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Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
- Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
nablator > 13-11-2024, 11:02 AM
(11-11-2024, 07:54 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anonymous, Ymage de vie, plus miscellaneous alchemical receipts, Late 15th century, Folio 9r
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This nice ms. has a lot of illustrations of apparatus, very technical and practical. There's nothing like them in Q13: fractional distillation tower, retorts, pelicans: they would be too easy to identify. Actually there may be 9 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. disguised as leaves on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Why 9? Is it because of the 9 muses? I don't see a link (other than the general sense of being "inspired by the muses") between the 9 muses on mount Helicon, with or without Pegasus, and alchemy.
The bathing nymphs in Q13 especially in f84 are far too numerous to mean something practical in recipes, what could they mean in theory? The multiplication process? -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
BessAgritianin > 13-11-2024, 05:25 PM
(13-11-2024, 11:02 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The bathing nymphs in Q13 especially in f84 are far too numerous to mean something practical in recipes, what could they mean in theory? The multiplication process?
Do not underestimate alchemy!
It is a process from which I understand something, but not everything. I can translate certain things, but no way everything. That is why I keep my silence- not to make mistake in the interpretation.
One is sure for me- f84 is a chemical process too.
Maybe some day will be another "Malta conference", where there will be more info provided from the scribas like me.
The problem with the chemical part of VM is that nobody has found text equals of drawings interpretations and the processes.
There are years long contemplations about alchemy, but no real text translation.
BR: Vessy -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
BessAgritianin > 13-11-2024, 05:41 PM
What I can read is "mix", rinse", "water" etc.
But no real whole interpretation. Sorry. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
bi3mw > 13-11-2024, 05:59 PM
(13-11-2024, 11:02 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The bathing nymphs in Q13 especially in f84 are far too numerous to mean something practical in recipes, what could they mean in theory? The multiplication process?
In general, I would assume that some kind of process is taking place in the pools. The nymphs individually embody the substances and as a group the sequence. On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , for example, it looks as if a transformation from red to blue to yellow is taking place (whatever that may mean). The direction is determined by the direction in which the nymphs are looking. There is also a pile of yellow "balls" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on the left at the edge of the pool. This may or may not be coincidence.
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
nablator > 13-11-2024, 06:54 PM
(13-11-2024, 05:59 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is also a pile of yellow "balls" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on the left at the edge of the pool.
At the opposite side of the opening where the green liquid enters, i.e. in fundo vasis, where heavy substances decant.
Coincidence? I think not!
The back-and-forth motion in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (2 nymphs go to the right, against the general movement) could be describing You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in distillation. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 13-11-2024, 09:17 PM
(13-11-2024, 05:59 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(13-11-2024, 11:02 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The bathing nymphs in Q13 especially in f84 are far too numerous to mean something practical in recipes, what could they mean in theory? The multiplication process?
In general, I would assume that some kind of process is taking place in the pools. The nymphs individually embody the substances and as a group the sequence. On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , for example, it looks as if a transformation from red to blue to yellow is taking place (whatever that may mean). The direction is determined by the direction in which the nymphs are looking. There is also a pile of yellow "balls" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on the left at the edge of the pool. This may or may not be coincidence.
I find You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. particularly interesting because it has features that repeat on other pages. For instance:
Finials: The finials on top of canopies are in the shapes of a bulbous cross, and for lack of a better descriptor, a penis. The bulbous cross shape can be found on the Rosettes page atop temples/medicine bottles, but it’s also found paired with the penis shape on the canopies on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. if you look closely. We might be looking at male/female principles, a strong contender amongst others, of course.
Barrel sequence with red: Also found bottom of f80v. Somehow both seem to be connected to “resurrection” (particularly, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. case, if you buy Koen’s Callisto interpretation, which I do).
Pool edge pattern: The first pool has a surrounding edge pattern identical to the funnel in the bottom right rosettes sphere in the Rosettes page. I have my own schema for the rosettes - that sphere I identified with Mineralis. But I’ll leave that for now as I don’t want to explain the schema, it’s too complicated.
I have my own interpretation of this page but it’s all very tentative and I am still lacking alchemical detail to make it more convincing.But basically I think it’s the “projection” stage, this time the more theoretical model, where the red powder of the stone is processed, added to a “mineral bath” that holds deficient metals like lead, tin, etc., resulting in the transmutation to gold. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 13-11-2024, 09:42 PM
(13-11-2024, 06:54 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(13-11-2024, 05:59 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is also a pile of yellow "balls" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on the left at the edge of the pool.
At the opposite side of the opening where the green liquid enters, i.e. in fundo vasis, where heavy substances decant.
Coincidence? I think not!
The back-and-forth motion in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (2 nymphs go to the right, against the general movement) could be describing You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in distillation.
