The Necromantic Rings of Solomon

The Necromantic Rings of Solomon is a short Italian treatise preserved in Leipzig University Library, Cod. Mag. 35, part of the large collection of magical manuscripts gathered in eighteenth-century Germany and now held there. Its title page claims that it was copied from an original in the Vatican Library, a common device for lending a text authority. The work describes fourteen rings, each linked to a mansion of the moon. For every ring it specifies the metal, the stone, the name of the spirit to be inscribed, the purpose the ring serves and a conjuration to be pronounced over it, with drawings of the seals and notes on suffumigations. The purposes include winning at games, invisibility, love, curing fever, success in hunting, causing illness and protection from enemies and weapons. Romanian scholar Mihai Vârtejaru transcribed, translated and annotated the text in 2017, identifying it as a late and incomplete extract from a ring treatise attributed to Peter of Abano. The treatise belongs to the tradition of lunar-mansion ring and image magic that runs from Arabic sources through the Picatrix and the Latin works of Hermes and Messalah, and it parallels the French Douze Anneaux in Lansdowne 1202. The Leipzig Codices Magici, from which this text comes, form one of the richest surviving deposits of early modern German and Italian magical manuscripts and are an expanding field of research.

What it contains

• Fourteen rings linked to lunar mansions
• Metals, stones and inscribed spirit names
• Purposes from gambling and love to protection
• Conjuration for each ring
• Seal drawings and suffumigations
• Editorial notes on sources and identifications