NATURAL MAGICK by Giambattista della Porta – Limited Edition Hardcover

Description

This is a limited edition hardcover of only 250 and numbered copies. Cover design by Andrei Bouzikov, Illustrations revised by Lea Pieper. Book is in very good condition with a very gentle bump to corner else fine.

• Hardcover bound in bottle-green geltex
• Artwork printed in sage green hot foil on the cover and spine 
• Printed on wood free and age resistant 90 g cream paper, 
• Sewn book block
• Green ribbon marker and headbands

A beautiful new edition of Giambattista della Porta’s most famous work Natural Magick.

This Black Letter Press publication is based on the 1658 ‘London’ edition, which in turn was a translation of the expanded Latin edition of 1589 ‘in twenty books’. It includes the suppressed chapter Lamiarum Unguenta / The Witches’ Ointment in both English and the original Latin.

Paul Summers Young has newly transcribed and edited the 1658 text, whose eccentricities make for a notoriously laborious read. Spelling and punctuation have been modernised, while retaining the Early Modern character of the original; it’s flavour as a mid-seventeenth century text has been preserved. Rational paragraphing makes it much easier to follow the author’s line of thought, making difficult passages a much more enjoyable experience. This is greatly assisted by new layout, design and typesetting.

This edition includes the original twenty-page table of contents, A Table containing the General Heads of Natural Magick, and an introduction by Paul Summers Young on the significance of the text, and what a close examination might reveal about its origins.