Our edition of Della Porta’s Natural Magick is based on the 1658 London edition, which in turn was a translation of the expanded Latin edition of 1589 in twenty books. It includes the suppressed chapter Lamiarum Unguenta / The Witches’ Ointment.

Paul Summers Young has newly transcribed and edited the 1658 text, whose eccentricities make for a notoriously laborious read. Spelling and punctuation have been modernised while retaining the Early Modern character of the original; its flavour as a mid-seventeenth century text has been preserved. Rational paragraphing makes it much easier to follow the author’s line of thought, making difficult passages a much more enjoyable experience. This is greatly assisted by a new layout and typesetting.This edition includes the original twenty-page table of contents, A Table containing the General Heads of Natural Magick, and an introduction by Paul Summers Young on the significance of the text, and what a close examination might reveal about its origins.

 

Giambattista compiled a remarkable assortment of extraordinary phenomena and beliefs amassed over his lifetime. He endeavored to extract these phenomena from the realm of divinatory magic, endowing them with naturalistic explanations or validating them through references to classical literature.

“Magia Naturalis” is not a compendium of enchantments or spells; rather, it is an anthology of natural wonders. This work emerged during a period when scientific knowledge was in its nascent stages, reflecting the transitional phase in the development of science.