'In 1688 William Cooper, a London bookseller, published A catalogue of chymicall books. For two decades he had collected these titles, locating, identifying and recording details of 422 English books.1 This list documents one component of the history of alchemy. It also provides a measure of the vitality of alchemical pursuits in Restoration England.'
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From an oldish (1998) Sotheby’s catalogue, this b/w shot of a small painting with the title: "An Alchemist in a Courtyard."
Really atypical for this type of picture, for it is neither the chaotic vessels strewn place of a bumbling fool at his furnace, nor the dimly lit room of a studious philosopher poring over his tome, athanor at his elbow.
Here we have an open scene. On the right-hand side, a vista of flower gardens. On the left, a clean, spacious, orderly laboratory. On the foreground, distillation taking place at an almost commercial scale.
Now the museum curators and the auction catalogue compilers have that tendency of labeling any painting with a vial in it an ‘alchemy' scene.
A physician examining to the light the urine of his patient: "Alchemist […]"
A quack surgeon performing a trepanation has two bottles on his shelves? "Alchemist […]"
Anyway, what do you make of this image? I was leaning for a depiction of a perfume maker (as the artist choose to depict the rose (?) bushes and some cut flowers on the table.) But it could be a lot of things. Bruce T. Moran, in his Distilling Knowledge (2005) has a whole chapter on ‘Alchemy in Artisan and Daily Life.'
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Nova medicina spirituum: curiosa Scientia et doctrina, unanimiter hucusque neglecta, et a nemine merito exculta, Medicis tamen et Physicis utilissima: In qua Primo Spirituum naturalis Constitutio, Vita, Sanitas, Temperamenta, Ingenia, Calidum innatum, Phantasiæ vires, Astrorum influentiæ [Metemphyschosis - Greek], rerum Magnetismi, Sympathiæ et Antipathiæ, Qualitates hactenus occulta, sensibus tamen manifestæ, aliaque cætero quin abstrusa et paradoxa; Dehinc Spirituum præternaturalis seu morbosa Dispositio, Causæ, Curationes per naturam, per Diætam, per Arcana majora, Palingenesiam, Magnetismum seu Sympatheismum, Transplantationes, Amuleta, ingenue et dilucide demonstrantur.
Hamburg 1688.
This work contains two emblematic engravings as frontispieces to its two parts.
Frontispiece to the first book. 123x126mm. Jove in the clouds, suspends by a chain, an old man, Prometheus, who lights a torch from the Sun and then passes this flame down to a winged cupid with a bow and quiver of arrows. He lights his own torch from that of Prometheus and, in turn, brings it to the earth. This cupid stands between two ranks of gods, who include Aphrodite, Dionysius, a goddess with flowers, Pan, a goddess with cornucopia, Hephaestus-Vulcan. In the foreground, a man and a woman throw rocks over their shoulders, and behind them appear small human men and women. "S. Wirdig. Invenit. Cornelius Nicholas Schurtz delineavit et sculpsit Norimbergae 1673."
Frontispiece to the second book. 121x127mm. Similar to item 1 except that this takes place at night, and Prometheus' torch is lit from the Moon. Hermes-Mercury, complete with winged helmet, sandals and caduceus, takes the place of the cupid. The six gods who sit on each side of Mercury are Saturn, a goddess bearing flowers, an old bent-backed man, the skeleton of Chronos, Neptune and a bearded figure wrapped in a fur coat. "S. Wirdig. Inventor. Cornelius Nicholas Schurtz delineavit et sculpsit Norimber."]
I found this description of the work:-
"A theory of magnetic attraction and repugnance formulated by Tenzel Wirdig, professor at Rostock, who published his Tenzelius Wirdig, Nova medicina spirituum in 1673. Wirdig believed that everything in the universe possessed a soul, and that the Earth itself was merely a larger animal. Between the souls of things in accordance with each other there was a "magnetic sympathy" and a perpetual antipathy existed between those of an uncongenial nature. To this sympathy and antipathy Wirdig gave the name magnetism. He stated:-"
"Out of this relationship of sympathy and antipathy arises a constant movement in the whole world, and in all its parts, and an uninterrupted communion between heaven and earth, which produces universal harmony. The stars whose emanations consist merely of fire and spirits, have an undeniable influence on earthly bodies; and their influence on man demonstrates itself by life, movement, and warmth, those things without which he cannot live. The influence of the stars is the strongest at birth. The newborn child inhales this influence, and on whose first breath frequently his whole constitution depends, nay, even his whole life."
