I am pleased to send you this engraving entitled: Cognitio. The scene, allegorical and mythological, shows us the seat of the nine muses on Mount Helicon, presided over by the Gods Apollo ─identified by his luminous aura and his harp─ and Pallas Athena ─who appears in the upper left corner on a cloud, with a helmet and a spear.
“Finitum producit infinitum” (The finite produces the infinite)
We can see a cloth on which musical notes are written, giving us to understand that the basis of creation lies in them and in the octaves that we can perceive. This is one of the mysteries that surround the THEOMEGALOGOS Himself.
“Mutua rerum metamorphosis” (Mutual metamorphosis of things)
This engraving is telling us what the true Masters of the Hermetic Art affirmed and continue to affirm: “In the water the fire sleeps”…
Mercury and Virtue
I am pleased to bring you, on this occasion, this beautiful artistic work by the Italian Renaissance painter Dosso Dossi (1489-1542). The painting is preserved in the Royal Castle of Wawel, Krakow.
Revelations about the mysteries of the tinctures of the seven metals
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.
“Timiditas” (Fear)
We could conclude the following about the two couples mentioned above: terror makes us flee, but modesty contains that impetus of fear, indolence limits action, but it has to stop when poverty, which is a consequence of indolence itself, forces us to act.
This engraving, patient reader, brings to mind one of the most precious symbols of Alchemy; we refer to the Mercury of the sages.
“Tristitia” (Sadness)
This engraving belongs to a four-part series on negative human traits. The series was engraved and published in 1592 in Cologne ─Germany.









