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Carl Lavoie
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Posted: Mon May 25th, 2009 02:57 am |
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Good day everyone,
There is a detail in the ‘Democrite’ engraving of Maier’s Symbola Aurea Mensae that I just can’t make out; and I've never read a commentary about that very plate that even make mention of it.
It is about this odd human shape, close to the head of Venus. It can’t possibly be part of the background, or compared to the port at the same level, it would stand a good 500 yards tall!
Now, in the pictorial tradition of the time, it was conventional to depict the human soul coming forth from the mouth of a moribund (like in the Ars moriendi scenes).
Could this figure has been put there to depict its “spirit” coming out, or the “soul of copper”, something akin to that? It’s rather obscure to me.
Maybe someone have an explanation to propose to elucidate this cryptic detail.
Last edited on Tue May 26th, 2009 01:35 am by Carl Lavoie
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Tom Willard
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Posted: Mon May 25th, 2009 03:02 pm |
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I suspect you are right to see the ars moriendi symbolism here.
The words above the illustration seem to hold the key:
PHARMACO IGNITO SPOLIANDA densi est corporis umbra
Democritus here is the pharmacus (poisoner/healer) who must despoil the body's dense shadow. He points to Venus, but the figure to her right must be that of the old man collapsing to her left.
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Carl Lavoie
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Posted: Tue May 26th, 2009 04:26 am |
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Thank you Mr. Willard,
I thought soul/spirit based on an artistic convention of the time, but dense shadow (as impurities to purge?) holds water even better!
Regarding the old man on her left, I would hold that the 'shadow' is not his, but hers. Actually, I saw in him her very consort: lame, humpbacked, hammer and fire; pretty much all the symbolical attributes.
But what about the cup? What if "Pharmaco" was declined from Pharmacum instead (ablative case)? It could thus refer to a corrosive, or maybe even more to a cupellation:
[By means of] this fiery medicine brought to bareness, dense is the body’s shadow.
Last edited on Tue May 26th, 2009 07:35 pm by Carl Lavoie
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Tue May 26th, 2009 08:58 pm |
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Carl Lavoie wrote:
Thank you Mr. Willard,
I thought soul/spirit based on an artistic convention of the time, but dense shadow (as impurities to purge?) holds water even better!
Regarding the old man on her left, I would hold that the 'shadow' is not his, but hers. Actually, I saw in him her very consort: lame, humpbacked, hammer and fire; pretty much all the symbolical attributes.
But what about the cup? What if "Pharmaco" was declined from Pharmacum instead (ablative case)? It could thus refer to a corrosive, or maybe even more to a cupellation:
[By means of] this fiery medicine brought to bareness, dense is the body’s shadow.
I read 'ignito pharmaco' as an ablative absolute: 'the drug having been ignited, the dense shadow of the body must be stripped away'.
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Carl Lavoie
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Posted: Wed May 27th, 2009 02:23 am |
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I read 'ignito pharmaco' as an ablative absolute
Convincing and elegant. Thank you. I had in mind Ignito in its meaning of “purifying by fire”, but should have think more pragmatically.
'the drug having been ignited, the dense shadow of the body must be stripped away'
Could he refer here to antimony sulphide, Agricola’s stibium ?
(“ but in order that the stibium should not consume the gold, it is melted with copper [=Venus] in a red hot earthen crucible.”)
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Neil J Mann
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Posted: Sat Aug 1st, 2009 07:52 pm |
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Coming on this very late, but just to note that "densi" goes with "corporis", so it's the "shadow of the dense body".
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