MICHAEL SCOT

But little can be said with certainty concerning the life of Michael Scot.[964] However, a poem by Henry of Avranches, addressed to the emperor Frederick II in 1235 or 1236,[965] shows that Michael was then dead and that he apparently had occupied the position of astrologer at the court of Frederick II at the time of his death. The poet explains how astrologers (mathematici) “reveal the secrets of things,” by their art affecting numbers, by numbers affecting the procession of the stars, and by the stars moving the universe. He recalls having heard “certain predictions concerning you, O Caesar, from Michael Scot who was a scrutinizer of the stars, an augur, a soothsayer, a second Apollo”; and then tells how “the truthful diviner Michael” ceased to publish his secrets to the world, and “the announcer of fates submitted to fate,” apparently in the midst of some prediction made on his death-bed. Michael’s own statements also show that he was one of Frederick’s astrologers.[966] If at the time of his death Michael was Frederick’s astrologer, it is more questionable at what date his association with Frederick began, and in what countries Michael resided with the emperor, or accompanied him to, whether Sicily, southern Italy, northern Italy, or Germany. From the fact that three of Michael Scot’s works, or rather, the three chief divisions of his longest extant work,[967] namely, Liber Introductorius, Liber Particularis, and Phisionomia, were written at the request of Frederick II for beginners[968] and apparently in the time of Innocent III,[969] J. Wood Brown jumped to the conclusion that Michael was Frederick’s tutor before that monarch came of age, and that he spent some time in the island of Sicily, from which Brown failed to distinguish Frederick’s larger kingdom of Sicily.[970] As a matter of fact, there would seem to be rather more evidence for connecting Michael with Salerno than with any Sicilian city, since in one manuscript of his translation for the emperor of the work of Avicenna on animals he is spoken of as “an astronomer of Salerno,”[971] while in another manuscript he is associated with a Philip, clerk of the king of Sicily, and this royal notary in two deeds of 1200 is called Philip of Salerno.[972] Brown was inclined to identify him further with Philip of Tripoli, the translator of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets.

No date in Michael’s career before the thirteenth century is fixed. If it is true that the three sections of his main work were written under Innocent III, that places them between 1198 and 1216. The date of his translation of the astronomical work of Alpetragius or Alpetrangi (Nûr ed-din el-Betrûgî, Abû Ishâq) seems to have been in the year 1217 on Friday, August 18, in the third hour and at Toledo. [973] Brown holds that Michael translated Avicenna on animals in 1210 for Frederick II and that the emperor kept it to himself until 1232, when he allowed Henry of Cologne to copy it.[974] But the date 1210 perhaps applies only to a glossary of Arabic terms which accompanies the work and which is ascribed to a “Master Al.”[975] In a thirteenth century manuscript at Cambridge Michael Scot’s translation of Aristotle’s History of Animals is accompanied by a note which begins, “And I Michael Scot who translated this book into Latin swear that in the year 1221 on Wednesday, October twenty-first.”[976] The note and date, however, do not refer to the completion of the translation but to a consultation in which a woman showed him two stones like eggs which came from another woman’s womb and of which he gives a painstakingly detailed description. There is, however, something wrong with the date, since in 1221 the twenty-first of October fell on Thursday.[977]

The career of Michael Scot affords an especially good illustration of how little likelihood there was of anyone’s being persecuted by the medieval church for belief in or practice of astrology. Michael, although subordinating the stars to God and admitting human free will, as we shall see, both believed in the possibility of astrological prediction and made such predictions himself. Yet he was a clergyman, perhaps even a doctor of theology,[978] as well as a court astrologer, and furthermore was a clergyman of sufficient rank and prominence to enable Pope Honorius III to procure in 1224 his election to the archbishopric of Cashel in Ireland.[979] At the same time the papal curia issued a dispensation permitting Michael to hold a plurality, so that he evidently already occupied some desirable benefice. Michael declined the archbishopric of Cashel, on the ground that he was ignorant of the native language but perhaps because he preferred a position in England; for we find the papacy renewing its efforts in his behalf, and Gregory IX on April 28, 1227, again wrote to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, urging him to make provision for “master Michael Scot,” whom he characterized as “well instructed not only in Latin but also in the Hebrew and Arabic languages.”[980]

Whether Michael ever secured the additional foreign benefice or not, he seems to have remained in Italy with Frederick until the end of his days. He also seems to have continued prominent among men of learning, since in 1228 Leonardo of Pisa dedicated to him the revised and enlarged version of his Liber abaci,[981] important in connection with the introduction of the Hindu-Arabic numerals into western Europe.

