“Abominable Mixtures”: The Liber vaccae in the Medieval West, or The Dangers and Attractions of Natural Magic
In his magnum opus on the history of magic, Lynn Thorndike devoted a few pioneering pages to the Liber vaccae or Book of the Cow. He identified and described several of the manuscripts of this singular Arabic compilation of magical experiments, pointed out the many different titles under which it wa...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
2009
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 2009, Volume: 64, Pages: 229-277 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In his magnum opus on the history of magic, Lynn Thorndike devoted a few pioneering pages to the Liber vaccae or Book of the Cow. He identified and described several of the manuscripts of this singular Arabic compilation of magical experiments, pointed out the many different titles under which it was known in the medieval West, and discussed its false attribution to Plato, Galen, and Hunayn ibn Ishâq. By contrast, given his habit of paraphrasing the texts he examined at great length, Thorndike's account of the content of the work is uncharacteristically patchy. He hastily referred to “elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics,” the aim of which was “to make a rational animal from a cow or ape or other beast, or to make bees.” In his opinion, the experiments of the Liber vaccae were, in fact, “unmentionable,” and “hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation.” |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900002312 |