SOLD: Michael Scot: alchemist

£45.00

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MICHAEL SCOT

by 

Lynn Thorndike

Nelson 1965

Biography of legendary astrologer and wizard, Michael Scot (1175-1232 A.D.) by renowned medieval scholar and occult historian Lynn Thorndike whose eight volume ‘History of Magic and Experimental Science’ is still a standard reference work.

Michael Scot’s interest in the hermetic sciences, soon gained him a reputation as a “wizard” or “black magician”, particularly in Scotland. One popular legend has it that he once turned a coven of witches to stone, which became the stone circle of Long Meg and Her Daughters in Cumbria. Dante, in his Inferno, consigned Scot to a place with the soothsayers and magicians in the eighth layer of Hell, whilst Boccaccio referred to him as a ‘great master in necromancy.’ At his death Scot left a number of works, some alchemical, which survive in manuscript.

London: Nelson, 1965. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. [iv] + 144pp. Brown cloth gilt-lettered on spine. B/w plates & illustrations. Appendixes & index.

Fine copy of this unusual work in original kraft paper wraps.