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Alchemical Iconography at the Dawn of the Modern Age

The Splendor solis of Salomon Trismosin

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The Power of Images in Early Modern Science
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Abstract

The example chosen to illustrate the problems bound with alchemical iconography is a sixteenth-century treatise called Splendor solis oder Sonnenglantz.1 Written in German, this treatise describes the main steps of the philosophers’ stone in a traditional way. It is divided in seven short treatises among which the third and the fourth are themselves separated into seven chapters or paragraphs, the fifth treatise being divided into four articles. The work is illustrated by a series of twenty-two remarkable illuminations which have contributed to its fame.

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Cannella, AF. (2003). Alchemical Iconography at the Dawn of the Modern Age. In: Lefèvre, W., Renn, J., Schoepflin, U. (eds) The Power of Images in Early Modern Science. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8099-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8099-2_6

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-2434-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-0348-8099-2

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