Скачать или смотреть Bernd-Christian Otto - The Leipzig Collection of Codices Magici (Cod. Mag.)

The university library of Leipzig hosts one of the most extensive and complete early modern collections of hand-written manuscripts of ‘Western learned magic’. The collection was sold in 1710 for an extraordinary price, and both the selling catalogue entitled ‘catalogus rariorum manuscriptorum’ as well as 134 (of 140) manuscripts have survived. The collection is unique in several ways: with numerous texts going back to late antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as early modern adaptations and innovations, the collection attests both the longue-durée nature of the textual-ritual tradition of ‘Western learned magic’ as well as its striking adaptability and changeability. With over hundred texts translated into German, it attests processes of vernacularising texts and techniques of ‘learned magic’ in German-speaking Europe.

In cooperation with the Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts, Bernd-Christian Otto, one of the leading experts on magic in Western religious and intellectual history, a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Bochum University, and an associated fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University
held three guest lectures on magic at the University of Tartu from March 20 to March 22, 2019.

These events have been financed by the University of Tartu ASTRA Project PER ASPERA (European Regional Development Fund).

This video was filmed using the skill and equipment of the Tartu University multimedia team.