Natural magick
by Giambattista della Porta · first published 1658
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Facsimile edition of work first published in abridged edition of 1558, and then in this full English edition in 1658. A miscellany of early scientific beliefs, observations, and experiments by della Porta and his little group of amateur scientists.
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…its power or purpose. Creating magic is a big part of many people’s jobs. That said, one of my favorite books is by the first president of the Royal Society, titled “Mathematicall Magick”. It deals with Natural Magick — a concept that helped transition the Renaissance to the scientific and Industrial Revolutions.
on “The End of the Magic World’s 50-Year Grudge” ↗…Albertus of the charge of doing magic in the treating-with-the-powers-of-evil sense.) He does say that statues able to make vaguely speech-like noises are surely possible "by the help of that part of Natural Magick which depends on the Mathematicks" :-).
on “Thomas Aquinas' skull reveals appearance and cause of death” ↗One of the founders of the royal society, John Wilkins, wrote a popular book about magick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Magick Stems from the then popular interest in Natural Magick. Evolved into science and engineering.
on “Occult books digitized and put online by Amsterdam’s Ritman Library” ↗