Talk:pentaculum
Note: The word pentaculum does not appear in major Latin dictionaries. --EncycloPetey 21:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Note: the first edition of the grimoire Heptameron was apparently Venice, 1496 (Lynn Thorndike, Magic and Experimental Science vol. II, p. 925). Other editions listed in European libraries are 1559, 1565. Fuzzypeg (talk) 04:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
- Perhaps this edition is only rumour. Lynn Thorndike (A History of Magic and Experimental Science ii p. 925) says that Kiesewetter (in Der Occultismus des Alterthums) "mentions a Latin edition, Venice, 1496, which I have neither seen nor found mentioned elsewhere." The first edition Thorndike is certain of is the 1565 Paris edition. Fuzzypeg (talk) 04:21, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
English noun?[edit]
The entry currently states that pentaculum is an English noun. To my knowledge it is not; it is Latin, and the English translation is (deprecated template usage) pentacle. Fuzzypeg (talk) 01:22, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah. I couldn't find anything convincing in a Google Books search. Equinox ◑ 06:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
It is a common assumption that pentacle is a synonym for pentagram. I believe this is incorrect. In the earliest attestation I've found (the 1565 Heptameron), the two words 'pentaculum' and 'pentagoni' both appear, with quite separate and distinct meanings. The two words are well-described, and even have illustrated diagrams to make it even clearer for us.
- Pentacula are talismans decorated with "certain holy signes preserving us from evil chances and events [..., composed] either of Characters of the good spirits [...] or of sacred pictures of holy letters or revelations [...], which are composed either of Geometrical figures [or combinations of figures]." A diagram shows the design for a pentaculum, composed of a hexagram with crosses on the points and strange characters interspersed.
- Pentagoni are the figures of five-pointed stars: "Extra circulum in quatuor angulis sint Pentagoni." (Outside the Circle, in the four corners, let pentagrams be made.)
Clearly the author intends two quite separate things: on the one hand, a talisman with complex, compound holy signs on it; on the other, the figure of a five-pointed star. The two words seem entirely unrelated to each other. This coincides well with the theory that pentacle (and pentaculum, etc.) derive not from penta- meaning five, but from Old French pentacol, meaning a pendant hung from the neck. Fuzzypeg (talk) 14:12, 12 March 2014 (UTC)