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Picatrix () is a 400-page Arabic book of magic and astrology, which most scholars assume was originally written in the middle of the 11th century,e.g Dozy, Holmyard, Samsó, and Pingree; David Pingree, 'Some of the Sources of the Ghāyat al-hakīm', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 43, (1980), p. 2; Willy Hartner, 'Notes On Picatrix', in Isis, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 438 though an argument for composition in the first half of the 10th century has been made.Maribel Fierro, "Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (died 353/964), Author of the 'Rutbat al- Ḥakīm' and the 'Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)'" in: Studia Islamica, No. 84, (1996), pp. 87–112. The work was translated into Spanish and then into Latin during the 13th century, at which time it got the Latin title Picatrix. The 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".Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Chicago, 1964; Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, Chicago, 1966 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."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 Eugenio Garin declares, "In reality the Latin version of the Picatrix is as indispensable as the Hermetica or the writings of Albumasar for understanding a conspicuous part of the production of the Renaissance, including the figurative arts."Eugenio Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life, Routledge, 1983, p. 47 It has significantly influenced West European esotericism from Marsilio Ficino in the 15th century, to Thomas Campanella in the 17th century. The manuscript in the British Library passed through several hands: Simon Forman, Richard Napier, Elias Ashmole and William Lilly.
According to the prologue of the Latin translation, Picatrix was translated into Spanish language from the Arabic by order of Alphonso X of Castile at some time between 1256 and 1258.David Pingree, 'Between the Ghāya and Picatrix. I: The Spanish Version', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 44, (1981), p. 27 The Latin version was produced sometime later, based on translation of the Spanish manuscripts. It has been attributed to Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majriti (an Andalusian mathematician), but many have called this attribution into question. Consequently, the author is sometimes indicated as "Pseudo-Majriti".
The Spanish and Latin versions were the only ones known to Western scholars until Wilhelm Printz discovered an Arabic version in or around 1920.Willy Hartner, 'Notes On Picatrix', in Isis, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 438–440; the Arabic text was published for the first time by the Warburg Library in 1927.
According to Garin: MS 5751).|left|251x251px]]According to the Prologue, the author researched over two hundred works in the creation of Picatrix. Later in the text, the author specifies two hundred fifty works. Bakhouche, Picatrix, p 37, 200 However, there are three significant Near/Middle Eastern influences: Jabir ibn Hayyan, the Brethren of Purity, and ibn Wahshiyya's Nabataean Agriculture. The influence of Jabir ibn Hayyan comes in the form of a cosmological background that removes magical practices from the context of diabolical influences and reasserts these practices as having a divine origin. The author of Picatrix utilizes Neoplatonism of hypostasis that mirror the work of Jabir ibn Hayyan.See also Bakhouche, Picatrix, pp. 32–33
While tracing the correlates for the Kabbalistic notion of the astral body (Hebrew: tselem), pp. 255–260. Related terms throughout the associated traditions include pure self, personal Daimon, perfected nature ( ha-teva ha-mushlam), and fathomless father of nature. Cf. guardian angel. Gershom Scholem cited its occurrence in the Picatrix, and pointed out the background of this concept in Greek papyri and philosophical texts,For example, the Greek philosopher, Iamblichus, The Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldean, and Assyrians, IX, 1-9. in Gnostic texts, The Hymn of the Pearl in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. in Frashokereti, and in Islamic and Hermeticism. Scholem also specifically noted Henry Corbin's work in documenting the concept of the perfected nature in Iranian and Islamic religion..
According to Scholem, the following passage from the Picatrix (itself similar to a passage in an earlier Hermeticism text called the Sirr al-khaliqa) tracks very closely with the Kabbalistic concept of tselem:. For the passage in the Secret of Creation, see pp. 246–247.
When I wished to find knowledge of the secrets of Creation, I came upon a dark vault within the depths of the earth, filled with blowing winds. ... Then there appeared to me in my sleep a shape of most wondrous beauty giving. I then said to him: "Who are you?" And he answered: "I am your perfected nature."
