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After lying almost untouched in the vaults of an Italian university for 500 years, a book on the magic arts written by Leonardo da Vinci's best friend and teacher has been translated into English for the first time.

The world's oldest magic text, De viribus quantitatis (On The Powers Of Numbers) was penned by Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan monk who shared lodgings with Da Vinci and is believed to have helped the artist with The Last Supper.

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De viribus quantitatis was written at a time when people were burnt at the stake for witchcraft and in the manuscript Pacioli seems to want to demystify trickery and to prove it was more about sleight of hand than supernatural powers.

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Originally posted by msg:
OK LA pm'd me that there was some sort of technical difficulty with my sig making it not so appropriate. If you see icky things, I'm sorry. It may have something to do with the link I used for the pic...eeep

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