“Ars nostro spernitur ævo” ([Hermetic] art is despised in our age)https://vopus.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/el-arte-hermetico-es-despreciado-en-nuestra-epoca-daniel-meisner-default.jpg850480V.M. Kwen Khan KhuV.M. Kwen Khan Khuhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e832d7de00772123ef7f897d80b0841daa13143ee04fa7c99f7a066face011ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g
The central figure is an old man, a scholar or artist, walking and carrying on his back a huge basket full of instruments and tools: a compass, a square, a ruler, an ancient astronomical instrument that resembles a cross and that is used to calculate the distance between two celestial bodies, a globe of the Earth, etc. etc.
This engraving was made by the German artist Wolfgang Kilian and was published in an alchemical and medical book written by the German physician Malachias Geiger entitled Microcosmus Hypochondriaca Tractatus (1652) ‘The Hypochondriac Microcosm on Hypochondriac Melancholy’.
“Omnia mercurio, sulphure et sale” (All things exist through Mercury, Sulphur and Salt)https://vopus.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/todas-las-cosas-existen-por-medio-de-mercurio-azufre-y-sal-jacob-bornitz-default.jpg850480V.M. Kwen Khan KhuV.M. Kwen Khan Khuhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e832d7de00772123ef7f897d80b0841daa13143ee04fa7c99f7a066face011ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g
I am sending you this engraving which is the forty-fifth emblem of the book Emblematum sacrorum et civilium miscellaneorum ─’Various Sacred and Civil Emblems’─, written by Jacob Bornitz.
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.
Mercury and Virtuehttps://vopus.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/mercurio-y-la-virtud-dosso-dossi-default.jpg850480V.M. Kwen Khan KhuV.M. Kwen Khan Khuhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e832d7de00772123ef7f897d80b0841daa13143ee04fa7c99f7a066face011ef?s=96&d=mm&r=g
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.
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.
