[2284] Contained in Borgnet’s edition of Albert’s works, X, 629 et seq. This text, however, has been severely criticized by F. Cumont, Cat. cod. astrol. graec., V, i, 85, who says of it, “mendis scateat,” and who gives a partial version from the MSS (Ibid., pp. 86-105.)
An early edition among the incunabula of the British Museum (numbered I A. 8201) bears the different title, Liber Alberti magni de duabus sapientiis et de recapitulatione omnium librorum astronomiae. In the MSS the title also varies considerably.
For a list of some MSS of the Speculum astronomiae see Appendix I at the close of this chapter.
[2285] P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’averroïsme latin au XIIIe siècle, deuxième édition revue et augmentée, Louvain, 1911, I, 244-8; and more fully in an article, Roger Bacon et le Speculum astronomiae, in Revue Néo-Scolastique, vol. 17 (August, 1910), pp. 313-35.
[2286] Theophilus Witzel, in CE “Roger Bacon”; Paschal Robinson, “The Seventh Centenary of Roger Bacon,” in The Catholic University Bulletin, January, 1914; A. G. Little, Roger Bacon Essays, Oxford, 1914, p. 25.
[2287] G. Naudé, Apologie pour tous les grands personages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de Magie, Paris, 1625, p. 526. Naudé’s memory, however, misled him into asserting that Pico della Mirandola had already asserted that Roger Bacon wrote the Speculum astronomiae, whereas Pico had merely questioned whether Albert wrote it.
[2288] Ch. V. Langlois, in reviewing the first edition of the Siger de Brabant (Fribourg, 1899) in Revue de Paris, Sept. 1, 1900, p. 71, made some strictures upon Mandonnet’s general method of arriving at conclusions which in my opinion were very well taken.
[2289] The opinions of a number of late medieval and early modern scholars as to the authorship of the treatise will be found prefaced to the text in Borgnet’s edition.
J. Sighart, Albertus Magnus, sein Leben und seine Wissenschaft, Regensburg, 1857, p. 341 et seq. (Paris, 1862, p. 454 et seq.) accepted Albert’s authorship.
N. Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, Paris, 1880, p. 308 note, says, “Il parait impossible de ne pas considérer cet ouvrage comme authentique.”
See also M. Steinschneider, Zum Speculum astronomicum des Albertus Magnus über die darin angeführten Schriftsteller und Schriften, in Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik, XVI (1871), 357-96.
[2290] am glad to see my view in this regard confirmed by Steele (1920), 267, who says: “It has been suggested that this tract was written by Bacon, but no one with an ear for style could accept the suggestion for a moment.”
[2291] Amplon. Quarto 377, first half of 14th century, fols. 25-36, Tractatus de iudiciis astrorum Aristoteli attributus. “Incipit liber quidam de iudiciis qui ab Alberto in Speculo dicitur esse Aristotelis et primo de nativitatibus.”
[2292] Denifle (1886), p. 236.
[2293] BN 7337, p. 45, “albertus commentator in suo speculo dixit quod predicte ymagines sunt mere naturales sicut recepte medicine.”
[2294] Schum (1887), pp. 785-867, Math. 29, “Speculum mathematicum Alberti Magni”; Math. 69, “Speculum domini Alberti de libris mathematicis.”
[2295] See Appendix I.
[2296] Petrus de Alliaco, Tractatus de ymagine mundi ... and other treatises by both d’Ailly and Gerson, printed about 1480 (numbered IB.49230 in the British Museum).
In the Elucidarius, cap. 2, d’Ailly cites “Albertus Magnus in suo speculo” two or three times. In the Vigintiloquium de concordantia astronomice veritatis cum theologia, he says, “Unde Albertus Magnus perutiliter etiam tractatum edidit in quo vere astronomie et artis magice libros per eorum principia et fines distinxit.” In the Apologetica defensio astronomice veritatis he cites “Albertus Magnus utique philosophus, astronomus, et theologus” concerning Albumasar’s placing the birth of Christ under the sign Virgo, a passage alluded to in the Speculum, but not, as far as I have noted, in Albert’s other works.
[2297] Borgnet, X, 629.
[2298] Quetif and Echard (1719), I, 173.
[2299] Toward the close of its first book in his works as published at Venice in 1519 and in 1557: “Quod si mihi opponas Albertum theologum praestantissimum fautorem tamen astrologorum, admonebo te primum multa referri in Albertum quae Alberti non sunt, quod et supra tetigimus. Tunc si mihi forte obicias librum de licitis et illicitis, in quo reiicit quidem magos, astronomicos probat auctores, respondebo existimari quidem a multis esse illud opus Alberti sed nec ipsum Albertum nec libri inscriptionem usquequamquam hoc significare, cum auctor ipse quodcumque demum fuerit nomen suum consulto et expresso dissimulet.”