Roger Bacon in the Opus Maius[982] in a passage often cited by historians of medieval thought ascribes the introduction of the new Aristotle into western Latin Christendom to Michael Scot who, he says, appeared in 1230 A. D. with portions of the works of Aristotle in natural philosophy and metaphysics. Before his time there were only the works on logic and a few others translated by Boethius from the Greek; since 1230 the philosophy of Aristotle “has been magnified among the Latins.” Although many writers have quoted this statement as authoritative in one way or another, it must now be regarded as valuable only as one more illustration of the loose and misleading character of most of Roger’s allusions to past learning and to the work of previous translators. We know that the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy had become so well known by that time that in 1210 the study of them was forbidden at the university of Paris, and that about that same year, according to Rigord’s chronicle of the reign of Philip II, the books of Metaphysics of Aristotle were brought from Constantinople, translated from Greek into Latin, and began to be read at Paris.[983] But Bacon’s date is more than twenty years too late, and we have already mentioned the translation of The Secret of Secrets, which Bacon regarded as genuine, the acquaintance of Alexander Neckam with works of Aristotle, Alfred of England’s translation of the De vegetabilibus and of three additional chapters to the Meteorology, the still earlier translation of the rest of that work by Aristippus from the Greek and by Gerard of Cremona from the Arabic, and Gerard’s numerous other translations of works of Aristotle in natural philosophy. The translations of Gerard and Aristippus take us back to the middle of the twelfth century nearly a century before the date set by Bacon for the introduction of the new Aristotle.[984] Michael Scot, then, did not introduce the works of Aristotle on natural science and Bacon’s chronological recollections are obviously too faulty for us to accept the date 1230 as of any exact significance in even Michael’s own career, to say nothing of the history of the translation of Aristotle.

This is not to say that Michael was not of some importance in that process, since he did translate works of Aristotle and his Arabic commentators, especially Avicenna and Averroes. Frederick II is sometimes said to have ordered the translation from Greek and Arabic of such works of Aristotle and other philosophers as had not yet been translated from Greek or Arabic.[985] But the letter which has been ascribed in this connection to Frederick is really by his son and successor, Manfred,[986] for whom many translations were made, including several Aristotelian treatises, genuine and spurious, by Bartholomew of Messina. Already, however, in 1231 and 1232 a Jew at Naples had translated Averroes’ abridgement of the Almagest and his commentary on the Organon, in the latter extolling Frederick’s munificence and love of science.[987] Michael Scot has been shown to have translated from the Arabic the History of Animals and other works on animals, making nineteen books in all, and also Avicenna’s compendium of the same, the De caelo et mundo, the De anima with the commentary of Averroes, and perhaps the Metaphysics or part of it.[988] His translation of the De caelo et mundo was accompanied by a translation of Alpetrangi’s commentary on the same.[989]

Scholars of the succeeding generation sometimes spoke unfavorably of Michael’s work. Although Roger Bacon recognized his translations as the central event in the Latin reception of the Aristotelian philosophy, and spoke of him as “a notable inquirer into matter, motion, and the course of the constellations,”[990] he listed him among those translators who “understood neither sciences nor languages, not even Latin,” and charged more than once that a Jew named Andrew was really responsible for the translations credited to Michael.[991] Albertus Magnus asserted that Michael Scot “in reality was ignorant concerning nature and did not understand the books of Aristotle well.”[992] Yet he used Michael’s translation of the Historia Animalium as the basis of his own work on the subject, often following it word for word.[993] Michael was, however, listed or cited as an authority by the thirteenth century encyclopedists, Thomas of Cantimpré, Bartholomew of England, Vincent of Beauvais, and at the close of that century is frequently cited by the physician Arnald of Villanova in his Breviarium practicae.[994]

