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The Alchemy of Light: Geometry and Optics in Late Renaissance Alchemical Illustration (Symbola Et Emblemata Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Symbolism)

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This book focuses on the intellectual and spiritual concerns of the 1590s to 1620s, using Khunrath's Ampithiteatrum Sapientiae Aeternae (1595; 1609) as the focal-point in analyzing the rhetorical practices of Paracelsian theosophists, specifically their use of certain types of visual illustration. Since it is not possible to examine all the major alchemists of the late Renaissance, this study is confined to the cabbalistic metaphysics and optical alchemy of four central figures, those of Dee, Khunrath, Maier, and Fludd.

Would interest those concerned with intellectual history, Renaissance theology and religious movements, the history of hermeticism, occultism and alchemy, as well as Renaissance art and science.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments IX

Introduction XI

1. The Semiotic Structures of Renaissance Alchemical Imagery 1

2. Geometry and Astrology in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Alchemy 12

3. The influence of Medieval Optics on Renaissance Alchemy 29

4. Paracelsian Alchemy: the "Astral Virtue" and the "Aerial Saltpetre" 41

5. John Dee's Alchemy of Light: the Monas Hieroglyphica and the Cabbalah 55

6. John Dee's Conceptual Architecture and "Zographie" in an Alchemical Context 71

7. Heinrich Khunrath: Divine Light and the Fire of the Magi 79

8. Heinrich Khunrath's Amphiteatrum Sapientiae Aeternae: the 1595 and 1602 editions 103

9. Heinrich Khunrath's Amphiteatrum Sapientiae Aeternae: the edition of 1604 (published Hanover, 1609) 113

10. Epicureans, Blasphemers, Sophists and Black-Magicians: the Persecution of Heinrich Khunrath 139

11. Michael Maier's Alchemical Geometry of the Sun 153

12. Robert Fludd: The Divine Alchemy of the Eye of God 167

Conclusion 183

Bibliography 185

Illustrations 201

Index

Of related interest is the author's work: The Sacrificial Body And the Day of Doom: Alchemy And Apocalyptic Discourse in the Protestant Reformation (Aries Book Series).