La Magie Naturelle Divisée en quatre Liures, Par Jean Baptiste Porta' Contenant les Secrets & Miracles de Nature, Et nouvellement, L'Introduction à la belle Magie.

Rare Lyon Edition, 12, 406, 25, 6, [18]pp., woodcut printers device to title, pp.240-241 misnumbered, occasional light foxing and staining, upper margin trimmed not affecting text, contemporary polished calf, spine gilt, boards rubbed, speckled edges, 12mo (140x75mm), Lyon, Chez Jean Molin, 1669.

A rare Lyon edition of this popular work by the Italian scholar and polymath, Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615).

La Magie Naturelle was Della Porta’s first book, and the one he is best known for. First published in 1558, it included four books and presented ‘Magiae Naturalis’ as the “perfection of natural philosophy and the highest science.” Della Porta describes two different types of magic, the first is black magic, which he calls sorcery, and is related to demons and spirits. “The other Magick is natural; which all excellent wise men do admit and embrace, and worship with great applause; neither is there anything more highly esteemed, or better thought of, by men of learning.” This is the magic that della Porta dedicates his studies to.

It is a remarkable culmination of the credulity and curiosity of the late Renaissance, and is the basis of Giambattista’s reputation.

This work also includes Lazare Meyssonnier’s Introduction to Belle Magie, an esoteric work that explores magic as a refined and sophisticated art, far removed from superstition. The author reconciles the rationality of the Enlightenment with the mystical dimension, treating magic as a practice that can enrich human knowledge.

[Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 11: 95–98. 2008]