Liber Hermetis is a rare Latin astrological text from the late antique or early medieval period, claiming to be a translation of a Greek original attributed to Hermes Trismegistos.
The surviving manuscript (14th century) is incomplete; only Part II (on fixed stars, degrees, and planetary significations) is fully preserved. Part I On the Decans and Theogony is lost or fragmentary.
Liber Hermetis is the astrological core of the technical Hermetica; fixed stars, planetary degrees, triplicities, and the specific imagery of the paranatellonta (the images that rise with the degrees). Unlike modern astrology, this text is theurgical: the stars are not just influences; they are gods, daimons, and living images.
It is a compilation of Hellenistic, Egyptian, and Persian astrological lore, likely redacted in Alexandria (2nd-4th century CE). The Greek original is lost. The Latin translation was made in the 12th-13th century, probably in Spain or Sicily, as part of the same wave of translations that brought Arabic astrological texts (Abū Maʿshar, al-Qabīṣī) and the Picatrix into Europe.
This book is a great companion text to De Imaginibus
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