A selection of pages from an 18th-century demonology book comprised of
more than 30 exquisite watercolours showing various demon figures, as
well as magic and cabbalistic signs. The full Latin title of Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros,
roughly translates to “A rare summary of the entire Magical Art by the
most famous Masters of this Art”. With a title page adorned with
skeletons and the warning of Noli me tangere (Do not touch me),
one quickly gets a sense of the dark oddities lurking inside its pages.
The bulk of the illustrations depict a varied bestiary of grotesque
demonic creatures up to all sorts of appropriately demonic activities,
such as chewing down on severed legs, spitting fire and snakes from
genitalia, and parading around decapitated heads on sticks. In additon
there seem also to be pictures relating to necromancy, the act of
communicating with the dead in order to gain information about, and
possibly control, the future. Written in German and Latin the book has
been dated to around 1775, although it seems the unknown author tried to
pass it off as an older relic, mentioning the year 1057 in the title
page.
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