Vienna 5504, anno 1464, fols. 147-8, Liber de secretis secretorum Galeni secundum sententiam Hippocratis; fols. 149-62, Galenus, De secretis secretorum.
BN 7031, 15th century, fols. 1-17v, “Incipiunt secreta Galieni canones quos misit ad moteum Regem assiriorum” (Secrets of Galen, or Canons which he sent to Moteus, king of the Assyrians), turns out upon examination to be an entirely different treatise.
CHAPTER LXV
EXPERIMENTS AND SECRETS OF GALEN, RASIS, AND OTHERS
II. CHEMICAL AND MAGICAL
The Liber Vaccae—Its other titles—Its two prologues—Experiments in magic generation and rain-making—More magic with animals—Other marvelous experiments—Plato as an alchemist—Galen as an alchemist—Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis—Liber ignium of Marcus Grecus—Further experiments—Secretum philosophorum—Experiments connected with writing—Riddles: a trick with a knife—Deceiving the senses—Tricks of jugglers—Mathematical problems—Astronomy: experiments with air: the magnet—Le Secret aux Philosophes—Natural Experiments of Solomon—Experiments without author or title—Twelve experiments with snakeskin of John Paulinus—Marvelous virtues of snakeskin—Other treatises concerning the virtues of snakes—Chemical experiments of Nicholas—Books of waters—Colors—Necromantic experiments—Experimentum in dubiis—A natural experiment—Variety of experiments in medieval manuscripts—An experimental manuscript—Experimental character of the Sloane MSS—Some seventeenth century experiments—More recipes and experiments—Magic experiments—Appendix I. Manuscripts of the Liber Vaccae—Appendix II. Manuscripts of the Secretum Philosophorum.
The Liber Vaccae.
Of the books of experiments of a chemical or magical character which we have to consider in this chapter the earliest, as far as our available information goes, is the Liber Vaccae, with which the name of Galen is associated and which is primarily a collection of magical and necromantic experiments. The original author, however, was the philosopher Plato whose work, according to a long, rambling, and confused prefatory statement, Galen had revised and abbreviated. Steinschneider held that our treatise was cited under the title Liber de prophetiis by Pedro Alfonso in the Disciplina clericalis at the close of the eleventh century,[2442] but perhaps Pedro knew it in Arabic or Hebrew[2443] rather than Latin translation. The manuscripts of the Latin translation, however, go back to the thirteenth, if not to the twelfth century,[2444] while for most of the other treatises to be considered in this chapter the oldest extant manuscripts seem to be of the fourteenth century. Moreover, William of Auvergne refers to our treatise in his work written in the first half of the thirteenth century.
Its other titles.
The work has many other alternative titles besides Liber Vaccae, which seems to be suggested by its first experiment which is concerned with a cow, and Liber de prophetiis, which I do not remember to have seen in any Latin manuscript. Another common title is Liber Anguemis or Anequems or Anegnems or Anagnenis,[2445] although the preface explains that the treatise was not called the Liber Anguemis in the first place. The manuscripts also call it The Book of Active Institutes and The Book of Aggregations of Divers Philosophers. William of Auvergne spoke with disapproval of our treatise as a book of mixtures employed in magic, which was ascribed to Plato and called Liber Neumich or Nevemich, or the Laws of Plato. “And,” adds William sarcastically, “it is called the Laws of Plato because it is contrary to the laws of nature.”[2446] Steinschneider has pointed out that in Arabic Nawamis means “laws” and that both Neumich and Anguemis are probably Latin corruptions of the Arabic word. And of course Laws and Institutes are practically the same thing. Pico della Mirandola, writing against astrology at the close of the fifteenth century, refers to our treatise by the two titles De vacca and Institutes, warning his readers that astrologers palm off their volumes as the writings of great authorities like Aristotle, “just as magicians carry about the books of Plato De vacca and what they call the Books of Institutes, stuffed with execrable dreams and figments.”[2447]