The cover depicts Basil Valentine and Hermes Trismegistus with alchemical and musical instruments; twelve woodcuts within the text that show alembics and various alchemical tools; an engraving by Senlecque with seven emblematic medallions and at the end an alchemical drawing in the form of a shield.
“Symbola divina & humana pontificum, imperatorum, regum” (Divine and human symbols of pontiffs, emperors and kings)
I am sending you an image that appears in the book Symbola divina & humana pontificum, imperatorum, regum ─’DIVINE AND HUMAN SYMBOLS OF PONTIFFS, EMPERORS AND KINGS’─ published in 1601 in Prague.
We must mortify and decompose this earth, which amounts to killing the griffin and fishing the fish, or separating the fire from the earth, the subtle from the gross, “gently, with great skill and prudence”, as Hermes teaches in his Emerald Tablet.
“Virtus unita fortior” (United virtue is stronger)
It is the frontispiece of a book published in 1690 in London and entitled Aphorismi Urbigerani. This engraving takes us back again to the study of the Sacred ARCANUM A.Z.F. and its alchemical concomitances.
This engraving, patient reader, brings to mind one of the most precious symbols of Alchemy; we refer to the Mercury of the sages.
“NESCIT LABI VIRTUS” (Virtue does not know how to fall) and “QUOCUNQUE FERAR” (Wherever it is taken)
On this occasion I send you two emblems from the same book: Selectorum emblematum, with the text in Latin and Old French.
“Reciproca sponsae sponsiqve ad hortum suum invitatio” (A mutual invitation from the bride and groom to their garden)
To experience the CHRISTIC LOVE we will need to be betrayed ─hence the bag of coins that appears in the Christic garden─, we will need to experience the three nails of the Redeemer’s cross, we will suffer the crown of thorns ─internally speaking─, we will be victims of the insolence of the Ego ─see the whip─, we will have to acquire the Christic will ─marked by the hammer─, etc., etc., etc.
We see in the center of it a winged female figure on an anchor, with a laurel wreath on her head, sowing wheat and pointing to the sky. She is the VIRGIN MOTHER NATURE ─that is why she wears laurels on her head─ and at her feet the ANCHOR that, in addition to allegorizing the three primary forces, represents in Masonry the end of the hermetic work.
“Speculum sophicum rhodostauroticum” (Mirror of Rosicrucian wisdom)
I am pleased to send you this engraving entitled: “Speculum sophicum rhodostauroticum” (Mirror of Rosicrucian wisdom). The book was signed with the name Theophilus Schweighardt Constanties.
I am sending you this image of the God Mercury, bas-relief in the Chapel of the Zodiac of the Malatestian Temple in Rimini, Italy. The author is the Italian sculptor Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481).