After condemning certain statements in the Speculum in favor of astronomical images and that magic books be not utterly destroyed, as unworthy of a learned man and a Christian, Pico concludes, “Quae utique aut non scripsit Albertus, aut si scripsit, dicendum esse cum apostolo, in aliis laudo, in hoc non laudo.” Pico could hardly have read Albert’s discussion of astronomical images in the Minerals.
[2300] Mandonnet (1910), p. 331, incorrectly cites this passage as a defense of works of judicial astrology, a subject which is not broached until the following chapter of the Speculum.
[2301] Cap. 12.
[2302] Caps. 6-11.
[2303] Digby 228 gives the number as “LXXII.”
[2304] The Incipit given by the author of the Speculum astronomiae shows that this is the Liber lune of which we have treated in our chapter on “Hermetic Books in the Middle Ages.” By a coincidence a portion of it is found in the same MS, Digby 228, fols. 54v-55v, with the Speculum.
[2305] This word is variously spelled in different MSS, for instance, in Digby 228, “Muhamethçaha”; in Canon. Misc. 517, “Vanhmec.”
[2306] Cap. 4.
[2307] Cap. 11.
[2308] Cap. 16.
[2309] Cap. 13.
[2310] Cap. 15.
[2311] Ibid., “Ceterum in hoc concordati sunt omnes philosophi quod cum sciverimus horam impregnationis alicuius mulieris sciamus per eam quid fiet de fetu donec inspiret et quid usquequo egrediatur ab vulvo et quid fiet usque ad obitum.”
[2312] Cap. 13.
[2313] Caps. 7 and 12.
[2314] Cap. 14.
[2315] This sentence was omitted in Ashmole 345, but occurred in other MSS which I examined.
[2316] Cap. 12 (Borgnet, X, 644), “figuratam esse in coelo nativitatem Jesu Christi de Virgine.”
[2317] Ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1864, v. 20109-18,
[2318] Revue Néo-Scolastique, 1910, XVII, 326. “Les deux auteurs repoussent les livres de magie.”
[2319] Summa, II, 30.
[2320] Mineral., II, iii, 3.
[2321] Speculum, cap. 11. For some further discussion of Germath of Babylon, and Gergis or Girgith see Appendix II.
[2322] Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, I, 543.
[2323] See “The Life and Writings of Roger Bacon,” in The Westminster Review, January, 1864, LXXXI, 13.
[2324] Spec. astron., cap. 12 (Borgnet, X, 643).
[2325] In Revue Thomiste, V (1897), 95; cited by Grabmann (1916), p. 163.
[2326] A fact which Mandonnet, Revue Néo-Scolastique, XVII (1910), 318, actually attempts to use to show that the Speculum was written after 1270, holding that the passage in question in the Speculum must have been copied from Aquinas, since before 1270 no one but Aquinas knew of the existence of the 13th and 14th books of the Metaphysics at all. Yet they are included in Albert’s Commentary, which Mandonnet himself had dated in 1256!
[2327] Grabmann (1916), pp. 163-9; the evidence presented for this view is not very convincing. The fourteen books of the Metaphysics are found in Latin in MSS dated by the catalogues in the 13th century: S. Marco X, 57, fols. 1-75, de metaphysica libri quatuordecim; Additional 17345, late 13th century, according to the catalogue the antiqua translatio ascribed to Thomas of Cantimpré.
[2328] Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’averroïsme latin au XIIIe siècle, Fribourg, 1899, cap. 9.
[2329] That this opinion was condemned in 1277 did not keep Peter of Abano from stating in his Conciliator of 1303 that by power of fascination a man could be cast into a well and a camel into a hot bath.—Differentia 135. Indeed William of Auvergne, a previous bishop of Paris who had himself condemned “errors” in 1240, tells in his De universo (II, iii, 16, edition of 1591, p. 986) of a man who cast down a camel by merely imagining its fall.
[2330] Which seems to contradict 102, which stated that “the celestial circles are not instruments of intelligence but organs.”
[2331] This opinion is, however, that of Boethius and most of the other discussions of fate which we have noted.
[2332] The Latin text of the 219 opinions will be found in the Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, I, 543, et seq.
[2333] Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, II, 56-7.
[2334] Chart. Univ. Paris., II, 229.