Michael Scot may be said to manifest some of the failings of the learning of his time in a rather excessive degree. His mind, curious, credulous, and uncritical, seems to have collected a mass of undigested information and superstition with little regard to consistency or system. Occasionally he includes the most childish and naïve sort of material, as we shall illustrate later. He continues the Isidorean type of etymology, deriving the name of the month of May, for example, either from the majesty of Jupiter, or from the major chiefs of Rome who in that month were wont to dedicate laws to Jupiter, or from the maioribus in the sense of elders as June is derived from Juniors.[995] He also well illustrates the puerilities and crudities of scholastic argumentation. Thus one of the arguments which he lists against regarding a sphere as a solid body is that solids can be measured by a straight line and that it cannot.[996] Asking whether fire is hot in its own sphere, he says that it might seem not, because fire in its own sphere is light and light is neither hot nor cold.[997] This argument he rebuts in the end, and he finally decides that a sphere is a solid. But he would have seemed wiser to the modern reader to have omitted these particular contrary arguments entirely. Such propositions continue, however, to be set up and knocked down again all through the thirteenth century, and such famous men as Thomas Aquinas and Peter of Abano are guilty of much the same sort of thing. To Michael Scot’s credit may be mentioned his considerable power of experimentation and of scientific observation. Perhaps some of the “experiments” attributed to him are spurious, but they show the reputation which he had for experimental method, and on the whole it would seem to be justified. The note in his name in a thirteenth century manuscript at Cambridge,[998] giving a carefully dated and detailed account of two human foetuses which had solidified into stones like eggs, shows a keen sense of the value of thorough observation and a precise record of the same. Experimental science would seem to have received considerable encouragement at the court of Frederick II, judging from the stories told of that emperor and the pages of his own work on falconry.[999]

But let us examine Michael’s views and methods more particularly. In opening the long preface to his voluminous Introduction to Astrology he states that hard study is requisite to become a good astrologer, but he finds incentive to such effort in citations from Seneca, Cato, and St. Bernard that it is virtuous to study and to be taught, and in the reflection that one who knows the conditions and habitudes of the superior bodies can easily learn those of inferior bodies. The signs and planets are not first movers or first causes, and do not of themselves confer aught of good or evil, but by their motion do indicate “something of truth concerning every body produced in this corruptible world.” The hour of conception is important and Michael explains why two persons born at the same moment may be unlike. He then jumbles together from Christian and astrological writers such assertions as that the stars are only signs, not causes, and that their influence on inferior creation may be compared to the action of the magnet upon iron, or that we see on earth good men suffer and bad men prosper, which has usually been regarded as a better argument for a fatalistic or mechanical universe than for divine control. He agrees that the universe is not eternal and that everything is in God’s power, but insists that much can be learned concerning the future from the stars.[1000]

Michael then embarks upon a long theological digression[1001] in the course of which he quotes much Scripture concerning the two natures, angelic and human. After telling us of the nine orders of angels in the empyrean heaven, he deals with the process of creation, just as William of Conches and Daniel of Morley had done in their works of astronomy and astrology. In the first three days God created spiritual substances such as the empyrean heaven, angels, stars, and planets; in the other three days, visible bodies such as mixtures of the elements, birds, fish, and man. Michael also answers various questions such as why man was created last, although nobler than other creatures, what an angel is, whether angels have individual names like men, and much concerning the tenth part who fell. Perhaps the emperor Frederick is supposed to put these queries to Michael, but there seemed to be no indication to that effect in the manuscript which I examined. The reply to the question where God resides is, potentially everywhere but substantially in the intellectual or empyrean heaven.[1002] Michael discusses the holy Trinity and thinks that we have a similitude of it in the rational soul in the three faculties, intellect, reason, and memory,[1003] although he attempts no association of these with the three Persons as William of Conches imprudently did in the case of power, wisdom, and will. He indulges, however, in daring speculation as to where the members of different professions will go after they die. Philosophers, “who die in the Lord,” will be located in the order of Cherubim, which is interpreted as plenitude of science; sincere members of religious orders and hermits will become Seraphim; while pope, emperor, cardinals, and prelates will enter the order of Thrones.[1004] Michael also contributes the following acrostic of eight sins whose initials compose the word, “Diabolus”:

• Desperatio
• Invidia
• Avaritia
• Blasphemia
• Odium
• Luxuria
• Ventris ingluvies
• Superbia.[1005]

