The Book of the Seven Rings of the Planets (attributed to Messalah)

This short medieval work of astral magic explains how to make seven rings, one for each planet, and how to consecrate them by calling the angels associated with each planet. It is attributed to Messalah, a Latin form of the name of Mashallah ibn Athari, the eighth-century Jewish astrologer of Basra whose authentic astrological works were widely translated into Latin; the ring treatise is a pseudepigraph that borrowed his authority. For each planet the text specifies the metal of the ring, the gem to be set in it, the engraved image or character, the planetary angel and its name, the fumigations and sacrifices, and the proper astrological timing. The work survives in several forms of varying length. Fifteenth-century witnesses include Cambridge University Library Dd.11.45 and Bodleian Rawlinson D.252, and a Kassel manuscript ascribes it to 'Mescalach'. The fullest version, perhaps four or five times longer than the others, is in Darmstadt manuscript 1410, probably written in Florence in the first half of the sixteenth century. An English version is found in Bodleian Rawlinson D.253. Juris Lidaka edited the Cambridge text in 1998, though that copy censors the angelic names and characters. Mihai Vârtejaru's 2020 translation, hosted online, gathers the major Latin witnesses and translates them into English for the first time, making it possible to compare the versions systematically.

What it contains

• Seven planetary rings: metals, stones and engraved images
• Names of the planetary angels
• Fumigations and sacrifices for each planet
• Astrological timing of manufacture
• Consecration rite and circle
• Purposes and virtues of each ring