Today I try to demystify the bad reputation they have suffered some titles that encompass so disparagingly called trickery. Books and authors at the time tried, in a more or less successful, provide an explanation to everything around them, handling the tools they had at the time, they were rather small. In are definitive example of curiosity and a mirror of time when trying to walk forward in a confused and dark field, where the Enlightenment was now up close and the man got ready for the currency. For many centuries, the magic was science and science was magic, this subtle barrier is reflected in the multitude of titles that loom in our literature and I'm going to go hand in hand with an amazing exhibition that was held in 2007 at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid under the heading of "Magic Library". In her and through a hundred works showed how the concept of magic for three centuries. These books were used to learn and that its content represents the reported scientific knowledge in classrooms. According to his lead in the foreword to the catalog of the exhibition - "Masters of the occult", the "Readers Theatre" or "the compilers of evil" practiced a kind of science that, by its nature, was the science of the time and therefore, these books are part of the advance of scientific thought.
Our current concept is synonymous with magic trick, deceit, trickery, fraud, nothing to do with the concept that it had in the modern age, then the magic lay in all things of nature. Upon entering the works that reflect, we realize that the disciplines that comprise multiply and be found in religion, philosophy, anthropology, botany, astrology, astronomy. That is science. Many of these aspects were enshrined in what became known in the sixteenth and seventeenth and Natural History. Many times the effort to explain and understand the mechanisms of nature are welcomed spiritual motivations in his haste to make sense even if outside the logic. Here came the magic in action. There was no doubt about the influence of the stars on events and things, as well as certain properties of matter. Thus, for example, had for some magical virtues of plants or magnetism.
Over time what at first was dark and inscrutable, was lightened and unpacked so that ushered astrology to astronomy, alchemy to chemistry, the herbarium to the pharmacy and possessions epilepsy. But these books that in Spain we have some examples accompanied, in its way, science in its development.
Although the Church in general and in particular with the Counter-imposed war on superstition, it was difficult to find books by authors such as Agrippa, Paracelsus, Trithemius, Ficinio, Fludd, Schott, della Porta in our country and their work swelled the shelves of libraries, the copies that were displayed in the exhibition of the Complutense. But he also met the English edition works dealing curious strangers they could circumvent issues and "almost all" of the Inquisition with weeding and prohibitions.
talk first of those authors who showed us their secrets. Small experimental and scientific advances were reflected in the books of secrets, in which the authors were able to uncover the forces of nature. We can find several titles that reflect this trend. Within the medical arts draw attention to issues that were made on the chemical and pharmaceutical applications of the Portuguese doctor Joao Semmedo Curved, with titles such as "Declaration of the real secrets of seventeen Curved" by José Diez Medina, Antonio Denferzan. Madrid, 1735. O "Demonstration of a hundred secrets docin Juan Curved Semmedo" Francisco Suarez de Rivera, Madrid: Imprenta on Sunday Fernandez Arrojo at the expense of Juan Oliveras ..., 1736. Or the original work translated from Portuguese into Castilian Cortijo Herráiz Thomas' Medical Secrets and Dr. Don Juan chirurgica Curb Semmedo "In Madrid: Juan de Zuñiga, will be in the library ... Pedro del Castillo, 1735.
Within the books of secrets, it is necessary to quote Alexis Piedmont, for without it you do not understand this genre of books, and it initiates the release of this way of understanding these gibbering empirical processes. Alejo Piedmont is the pseudonym of a professional writer Ruscelli Girolamo (1500-1566) In the preface to his work, Alessio Piedmontese claims to be a member of a notable family in Piedmont. Versed in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean and Arabic, which was dedicated in body and soul to unravel the secrets of nature. After completing his humanistic studies, he spent much of his life traveling all over Italy and various Middle Eastern countries, with the sole purpose of collecting and hoarding secret knowledge from various sources and compile it in his famous work that saw more than one hundred editions in Europe between 1555 and 1699.
Among the first English editions we on par with that of Alcala de Henares, 1563 by Sebastian Martinez Alex Piedmont Seys books of secrets, full of things marauillosa Difference / traduzido Latin language in English by Mr. Alonso de Santa Cruz ... "Barcelona edition, 1563, by Claude Bornat" Of Don Alexo Piedmont six books of secrets: full of wonderful things Variation: traduzido Latino English-language "and the Zaragoza edition of the reference I have only Palau, 6653, as the CCPBE gives no copy is known only from the BNF - the same year, printed in house Bartholomé widow of Nagera. The first two in 12 th and "cunning" in 8 º. Subsequent reprints and editions of 1570, 1624, 1640, 1647, 1689, 1691 and 1696 gives us news of the success they had this kind of book
Another example is found in the work of the doctor Teruel also offer one of the first English books of Pediatrics "Method and order to cure diseases of children" Zaragoza, Angel Tauano, 1600 , offers the book "Book of medical experiments and real easy: collected from very serious authors" Iuan Zaragoza Perez de Valdivieso, 1598.
The parallel is found in the Piedmont Jeronimo Cortes Valencia with his "Physiognomy and many secrets of nature: it contains all five treaties revisited and improved in the last impression that many things have been added remarkable and unforgettable" It deals with the basic rules the fisognomía, the properties of rosemary, the properties and virtues of herbs and stones, explaining the structure of the universe and answer to questions that could arise for the reader. Saw its first edition in Valencia in 1598 by Chrysostom Garriz, next to the mill Rouelle in format 8 º. Although Palau says, and it is likely that the use to which it gave to these works, there were previous editions, printed in 1597 and 1595 after the release of "perpetual Lunario" Then came dozens of editions between English and overseas, that as the Piedmontese da Alejo shows the success of this type of work.
Lastly in the books of secrets, useful to the population level of the Court, we note the work of Miquel Agusti "Llibre dels secrets of Agriculture, Rural and Pastoral house" Barcelona, \u200b\u200b1607 by Esteve Lliberós, next edition in Castilian Zaragoza, 1625 by Pascual Bueno. We successfully followed by twenty other editions Palau. This book was known as the Book of Prior as its author was Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Perpignan. Although the author presents the work as their own, really is an almost verbatim copy of the work of the French physician Charles Estienne and his son Jean Liébaut, "L'agriculture et maison rustique" Paris, 1570.
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