In the course of the foregoing digression Michael inserted an account of the Magi and the star that appears to be based in part but with variations on the spurious homily of Chrysostom. He makes them three in number, one from Europe, Asia, and Africa respectively; and states that forewarned by Balaam’s prophecy they met together annually for worship on the day of Christ’s nativity, which they appear to have known beforehand. They stood in adoration for three days continuously on Mount Victorialis until on the third day they saw the star in the form of a most beautiful boy with a crown on his head. Then they followed the star upon dromedaries which, Michael explains, can go farther in a day than horses can in two months. Beside the star three suns arose that day at equal distances apart and then united in token of the Trinity; and Octavianus, emperor of the Romans, saw the Virgin holding the Child in the center of the sun’s disk. As for the word magus, Michael explains that it has a threefold meaning,—which, however, has nothing to do with the Trinity,—namely: trickster, sorcerer, and wise man, and that the Magi who saw the star were all three of these until their subsequent conversion to Christianity.[1006]

The remainder of Michael’s lengthy and lumbering preface is largely occupied with the utility of astrology, which he often calls “astronomy” (astronomia), and differentiation of it from prohibited arts of magic and divination. While, however, he distinguishes these other occult arts from astrology, he affirms that nigromancers, practitioners of the notory art, and alchemists owe more to the stars than they are ready to admit.[1007] He also distinguishes a superstitious variety of astrology (superstitiosa astronomia),[1008] under which caption he seems to have in mind divination from the letters of persons’ names and the days of the moon, and other methods in which the astronomer or astrologer acts like a geomancer or sorcerer or tries to find out more than God wills. Scot also distinguishes between mathesis, or knowledge, and matesis, or divination, and between mathematica, which may be taught freely and publicly, and matematica, which is forbidden to Christians.[1009]

Michael condemns magic and necromancy but takes evident joy in telling stories of magicians and necromancers and shows much familiarity with books of magic. He explains “nigromancy” as black art, dealing with dark things and performed more by night than day, as well as the raising of the dead to give responses, in which the nigromancer is deceived by demons.[1010] He repeats Hugh of St. Victor’s definition that the magic art is not received in philosophy, destroys religion, and corrupts morals. As he has said before, the magus is a trickster and evil-doer as well as wise in the secrets of nature and in prediction of the future.[1011] Michael lists twenty-eight varieties or methods of divination. He believes that they are all true: augury by song of birds, interpretation of dreams, observance of days, or divination by holocausts of blood and corpses. But they are forbidden as infamous and evil. Later on, in the text itself, he returns to this point, saying that these methods of predicting the future are against the Christian Faith, but nevertheless true, like the marvels of Simon Magus.[1012] Michael defines and describes various magic arts in much the same manner as Isidore, Hugh of St. Victor, and John of Salisbury; but with some divergences. Under aerimancy he includes divination from thunder, comets, and falling stars, as well as from the shapes assumed by clouds. Hydromancy he calls “a short art of experimenting” as well as divining. The gazing into clear, transparent, or liquid surfaces for purposes of divination is performed, he says, with some observance of astrological hours, secrecy, and purity by a child of five or seven years who repeats after the master an incantation or invocation of spirits over human blood or bones. He speaks of a maleficus as one who interprets characters, phylacteries, incantations, dreams, and makes ligatures of herbs. The praestigiosus deceives men through diabolic art by phantastic illusions of transformation, such as changing a woman into a dog or bear, making a man appear a wolf or ass, or causing a human head or limb to resemble that of some animal. Even alchemy, or perhaps only the superstitious practice of it, Michael seems to classify as a forbidden magic art, saying, “Alchemy as it were transcends the heavens in that it strives by the virtue of spirits to transmute common metals into gold and silver and from them to make a water of much diversity,” that is, an elixir. Lot-casting, on the other hand, both the authority of Augustine and many passages in the Bible pronounce licit.

Michael more than once ascribes an experimental character to magic arts. Besides calling hydromancy “a short art of experimenting,” he states that, since demons are naturally fond of blood and especially human blood, nigromancers or magicians, when they wish to perform experiments, often mix water with real blood or use wine which has been exorcized in order to make it appear bloody. “And they make some sacrifice with the flesh of a living human being, for instance, a bit of their own flesh, or of a corpse, and not the flesh of brutes, knowing that consecration of a spirit in a bottle or ring cannot be achieved except by the performance of many sacrifices.”[1013] Despite his censure of the art in the preface under discussion, we find a necromantic experiment of an elaborate character ascribed to Michael Scot in a fifteenth century manuscript[1014] which purports to copy it “from a very ancient book,”[1015] a phrase which scarcely increases our confidence in the genuineness of the ascription. The object of the experiment is to secure the services of a demon to instruct one in learning. Times and astrological conditions are to be observed as well as various other preliminaries and ceremonies; a white dove is to be beheaded, its blood collected in a glass vessel, a magic circle drawn with its bleeding heart; and various prayers to God, invocations of spirits, and verses of the Bible are to be repeated. At one juncture, however, one is warned not to make the sign of the cross or one will be in great peril.

