ALBERTUS Magnus

, a very learned man in the 13th century, who, among a multitude of books, wrote several upon the various mathematical sciences, as Arithmetic, Geometry, Perspective or Optics, Music, Astrology and Astronomy, particularly under the titles, de sphæra, de astris, de astronomia, item speculum astronomicum.

Albertus Magnus was born at Lawingen on the Danube, in Suabia, in 1205, or according to some in 1193; and he died at a great age, at Cologn, November 15, 1280. Vossius and other authors speak of him as a great genius, and deeply skilled in all the learning of the age. His writings were so numerous, that they make 21 volumes in folio, in the Lyons edition of 1615. He has passed also for the author of some writings relating to midwifery, &c, under the title of De natura rerum, and De secretis mulierum, in which there are many phrases and expressions unavoidable on such a subject, which gave great offence, and raised a clamour against him as the supposed author, and inconsistent with his character, being a Dominican friar, and sometime bishop of Ratisbon; which dignity however he soon resigned, through his love for solitude, to enter again into the monastic life. But the advocates of Albert assert, that he was not the author of either of these two works. It must be acknowledged however, that there are, in his Comment upon the Master of Sentences, some questions concerning the practice of conjugal duty, in which he has used some words rather too gross for chaste and delicate ears: but they allege what he himself used to say in his own vindication, that he came to the knowledge of so many monstrous things at confession, that it was impossible to avoid touching upon such questions. Albert was certainly a man of a most curious and inquisitive turn of mind, which gave rise to other accusations against him; such as, that he laboured to find out the philosopher's stone; that he was a magician; and that he made a machine in the shape of a man, which was an oracle to him, and explained all the difficulties he proposed: the common cant accusations of those times of ignorance and superstition. But having great knowledge in the mathematics and mechanics, by his skill in these sciences he probably formed a head, with springs capable of articulate sounds; like the machines of Boetius and others.

John Matthæus de Luna, in his treatise De Rerum Inventor<*>bus, has attributed the invention of fire-arms to Albert; but in this he is refuted by Naude, in his Apologie des grands hommes.