Lapidary of King Alfonso X - Lapidario del Rey Alfonso X

  • by Alphonse X de Castille, Yehuda Mosca
  • 1250

Lapidary of King Alfonso X - Lapidario del Rey Alfonso X

1250

Author: Alphonse X de Castille, Yehuda Mosca

Spain

Subject: Occultism, Astrology, Medicine

This important lapidary preserved at the Library of the royal site of Saint-Laurent-de-l'Escurial, richly illustrated and taken from Greek and Arabic sources, was translated from Arabic and perhaps augmented for Alfonso X of Castile by his medicine and astrologer Yehuda Mosca. It was originally, at least in its original form and if we are to believe the explanations in the first chapters, written in Syriac.

It contains a number of considerations on the magico-medical influence of stones in connection with astrology and as with Pliny, many of the references mentioned are not easy to identify. A compilation of four distinct treatises, the work offers as many stones as zodiacal degrees which are each associated with unique stars .









































































































Quote of the Day

“When this mass is thus blackened, it is said to be dead and deprived of its Form: The Body is also said to be dead and removed from its attraction, its Soul being separated from it. Then Humidity manifests itself in the color of Quicksilver, black and stinking, which before was dry, white, very fragrant, ardent, purified of Sulfur by the first Operation and it is necessary to start purifying it again by this second Operation. This Body finds itself deprived of its Soul which it has lost, of its splendor and of this marvelous lucidity which it first had and now it is black and ugly: which causes Gebert to name it for its property Stinking Spirit, Black White occultly and obviously red and still Water, living dry. This Mass thus black or blackened is the Key, the beginning, and the sign of a perfect way of operating in the second Regime of our precious Stone. So Hermes, he said, seeing this blackness: Believe that you have operated in the right way.”

Bernard Trevisan

Verbum Dismissum

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