But to return to Michael’s magnum opus. The preface closes with a rather long and very confused[1016] account of the history of astronomy and astrology. While Zoroaster of the lineage of Shem was the inventor of magic, the arts of divination began with Cham, the son of Noah, who was both of most subtle genius and trained in the schools of the demons. He tested by experience what they taught him and having proved what was true, indited the same on two columns and taught it to his son Canaan who soon outstripped his father therein and wrote thirty volumes on the arts of divination and instructed his son Nemroth in the same. When Canaan was slain in war and his books were burned, Nemroth revived the art of astronomy from memory and was, like his father, deemed a god by many because of his great lore. He composed a work on the subject for his son Ionicon,[1017] whose son Abraham also became an adept in the art and came from Africa to Jerusalem and taught Demetrius and Alexander of Alexandria, who in turn instructed Ptolemy, king of Egypt, who invented astronomical canons and tables and the astrolabe and quadrant. The giant Atlas brought the art to Spain before Moses received the two tables containing the ten commandments. If this chronology surprises us, there is something more amazing to follow. At this point in the manuscript the copyist has either omitted a great deal[1018] or Atlas was extremely long-lived, since we next read about his showing the astrolabe to two “clerks of France.” Gilbertus (presumably Gerbert) borrowed the instrument for a while, conjured up demons—for he was the best nigromancer in France, made them explain its construction, uses, and operation to him, and furthermore all the rest of astronomy. Later he reformed and had no more dealing with demons and became bishop of Ravenna and Pope. Having thus got rather ahead of time, Michael mentions various other learned astronomers, most of whom really lived before Gerbert, such as Thebit ben Corat, Messahalla, Dorotheus, Hermes, Boethius, Averroes, John of Spain, Isidore, Zahel, and Alcabitius.

Having finally terminated his preface, Michael begins the first book with a description of the heavens and their motion. Some say that the planets are moved by angels; others, by winds; but he holds that they are ruled by divine virtues, spiritual and not corporeal, but of whom little further can be predicated, since they are imperfectly known to man and naturally will remain so.[1019] Later he states that they do not move or rule the celestial bodies naturally but as a service of obedience to their Creator.[1020] He has already spoken in the preface of spirits in the northern and southern air, and asserted that very wise spirits who give responses when conjured dwell in certain images or constellations among the signs of the zodiac.[1021] In the Liber particularis he speaks of similar demons in the moon.[1022] Now he mentions “a legion of spirits damned” in the winds.[1023] In later passages in the Liber introductorius he gives the names of the ruling spirits of the planets, Kathariel for Saturn,[1024] and so on, and a list of the names of spirits of great virtue who, if invoked by name, will respond readily and perform in marvelous wise all that may be demanded of them.[1025] And as the planets are said to have seven rectors who are believed to be the wisest spirits in the sky, so the seven metals are said to have seven rectors who are believed to be angels in the earth.[1026] Names of angels also occur in some of his astrological diagrams.[1027] This education of the reader in details of astrological necromancy shows that Michael is not to be depended upon to observe consistently the condemnation of magic and distinction between astrology and necromancy with which he started out in the preface.

By affirming that the physician must know the state of the moon and of the wind and that “there are many passions of the soul under the sphere of the moon,”[1028] Michael introduces us to the subject of astrological medicine, a theme to which he returns more than once in the course of the work.[1029] The practice of flebotomy is illustrated by a figure showing the influence of the signs of the zodiac upon the human body.[1030] From the fact that there are fourteen joints in the fingers of the hand or toes of the foot Michael infers that man’s span of life should be 140 years, a maximum which sin has reduced to 120.[1031] There are as many medicines as there are diseases and these consist in the virtues of words, herbs, and stones, as illustrations of which Michael adduces the sacrament of the altar, the magnet and iron used by deep-sea sailors, and plasters and powders.[1032] In some cases, however, neither medicine nor astrology seems to avail, and, despite his preliminary condemnation of the magic arts, Michael argues that when the doctor can do nothing for the patient he should advise him to consult an enchantress or diviner.[1033]

