Lucidarium of Necromancy (attributed to Peter of Abano)

The Lucidarium, which presents itself as Master Peter of Abano's elucidation of the art of magic, is a Latin ritual text for conjuring the spirits of the air by day and season. It was largely unknown to modern readers until Joseph Peterson identified it as the fuller source of the printed Heptameron, which appeared under Abano's name in 1559. The principal copy used for the archive's transcription opens St. Gallen, Vadianische Sammlung MS 334, a sixteenth-century magical anthology that continues with Semiphoras texts and a Latin Key of Solomon. The manuscript was once dated to the fifteenth century, but its quotations from the 1533 edition of Agrippa show it must be later. The Lucidarium sets out the names of the hours and their angels with seals, names of the seasons, earth, sun and moon, conjurations for each weekday, the aerial spirits of the planets and their incenses, and the consecration of fire, vestment and pentacle, followed by exorcisms, prayers to the four quarters and the construction of the circle. Its arrangement is more logical and complete than that of the printed Heptameron, which looks like a condensed reordering. Peterson posted scans and a transcription in 2020 and 2021 and published a critical edition with translation in his Elucidation of Necromancy in 2021. The text is valuable for showing how late medieval necromantic ritual reached print in sanitised and abridged form.

What it contains

• Names of the hours, their angels and seals
• Names of seasons, earth, sun and moon
• Conjurations for each day of the week
• Aerial spirits of the planets and their incenses
• Consecration of fire, vestment and pentacle
• Exorcisms, prayers to the four quarters and circle construction