We have thus traced the development of the legend as far as the close of the fourteenth century. During the next hundred years no notable addition seems to have been made to it, nor does it appear to have attained any further expression of a remarkable kind in the region of pure literature. But the fifteenth century had by no means forgotten Michael Scot, nor the tales that embodied his mysterious fame. This, in fact, seems to have been the period when most of the magical works attributed to the philosopher’s pen were composed, and commended to the world under the reputation attaching to so great a name. Such are the spell, which exists in writing of this age, in the Laurentian Library of Florence,[306] the Geomantia of the Munich Library,[307] and, perhaps, the Cheiromantia. As, however, a tract on at least one of these latter subjects is attributed to Gerard of Cremona in the Vatican list,[308] it is possible there may here have been only some not unnatural confusion between two authors who were closely associated in much of the literary work they accomplished in Spain.
To the sixteenth century belongs the mock-heroic poem entitled De Gestis Baldi, composed by the famous macaronic writer Teofilo Folengo, who wrote under the assumed name of Merlin Coccajo. A considerable passage in this curious production is devoted to Michael Scot, of whom the poet speaks in the following terms:
‘Ecce Michaelis de incantu regula Scoti,
Qua, post sex formas, cerae fabricatur imago
Demonii Sathan Saturni facta plumbo
Cui suffimigio per serica rubra cremato
Hac, licet obsistant, coguntur amore puellae.
Ecce idem Scotus qui stando sub arboris umbra
Ante characteribus designet millibus orbem.
Quatuor inde vocat magna cum voce diablos.