PREFACE IX 



form of Baldi's work and was published at Urbino 

 in 1707. The account of Michael Scot which it 

 gives is not such as to increase my regret that I 

 cannot present this biography to the reader in its 

 most complete form. Thus it runs : ' Michele 

 Scoto, that is Michael the Scot, was a Judicial 

 Astrologer, in which profession he served the 

 Emperor Frederick n. He wrote a most learned 

 treatise by way of questions upon the Sphere of 

 John de Sacrobosco which is still in common use. 

 Some say he was a Magician, and tell how he used 

 to cause fetch on occasion, by magic art, from the 

 kitchen of great Princes whatever he needed for his 

 table. He died from the blow of a stone falling on 

 his head, having already foreseen that such would be 

 the manner of his end.' Now Scot's additions to the 

 Sphere of Sacrobosco are among the more common 

 of his printed works, while the tales of his feasts 

 at Bologna, and of his sudden death, are repeated 

 almost ad nauseam by almost every early writer 

 who has undertaken to illustrate the text of Dante. 

 So far as we can tell, therefore, Baldi would seem to 

 have made no independent research on his own 

 account regarding Scot's life and literary labours, 

 but to have depended entirely upon very obvious 

 and commonplace printed authorities. To crown 

 all, he assigns 1240 as the floruit of Michael Scot, 

 a date at least five years posterior to that of 

 his death ! On the whole then there is little cause 

 to regret that his work on this subject is not more 

 fully accessible. 



