Pseudo-Albertus

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Pseudo-Albertus or Pseudo-Albert is a term referring to the authors of works falsely ascribed to Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great). Such works include:

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<i>Grand Albert</i> Medieval magic book

The Grand Albert is a grimoire that has often been attributed to Albertus Magnus. Begun perhaps around 1245, it received its definitive form in Latin around 1493, a French translation in 1500, and its most expansive and well-known French edition in 1703. Its original Latin title, Liber secretorum Alberti Magni de virtutibus herbarum, lapidum et animalium quorumdam, translates to English as "the book of secrets of Albert the Great on the virtues of herbs, stones and certain animals". It is also known under the names of The Secrets of Albert, Secreta Alberti, and Experimenta Alberti.

Secreta mulierum, also known as De secretis mulierum, is a natural philosophical text from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century frequently attributed to Albertus Magnus, although it is more likely written by one of his followers. Originally written in Latin, the title translates as The Secrets of Women or Of the Secrets of Women. Drawing on Hippocratic, Galenic, and Aristotelian theories, this text discusses sexuality and reproduction from both a medical and philosophical perspective. Over eighty manuscript copies of the treatise have been identified, and it has been translated into multiple different languages over several centuries. This suggests that the ideas expressed in this work were hugely popular and influential. It was added to the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1605.

References

  1. Peter Grund (2009), "Textual Alchemy: The Transformation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus's Semita Recta into the Mirror of Lights", Ambix: The Journal for the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry56(3): 202–225.
  2. Adam Gwyndaf Garbutt, Assessing the Exotic: Authority, Reason, and Experience in the Construction of Medieval Natural Knowledge, PhD diss. (University of Toronto, 2018), pp. 147–178.