In 1655 the Heptameron reached English readers as one part of a compiled volume, beside several works carrying other names and histories.
- English publication
- London, 1655
- Translator
- Robert Turner
- Catalog record
- Wellcome Collection, ESTC R6621
What the 1655 volume contains
The Wellcome Collection catalog records a London 1655 volume translated into English by Robert Turner. Its long title names Agrippa’s Fourth Book, geomancy, the Magical Elements of Peter de Abano, astronomical geomancy, the nature of spirits, and the Arbatel. The contents note treats them as separately titled pieces. A modern search result may shorten the book to “Agrippa’s Fourth Book,” but that shorthand hides the anthology form and the separate Heptameron section.
The catalog attributes the physical publication to John Harrison and possibly the printer James Cottrell. It describes an illustrated quarto and gives Wing A785 and ESTC R6621 as bibliographic identifiers. Those identifiers are useful when comparing copies or older scholarship. The English text is an early-modern translation and packaging of material already visible in Latin print. It is not an independent witness to Peter of Abano’s medieval authorship.
A famous spine does not make one author
Wellcome’s notes mark the Heptameron’s attribution to Petrus de Abano as spurious. They also explain that the Fourth Book was not incorporated into Agrippa’s collected works until after Agrippa’s death. In other words, the volume places two disputed names close together. It also includes other works with their own attributions. The binding supplies evidence of circulation and readership, but cannot settle who wrote each text.
This is a recurring problem in grimoire history. A later compiler can collect prayers, geomancy, angelic names, and planetary material beneath the reputation of an earlier learned author. Researchers must describe the physical book, the title printed on each section, the translator’s role, and the underlying work separately. The Heptameron’s place beside Arbatel is a bibliographic fact about this anthology; it does not make Heptameron a chapter of Arbatel or prove that one author wrote both.
Worked comparison: Monday in Latin and Turner’s English
Monday provides a small comparison inside the larger publication history. The Latin print and Turner’s English rendering retain the same operational sequence: the day’s angels and seal lead to the king of the air and his ministers, then the wind, directional names, conjuration, and attributed effects. Turner translates the connective instructions, but he does not turn the material into a new alphabetized catalogue. A reader still has to follow the weekday unit from timing through dismissal. That continuity shows what the anthology preserves beneath its English headings and its new neighbors.
Names reveal the cost of that movement. In the Monday ministers Turner has Abuzaha where the aligned early Latin reads Abuzaba; a comparable Sunday form appears as Huratapal or Huratapel. A one-letter shift can arise while the surrounding role and position remain stable, so matching the entire record is stronger than matching spelling alone. The worked comparison also limits what the 1655 volume proves: Turner supplies evidence for an English stage of the ritual structure, while the 1559 print supplies an earlier Latin stage. Their agreement does not make the translation an autograph by Peter of Abano, and their differences should not be flattened into one supposedly definitive list of names.