More recent attributions of authorship range from "the Arabic version is anonymous" to reiterations of the old claim that the author is "the celebrated astronomer and mathematician Abu l-Qasim Maslama b. Ahmad Al-Majriti".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. One recent study in Studia Islamica suggests that the authorship of this work should be attributed to Maslama b. Qasim al-Qurtubi, who died 964 CE (353 AH) and, according to Ibn al-Faradi, was "a man of charms and talismans".Maribel Fierro, 'Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (died 353/964), Author of the "Rutbat al- Ḥakīm" and the "Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)"', in Studia Islamica, No. 84, (1996), pp. 87–112 If this suggestion is correct it would place the work in the context of sufism and batinism.Maribel Fierro, 'Bāṭinism in Al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (died 353/964), Author of the "Rutbat al- Ḥakīm" and the "Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix)"', in Studia Islamica, No. 84, (1996), pp. 105–107 odd Latin title is sometimes explained as a sloppy transliteration of one "Buqratis", mentioned several times in the second of the four books of the work.Willy Hartner, 'Notes On Picatrix', in Isis, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 438 Others have suggested that the title (or the name of the author) is a way of attributing the work to Hippocrates (via a transcription of the name Burqratis or Biqratis in the Arabic text).Bakhouche, Beatrice, Frederic Fauquier, and Brigitte Perez-Jean (Translators), Picatrix: Un traite de magie medieval, Turnhout: Brepols, p. 22 and 141 Where it appears in the Arabic original, the Latin text does translate the name Burqratis as Picatrix, but this still does not establish the identity of Burqratis. Ultimately, linking the name, Picatrix, with Hippocrates,Ritter, Hellmut and Martin Plessner (translators), "Picatrix:" Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti. London: Warburg Institute, 1962. p.XXII.See also: Willy Hartner, 'Notes On Picatrix', in Isis, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1965), pp. 438 has fallen into disfavor because the text separately cites Hippocrates under the name Ypocras.Bakhouche, Picatrix, p. 22, 193, 332.
Contrary to this, an argument has been made that the name Picatrix is a translation of the author's individual or personal name "Maslama" due to the parallel derivation of masculine and feminine versions of both names. It is alleged that the word picatrix would be the feminine of picator which is then derived from picare, meaning "to prick." This is linked with the observation that Maslama has the Arabic feminine termination " -a" and whose root word (s-l-m) has the meaning ladagha or "to sting."
"the invention of an hypothesis in order to explain a certain natural process, then the arranging of conditions under which that process may intentionally be brought about in accordance with the hypothesis, and finally, the justification or refutation of the hypothesis, depending on the outcome of the experiment".
Plessner notes that it is generally agreed that awareness of "the specific nature of the experimental method—as distinct from the practical use of it—is an achievement of the 16th and 17th centuries." However, as the passage by the translator of the Hebrew version makes clear, the fundamental theoretical basis for the experimental method was here established prior to the middle of the 13th century.
The original passage in Arabic describes how a man who witnessed a treatment for a scorpion's sting (drinking a potion of frankincense that had received seal imprints) had gone on to experiment with different types of frankincense, assuming that this was the cause for the cure, but later found that the seal images were the cause for the cure, regardless of the substance upon which they were impressed. The author of the Picatrix goes on to explain how the explanation of the effectiveness of cures passed on to him by authorities was then proved to him by his own experience.
The Hebrew translator changed the passage in question to include the following:
And that was the reason which incited me to. Moreover, these secrets were already made known by Nature, and the experience approved them. The man dealing with nature has nothing to do but producing a reason of what the experience has brought out.
Plessner also notes that "neither the Arabic psychology of study nor the Hebrew definition of the experiment is rendered in the Latin Picatrix. The Latin translator omits many theoretical passages throughout the work."Martin Plessner, "A Medieval Definition of Scientific Experiment in The Hebrew Picatrix" in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 36, (1973), pp. 358–359
In exploring the cross-cultural circulation of the text Avner Ben-Zaken enlisted to the Picatrix's scholarship the “Yates thesis,” and argued that the text played a latent, though central, role in shaping the philosophy of Renaissance natural magic and in giving the stimulus needed to transform occultist notions into experimental science. For Renaissance thinkers unfriendly to the establishment, natural magic offered an alternative program for natural philosophy, and some turned it against Aristotelian philosophy, which they viewed as Hegemony. Moreover, these rebels presented natural magic as a scientific practice, a culture deeply grounded in non-European contexts. For Ficino and Pico, natural magic originated in the ancient Near East, brought to Renaissance Europe through cross-cultural exchanges that involved Kabalistic texts and Arabic works on magic. For Agrippa, natural magic carried a new program for science, as well as new practices and new personas. For him, the magus—the new experimental naturalist—was a figure that first came to life in the ancient East. For Campanella, natural magic offered a bottom-up construction of natural philosophy that also entailed a new organization of society, in which reason and firsthand experience order both nature and society. All perceived Picatrix as a text that embodied both: a strong alternative program for the study of nature, and a strong cultural program for challenging European culture from outside. In imagining this alternative, they eventually returned their science to its historical point of origin, the East. Ficino, Agrippa, and in a sense Campanella pushed the argument further, laying a foundation for a heliocentric worldview, initiating the search for the hidden forces of nature, and casting the magician virtuoso as the godfather of natural philosophy.
Thus, the Picatrix was essential for turning natural magic into philosophy, for transforming the magus into an experimentalist, and for transforming the practice of natural magic into an institutional system of education. It inspired the proposal that scholars shift their focus from Scholasticism to the distant sources of natural magic. Avner Ben-Zaken, "Traveling with the Picatrix: Cultural Liminalities of Culture and Science", In Religious Individualization in Historical Perspective, (Berlin, 2019), pp. 1038-1068.[3]
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