Hermetic Studies series

No. 11. The Pandora Woodcut Series
Early in the 1970s I found a complex series of eighteen woodcuts which were printed in Hieronymus Reusner's Pandora, das ist, die edleste Gab Gottes, oder der Werde unnd Heilsamme Stein der Weisen,... Basel, 1582. A few years later I came across some reproductions of a manuscript earlier than the Reusner, so it became obvious to me that he must have drawn on this for his woodcuts. This was Das Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (The Book of the Holy Trinity) which later I realised was the first illustrated German alchemical manuscript, being dated to the early 15th century 1410-1430. It is unclear to me whether these notes on the woodcuts drew from the Book of the Holy Trinity or were merely Reusner's own observations on the imagery, but in the absence of a translation of the manuscript, this does at least allow us to touch, however tangentially, on its substance.
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43 pages. 18 illustrations. 8x5 inches (203x126mm) Paperback.