Renaissance magic
The Lesser Key of Solomon
A compilation in five books, whose first part — the Ars Goetia — gives seventy-two spirits and their seals.
- Dates
- manuscripts mainly seventeenth century
- Dating
- tradition or corpus
The life
The other four books treat aerial spirits, the spirits of the 360 degrees of the zodiac, the spirits of the four altitudes, and a book of prayers older than everything bound with it.
Place in the tradition
Mathers and Crowley's 1904 Goetia fixed the modern printed form of the seventy-two; it also supplies the text and seals used in the Solomonic catalogue.
a note on the record
History and later legend
A compilation rather than a composition: its five books have different origins and dates, and the attribution to Solomon is part of the genre rather than a claim anybody defends.
the written record
Principal works
-
manuscripts mainly seventeenth century
Lemegeton
Lemegeton vel Clavicula Salomonis Regis
Five books under one attribution, beginning with the catalogue of seventy-two spirits that later came to overshadow the rest.
held in the source catalogue Read at commons.wikimedia.org ↗