ALCHEMY - ROSARIUM PHILOSOPHORUM - THE BATH A much printed alchemical series, the Rosarium Philosophorum consists of a complex text around 20 highly distinctive woodcut prints. The imagery is alchemical, but well disguised behind the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage, sexuality and various Christian symbols. They each relate to the alchemical stages, viewed from a Christian standpoint - perhaps written in the late 15th century by one of the early Rosicrucian schools. Although the text and related images appeared in mediaeval manuscripts, it was not printed until 1550, in a German edition, as p
ALCHEMY - ROSARIUM PHILOSOPHORUM - THE BATH A much printed alchemical series, the Rosarium Philosophorum consists of a complex text around 20 highly distinctive woodcut prints. The imagery is alchemical, but well disguised behind the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage, sexuality and various Christian symbols. They each relate to the alchemical stages, viewed from a Christian standpoint - perhaps written in the late 15th century by one of the early Rosicrucian schools. Although the text and related images appeared in mediaeval manuscripts, it was not printed until 1550, in a German edition, as part of the De alchimia opuscula, by which time it consisted of 20 woodcuts. The authorship has always remained uncertain, though it has been suggested that it was compiled by Arnold of Villanova, in the 13th century. Jung has argued, from iconographic points relating to the four distinctly religious images, that, in its present form at least, the illustrations do not go back beyond the 15th century. The book was reprinted, with different cuts, many times: a great deal of the meaning of text and images may be gleaned from the later version of the images, and a truncated text, published as part of Johann Daniel Mylius, Philosophia Reformata, 1622 (the 22 engravings based on the cuts begins at the 29 engraving in the series, though the old numbering is adopted- that is to say, after the 28 engravings the Rosarium series are numbered in sequence from 1 to 22). Plate 4. The married couple now find themselves in a bath - presumably in the triple-mixed waters of the first plate. While the stellar symbol and the floral star, were both six-pointed, so the bath itself is hexagonal, and on three levels: earth reflects the heavens. Alchemically, the bodies which were spiritually purified by prayer and the hieros gamos, are now purified in a physical sense - washed clean of sin. This is an essential preparation for the ultimate union, which is to follow in the symbolic
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Keywords: -, alchemical, alchemy, archival, archive, art, artistic, artwork, bath, colour, complex, consists, esoteric, esoterica, historic, historical, history, illustration, image, paranormal, philosophorum, printed, rosarium, series
