The earliest edition of this concise handbook of ritual magic appears to be Venice, 1496. It later appeared as an appendix of Agrippa's Opera.
Pietro d'Abano also known as Petrus De Apono or Aponensis (ca. 1250 - ca. 1316) was an Italian philosopher, astrologer and professor of medicine in Padua.
He carried his enquiries so far into the occult sciences of abstruse and hidden nature, that, after having given most ample proofs, by his writings concerning physiognomy, geomancy, and chiromancy, he moved on to the study of philosophy, physics, and astrology.
Which studies proved so advantageous to him, that, not to speak of the two first, which introduced him to all the popes of his time, and acquired him a reputation among learned men.
He was eventually accused of heresy and atheism, and came before the Inquisition.
He died in prison before the end of his trial.
He was found guilty, however, and his body was ordered to be exhumed and burned; but a friend had secretly removed it, and the Inquisition had therefore to content itself with the public proclamation of its sentence and the burning of Abano in effigy.
The attribution of the text to de Abano seems quite certainly spurious".
His reputation as a magician developed quite early however.
Agrippa refers to de Abano in his Third Book as being his source (via Trithemius' Polygraphia) for the Theban Alphabet of Honorius of Thebes.
This alphabet has been widely used in modern Wicca. The Heptameron ("seven days") details rites for conjuring angels for the seven days of the week.
It is heavily based on texts of the Solomon Cycle, and in fact appears in the Hebrew Key of Solomon under the title the Book of Light (though without the Christian elements).
It was also apparently one of the chief sources for the Lemegeton.

Tags: abano,