THE OPERATION OF DEMONS IN WHICH EVIL IS EMBODIED.
“The treatise on demons by Michael Psellos - a Byzantine philosopher who lived in the eleventh century - is perhaps the most complete and well-known in the Middle Ages. It contains “discoveries” and hypotheses of the natural history of the Devil which have inspired treatises on this subject until the modern age” (Wikipedia).
Reprinted still today (Sellerio), it describes the great chain of Being, the declining spheres which from God take to the world and to evil.
Very rare, the last time at auction was in 1963. Graz, Widmanstadt Erben 1742. 12°. 122 S.,3 Bl. Pbd. d. Zt.

CONTENTS
The famous De Operatione Daemonum (Περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων) is a classification of demons.
A treatise on demonology in the form of Platonic dialogue in which the philosopher identifies each “Devil” with an element: fire, air, earth, water, underground, darkness.

Michael Constantine Psellos (medieval Greek: Μιχαήλ Ψελλός; in Latin: Michaël Psellus; Constantinople, 1018 - Constantinople, 1096) was a Byzantine philosopher, writer, politician, and historian.
The main source of information about the life of Psellos is his own works, which contain extensive autobiographical passages. Psellos, which means “stutterer”, was probably a nickname due to a pronunciation difficulty.

Psellos’s studies covered basically all human knowledge. He was reputed to be one of the most learned men of his time.
His esoteric interests gave birth to the well-known commentaries on the Chaldean Oracles and some hermetic writings SUCH AS THIS ONE OFFERED AT AUCTION (please remember that the oldest existing manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum, purchased by Lorenzo de’ Medici and translated by Ficino, belonged to Psellos).
The Corpus Hermeticum, which was composed of eighteen treatises in its final version, was the source of inspiration for Renaissance Hermetic and Neoplatonic thought.

CONDITION REPORT
19th-century rigid half parchment binding, smooth decorated spine, green cartouche for the title, ivory editorial linen boards. Sheets 16-71. The lower half of the title page was restored and reproduced on coeval paper, back part with missing parts in the text, some scribbles, the inner parts have uniform traces of browning.

FULL TITLES & AUTHORS
SAPIENTISS MICHAELIS PSELLI POETAE ET PHILOSOPHI GRAECI Dialogus de energia feu operatione Dæmonum è Græco translatus Petro Morello turonenfi Interprete Ex bibliotheca CVD Ioannis de fancto Andrea
Parisiis, apud Guillelmum Chaudiere, 1577.
Michaël Psellus (1018-1078), Byzantine writer and philosopher.
Petrus Morellus, Medicus Regius.