A charming Amsterdam edition of one of the most infamous “books of secrets,” long attributed to Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280), Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church, though in reality likely composed by his disciple Henry of Saxony. This text on secrets of women, herbs, stones, and animals occupied a paradoxical place in European culture: denounced as absurd, condemned as magical, yet read obsessively by learned and popular audiences alike from the Middle Ages onward.
First compiled in the 13th century and reaching its final form around 1580, the Secreta became a staple of the “books of secrets” tradition. In it one finds remedies, recipes, prognostics, astrological influences, theories of conception, and the occult virtues of natural things. Later bibliographers, Brunet among them, dismissed it as “perhaps the most absurd” of popular books, yet its enduring popularity testifies to its hold on the early modern imagination.
This Amsterdam printing of 1665 by Jan Ravesteijn is decorated with a finely engraved allegorical title-page, presenting the aura of learned authority to a text that straddles medicine, superstition, and folk magic. It belongs to the same world that produced the Petit Albert (first published just a few years later in 1668), a companion volume that became one of the most widely circulated magical books in Europe.
Albertus Magnus (attrib.). De secretis mulierum. Item de virtutibus herbarum, lapidum & animalium. Amsterdam: Apud I. Ravesteinium. 12mo. [16], 329, [4] pp. With engraved allegorical title. Bound in 19th-century patterned boards. Spine with small repair and minor blemishes. Interior generally crisp; engraved title somewhat faded. Occasional light dampstaining and handling. Pages 96–97 with a surface tear, affecting c. 10 lines of text. Overall, a sound and appealing copy.
A charming Amsterdam edition of one of the most infamous “books of secrets,” long attributed to Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280), Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church, though in reality likely composed by his disciple Henry of Saxony. This text on secrets of women, herbs, stones, and animals occupied a paradoxical place in European culture: denounced as absurd, condemned as magical, yet read obsessively by learned and popular audiences alike from the Middle Ages onward.
First compiled in the 13th century and reaching its final form around 1580, the Secreta became a staple of the “books of secrets” tradition. In it one finds remedies, recipes, prognostics, astrological influences, theories of conception, and the occult virtues of natural things. Later bibliographers, Brunet among them, dismissed it as “perhaps the most absurd” of popular books, yet its enduring popularity testifies to its hold on the early modern imagination.
This Amsterdam printing of 1665 by Jan Ravesteijn is decorated with a finely engraved allegorical title-page, presenting the aura of learned authority to a text that straddles medicine, superstition, and folk magic. It belongs to the same world that produced the Petit Albert (first published just a few years later in 1668), a companion volume that became one of the most widely circulated magical books in Europe.
Albertus Magnus (attrib.). De secretis mulierum. Item de virtutibus herbarum, lapidum & animalium. Amsterdam: Apud I. Ravesteinium. 12mo. [16], 329, [4] pp. With engraved allegorical title. Bound in 19th-century patterned boards. Spine with small repair and minor blemishes. Interior generally crisp; engraved title somewhat faded. Occasional light dampstaining and handling. Pages 96–97 with a surface tear, affecting c. 10 lines of text. Overall, a sound and appealing copy.
