Three Alchemical Miniatures

The Science History Institute’s Three Alchemical Miniatures correspond to text from Das Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (The Book of the Holy Trinity). Produced in the 1400s in either Southern Germany or Austria, the Buch is distinguished as being the first alchemical treatise composed in German, rather than the more prevalently used Latin. Though Das Buch’s authorship has not been definitively attributed, scholars speculate that the author was a Franciscan monk who sought financial support from Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg and his wife Barbara of Cilli before eventually securing royal patronage from margrave Frederic I of Brandenburg.

The three illuminations featured in this blog post were likely sourced from one of the estimated 15 to 20 manuscript versions made based on the original treatise. Much of the alchemical symbolism in Das Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit also circulates in well-known iterations of both the 15th-century Aurora Consurgens (The Rising Dawn) and the 16th-century Rosarium philosophorum (The Rose Garden of the Philosophers).

Its eschatological chronicle of humankind’s march towards Judgement Day unfolds across a pictorial cycle revolving around Jesus Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection while foreshadowing the Anti-Christ’s emergence. The Magnum Opus is, however, provocatively conveyed within Das Buch’s pages by foregrounding the Virgin Mary and equating the theological Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with King, Son, and Hermes/Mercury.

The Seven Forms of Transmutation

Paramount to accomplishing alchemical change was the fusion of contrary components juxtaposing hot and cold, moist and dry, light and dark, and sacred and profane. The first of the three alchemical miniatures held by the Institute, “The Seven Forms of Transmutation” counterposes the moon and sun as allegories for feminine silver and masculine gold. They hang parallel near the uppermost reaches of the rectangular frame. Encircled by a shaggy mane of flames, the sun gazes leftward. The waning crescent moon is stationed in the opposite corner but is skewed a bit more deeply towards the right. The silver pigment gracing it and the other two paintings has since degraded so much that it is difficult to differentiate its original shade from the actual black color applied elsewhere.

Dark spikes emanate from volatile Mercury’s red and white node, centered in the top third of the composition. Below the sun and moon are four more circles, signifying Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter encompassed by matching gold scalloped rings. The four planets respectively denote the metals copper, iron, lead, and tin, further signaling alchemy’s ties to astrology.

The Flower of Wisdom

The excerpted trio of illustrations in the Othmer Library’s collection happen to eschew specific human-shaped referents to tell their portion of Christ’s alchemical journey. Celestial, creaturely, and floral forms instead chart the dramatic transmutation from prima materia, the formless chaotic principle, into the philosophers’ stone. The scenes they together depict are anchored sequentially by the ouroboros, which is an allegorical serpent or dragon whose curvilinear pose allows it to ingest its own tail. Another influential instance of an alchemical ouroboros appears in Michael Maier’s 17th-century emblem book, Atalanta Fugiens. It is but one of many instances where a circular icon alchemically signifies all-encompassing oneness.

In “The Flower of Wisdom,” the fertile “chemical wedding” of solar and lunar energy manifests as a symmetrical red and black plant blooming out of the dragon’s coiled body.

The Allegory of Purification

Cerulean expands episodically across the paintings, rising from the bottom of “The Seven Forms of Transmutation” up to encase the blossom in “The Flower of Wisdom” until it fills the remainder of the backdrop of “The Allegory of Purification.” The mutable blue substance is a quintessential elixir dubbed aqua vitae (water of life). Against the filigreed expanse, the action climaxes within a crowned incubating vessel populated by birds. The white dove perched on top evokes the spirit of God subduing a defeated ouroboros underfoot. The holy white feathers and surroundings countervail the destructive diabolical forces with which the chthonic dragon is associated.

---

My time at the Beckman Center is devoted to researching how theological and demonological themes suffuse early modern alchemy, as exemplified by the Three Alchemical Miniatures. Moreover, I am intrigued by the ways that vertical orientation communicates ideas around fallenness, hierarchy, morphology, and generation throughout alchemical imagery.

Case in point is the ouroboros darkening and descending from the first to last miniature to undergird matter’s triumphant alchemical transmogrification. This dynamic dovetails my book project’s primary theoretical concerns with chroma and cosmology. By engaging the visual cultures of alchemy and demonology, it examines the occulted role that blackness plays in constitutions of subsurface space.