Gregoire Mariette (1646-1710) Region elementaire ou sublunaire qui comprend les corps simples.
Gregoire Mariette, Paris, 1696 (51x36 cms)
A late 17th-century diagram summing up the nature of the four elements and their influences.
"Celestial chart hand coloured, presents the universe as a place that is simultaneously ordered and chaotic, spiritual and temporal, familiar and fantastical. A rare separately issued map of the cosmos, integrating ancient Pagan and medieval Christian cosmology with Renaissance beliefs and experiences. Originally published in Italian by Antonino Saliba in 1582, the map was later reissued in Latin by Cornelis de Jode in a slightly modified format (lacking one of the nine rings). This copy is a new edition published by Gregoire Mariette. Shows eight concentric rings, from the inner ring depicting the infernal regions to an encircling ring of fire populated by demons, phoenixes and salamanders. The fourth ring is a hemispheric map on a south-polar projection. Within the spandrels are decorative images of the sun and moon. The diagram is surmounted by a title with flanking hemispheric maps. The cosmic model of concentric rings was derived from Aristotle and Ptolemy, which in modified forms prevailed until the seventeenth century. The Ptolemaic model comprised nine spheres around the earth: five planets, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the primum mobile. This departure from the classical content of the nine spheres while retaining the structure, is entirely typical of the fluid state of Renaissance science."
Stefania Salvadori, Ein neuer Fund um die Chymische Hochzeit aus der späteren Korrespondenz Johann Valentin Andreaes.
Openedition Journals, SH13, 2018.
[A new discovery about the Chymical Wedding in the later correspondence of Johann Valentin Andreae]
"The Chymical Wedding is one of Johann Valentin Andreae’s best-known works, and it is also the most difficult of all. Research has not yet succeeded in uncovering the numerous literary and alchemical sources in full detail. First of all, this contribution will try to depict, in a short historical digression, Andreae’s collaboration with the so-called Tübingen Cenacle and his key role in the composition of the Rosicrucian manifestos. Against this background, the genesis of the Chymical Wedding will be subsequently reconstructed. In a second part, the present contribution will study the correspondence between Andreae and Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg: it will point out how Andreae described his relationship to Rosicrucianism and utopian thought and how explicit proofs of his authorship of the writing have been preserved in his correspondence."
I have run the German text of the article through Google's translation program to create an English version. There are a few minor problems.
Scala Descensionis Virtutum Occultarum Inferiora [The ladder of descent of occult powers to the lower world] is a large engraving issued in 1662.
It was created by the engraver Jakob van der Heyden [1573-36], so this must be a reprint or else Jakob van der Heyden's design was not engraved till some years after his death.
It sums up much of the alchemical/hermetic view of the world of matter and spirit.
It will repay a detailed study of the symbolism and labels.
The Masters Voice: the Rituals & Letters of Martinés de Pasqually - Deluxe Edition
by Stewart Clelland
** Due For Publication January/February 2023 **
This critically important volume contains the first-ever English translations [by me!] of over 30 private letters, correspondences and lectures by the eighteenth-century French Masonic mystic Martinés de Pasqually.
Complete with a foreword by eminent Masonic scholar Marsha Keith Schuchard, as well as commentary and introductory material, this new collection reveals the inner workings and history of the Order of the Élus Coën. These fascinating primary sources will forever change the English-speaking world's historical understanding of this seminal figure in eighteenth-century Masonic history.
![[Image: tmv-book-image-re_0197ddaacc.jpg]](https://lewismasonic.2dimg.com/4/tmv-book-image-re_0197ddaacc.jpg)
