The most important work on magic in Medieval Europe has a title that sounds like a Pokemon: _Picatrix_. Written in Arabic in the melting-pot culture of Islamic Spain, _Picatrix_ is a bewildering text that draws from Greek, Egyptian, Indian, Islamic, and other traditions. It is a hot mess organizationally, but three big emphases are the role of astrology, the use of magical talismans, and the belief that magic has philosophical and natural roots. After it was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century, Europeans used it extensively. Here you see a fifteenth-century illustration of _Picatrix_ showing two embodiments of the planet Saturn.
Source(s): _Picatrix_, Biblioteka Jagiellonska, f. 189 v. See the new edition _Picatrix_ as A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic_, trans and intro by Dan Attrell and David Porreca. See esotericarchives.com for short commentary, by Joseph Peterson.
