An Exposition upon The Sphere of the Cosmos

Mathew Hadfield and Brian Johnson demonstrate that Cecco d'Ascoli's Commentary on the Sphaera of Sacrobosco is instrumental to understanding how illicit religious practices, astrology, and philosophy were transmitted from Arabic and Byzantine Greek sources into Spain, France, and Italy in the late Middle Ages, and the profound influence this had on European magical practices and the evolution of both magical cosmology and spiritual ecology.

It is through Cecco d'Ascoli's lectures on de Sphaera Mundi that we see the establishment of Astral Nigromancy in the European Middle Ages, now possessed of a refined Aristotelian and Ptolemaic rationale, coupled with an intricate and highly conceptualised cosmological framework, and it is this synthesis which would quietly propagate into modernity. It was here, in the crucible of this influx of translations and blending of cultures that the entire edifice of the European Grimoire Tradition emerged. Whilst challenging in its scope, this text is significant, containing important keys such as one of the first known attributions of the four kings of the directions, Oriens, Amaymon, Paymon, and Egyn, to the cardinal signs of the zodiac, as well as the first known appearance of the mysterious spirit Floron and his mirror.