That’s a great article! It explains so much about this illustration, not only reflux, but double distillation possibly. Possible explanation for why they’re fighting each other in pairs? Dunno, but just found that explanation so clear. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 13-11-2024, 09:59 PM
I wish we could trust the colours of these pages. Nick Pelling says some of the pools were originally blue, then coloured over with thick green. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 14-11-2024, 05:53 AM
(13-11-2024, 11:02 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(11-11-2024, 07:54 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anonymous, Ymage de vie, plus miscellaneous alchemical receipts, Late 15th century, Folio 9r
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This nice ms. has a lot of illustrations of apparatus, very technical and practical. There's nothing like them in Q13: fractional distillation tower, retorts, pelicans: they would be too easy to identify. Actually there may be 9 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. disguised as leaves on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Why 9? Is it because of the 9 muses? I don't see a link (other than the general sense of being "inspired by the muses") between the 9 muses on mount Helicon, with or without Pegasus, and alchemy.
The bathing nymphs in Q13 especially in f84 are far too numerous to mean something practical in recipes, what could they mean in theory? The multiplication process?
Yes, maybe. I don’t really understand the multiplication process. There are a few candidate bath sequences that might be appropriate for it. Mercury tends to play a prominent role, and it seems to involve further distillation of the “stone” once you achieve it? -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 14-11-2024, 06:52 PM
I’m a little excited - I think I’ve made a discovery that solves a puzzle I’ve been worrying at for some time. It’s to do with the Ovid tales. Two of them, the difficult ones, @KoenG found: Philomela and Callisto. Two of them, I’ve discovered: Hermaphroditus and Myrrha. I can’t see any others that could be candidates so that is four in all.
When I was researching the use of Ovid in alchemy, I was struck by the fact that often alchemists might use Ovid stories in their works, but if so, there would always be something “off” about them that signified they were being used alchemically.
And that holds true for all four of these stories. Koen himself wondered about two images that were out of place in each of his stories, and I had the same thing happen in my stories.
In the Callisto story You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the image out of place is on page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and should have been a bear, because Callisto ascends to heaven as Ursa Major. But it looks nothing like a bear. I’ve heard it called an armadillo, and read arguments about whether it might be a ram, a sheep with a huge fleece, a wolf, Agnis dei, and for me it just looked like a sacrificial beast because of the nymph below with the bloody ring. In that context, I did wonder if this represented Christ as the ultimate sacrifice, and could that fleece possibly refer to his scourged back? Scourging
In the Philomela story You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ,the image out of place on page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the bloody flower head, or purse, or any number of things that have been attributed to it. This should have been the head of her son, Itys, presented to her husband but it’s not a human head. But I had read a different version of the Ovid tale than Koen. In it, the boy Itys is resurrected as a goldfinch. And the goldfinch in medieval iconology always represents the Crown of Thorns. You find it in picture after picture with Christ as a baby,foretelling his ending. (The goldfinch’s red mark on its face is the result of being pricked by one of the thorns).
Crown of Thorns
In the Hermaphroditus tale on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the image out of place is a second spike in the horizontal tree trunk. The first spike combines with the hermaphrodite’s crooked arm to form a phallus and vulva combination revealing their new gender. But why was there a second spike? At this point, I thought the theme was stigmata, as something similar happened in the Book of the Holy Trinity, but I was never able to find other stigmata. So perhaps it wasn’t just stigmata of the hands, but representing the Crucifixion itself?
Crucifixion
In the Myrrha tale on page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the image out of place, that I could make no sense of at all, is the woman that seems to be drinking using a third arm.
Thirst
But now I know what these images have in common: The scourging, the crown of thorns, the crucifixion and … thirst.
I’m reading Lawrence Principe’s The History of Alchemy 2013 (free on Amazon if you have Kindle Unlimited. He has a section on Alchemy and Christianity and quotes from pseudo-Arnaldus (13th century, predates Rupescissa because Rupescissa quotes from the same text, Metaphorical Treatise, in his own work). Mercury first becomes formally associated with Christ as extended metaphor in this work.
“For Arnald, quotations from Old Testament prophets bear witness not only to Jesus Christ as the Messiah but also to mercury as the correct starting point of the material for the stone. Just as Christ bore his torment in four stages - scourging, crowning with thorns, crucifixion, and thirst on the cross - so too must the mercury undergo a four-fold torment to be prepared into the stone” (67).
You might ask, why couldn’t these just be Christian symbols without alchemy? For me, the answer lies in the alchemical use of Ovid and the story features always having something “off” to signal the alchemical.
Anyone interested in VMs alchemy should read this book if they can. There is much more. For me, I’m finally satisfie: scourging, crown of thorns, crucifixion, thirst. Not only might the VMs authors have read this text, if interested in alchemy at all, they would have. Lots of copies floating around.