From the seven planets and sphere of the moon Michael turns to the seven regions of the air, which are respectively the regions of dew, snow, hail, rain, honey, laudanum, and manna.[1034] This is the earliest occurrence of this discussion which I have met, and I do not know from what source, if any, Michael took it. It is essentially repeated by Thomas of Cantimpré in his De natura rerum, where he gives no credit to Michael Scot but cites Aristotle’s Meteorology in which, however, only dew, snow, rain, and hail are discussed. In the History of Animals[1035] Aristotle further states that honey is distilled from the air by the action of the stars and that the bees make only the wax. Michael similarly describes the honey as falling from the air into flowers and herbs and being collected by the bees; but he distinguishes two kinds of honey, the natural variety just described and the artificial honey which results from the bee’s process of digestion. He also explains that sugar (and molasses?) is not a liquor which will evaporate like honey and manna, but is made from the pith of canes.[1036] “Laudanum” is a humor of the air in the Orient, and manna descends mainly in India with the dew, being found in Europe only in times of great heat. It is of great virtue, both medicinal and in satisfying hunger, as in the case of the children of Israel under Moses.

We cannot take the time to follow Michael in all his long ramblings through things in heaven above and earth beneath: sun, tides, springs, seasons, the difference between stella, aster, sidus, signum, imago, and planeta, the music of the spheres, the octave in music, eight parts of speech in grammar, and eight beatitudes in theology, zones and paradise, galaxy and horizon and zenith, divisions of time, the four inferior elements and the creatures contained in them, eclipses of sun and moon, Adam protoplasm and minor mundus as the letters of his name indicate, the mutable and transitory nature of this world, the inferno in the earth, and purgatory.

Sooner or later Michael comes to or returns to astrological doctrine and technique, lists the qualities of the seven planets and head and tail of the dragon,[1037] explains the names and some of the effects of the signs of the zodiac,[1038] gives weather prognostications from sun and moon,[1039] states the moon’s influence in such matters as felling trees and slaughtering pigs,[1040] and expounds by text and figures planetary aspects, exaltations, and conjunctions,[1041] friendships and enmities.[1042] The planet Mercury signifies in regard to the rational soul, grammar, arithmetic, and every science.[1043] The election of hours is considered and a list given of what to do and not to do in the hour of each planet and that of the moon in each sign.[1044] There then follows, despite Michael’s animadversions in the preface against interpreters of dreams and those observing days, an “Exposition of dreams for each day of the moon,”[1045] nativities for each day of the week, and a method of divination from the day of the week on which the New Year falls.[1046] A discussion of the effect of the moon upon conception is interrupted by a digression on eggs: how to estimate the laying power of a hen by the color and size of its crest, the effect of thunder upon eggs, how from eggs to make a water of great value in alchemy, and how to purify bad wine with the white of an egg.[1047] Returning again to the moon, we are told that in the new moon intellects are livelier, scholars study and professors teach better, and all artisans work harder. Michael Scot used to say to the emperor Frederick that if he wished clear counsel from a wise man, he should consult him in a waxing moon and in a human and fiery or aerial sign of the zodiac.[1048] Michael had spoken earlier of the planets as judges of the varied questions of litigators,[1049] and now, although admitting the freedom of the human will, he proceeds to discuss at considerable length[1050] the art of interrogations by which the astrologer answers questions put to him. With this the Bodleian manuscript of the Liber introductorius ends, apparently incomplete.[1051]

In the marginal gloss accompanying a Latin translation of the astrological works of Abraham Avenezra in a manuscript of the fifteenth century[1052] Michael Scot is quoted a good deal on the subject of nativities. But the Liber introductorius, or at least as much of it as appears in the Bodleian manuscript, contains little upon this side of astrology, except the brief nativities for each day of the week. A passage quoted by Brown[1053] to the effect that the person born under a certain sign will be an adept in experiments and incantations, in coercing spirits and working marvels, and will be an alchemist and nigromancer, appears in the manuscript as a marginal addition rather than part of the text and so is presumably not by Michael Scot himself.