The Rosarium Philosophorum: twenty woodcuts of the Work

Among illustrated alchemical books, the Rosarium Philosophorum holds a special place. It is neither the oldest nor the most lavish, but its images have become some of the most reproduced and discussed in the whole tradition. Anyone who wants to learn to read alchemy through images finds here an almost teaching-oriented path: twenty woodcuts that tell the story of the Work from beginning to end.

The book

The Rosarium Philosophorum, the «Rosary of the philosophers», was printed in Frankfurt in 1550 as the second part of a collection entitled De Alchimia opuscula complura veterum philosophorum. The title recalls a medieval tradition: a «rosary» was an anthology, a collection of chosen flowers, that is, of quotations.

The text is in fact mainly a mosaic of passages taken from earlier authors, real or supposed: ancient philosophers, Arab masters, Latin alchemists. Whoever compiled it wanted to offer a synthesis of alchemical doctrine through the voice of the authorities. But what made the book famous are the woodcuts, accompanied by short verses in German.

The structure of the images

The twenty plates can be read as two great movements. The first series leads to the white stone, the second to the red stone. Here is the essential sequence of the first part.

1. The mercurial fountain: a basin from which the liquid of the Work springs, topped by a two-headed serpent, with the Sun and Moon on either side. This is the starting matter.
2. The King and Queen: Sun and Moon offer each other their left hands while a dove descends between them. This is the meeting of the principles.
3. Naked truth: the two remove their garments. Outer impurities are taken away.
4. The bath: they enter the water together. This is dissolution.
5. The conjunction: they unite in the bath.
6. Death: the couple lies in a tomb, now a single body with two heads.
7. The extraction of the soul: a small figure rises towards heaven from the dead body.
8. The dew: water falls from above and washes the body. This is purification.
9. The return of the soul: the figure descends and re-enters the body.
10. The Rebis: the double being, crowned and winged, stands up. This is the white stone.

The second series takes up similar themes at a higher level, with images of the green lion devouring the sun, of a new Rebis, of the pelican, and closes with figures of coronation and resurrection. The very presence of religious images at the end of the book shows how, for its author, the alchemical process and the mystery of redemption were conceived in parallel.

Why these images work

The woodcuts of the Rosarium have certain qualities that make them particularly suited to study.

• Simplicity: few figures, clear gestures, essential backgrounds.
• Continuity: the same figures return from plate to plate, so you follow a real story.
• Body language: meeting, nakedness, embrace, death and rebirth are universal human experiences.
• Ambivalence: each image can be read both as a laboratory operation and as an inner process.

Modern fortune

In the twentieth century the first ten images of the Rosarium were at the centre of a study by Carl Gustav Jung devoted to the psychology of the transference, that is, the deep relationship that forms between two people on a path of transformation. Jung read the sequence as a symbolic description of what happens when two psyches enter into relationship and transform each other. This reading made the woodcuts known to a much wider public than that of alchemy scholars.

How to study them

To work with the Rosarium it is best to proceed slowly.

• One plate at a time: observe an image for a few days before moving on to the next.
• Describe before interpreting: note what you see, the gestures, the objects, the positions, before looking for their meaning.
• Notice recurring details: the dove, the stars, the Sun and Moon, the inscriptions on the scrolls.
• Follow the thread: ask yourself what has changed compared with the previous plate.

At Studio Esoterico Cornelio the images of the Rosarium are often used as a first training ground for those who want to learn the visual language of alchemy, because they teach you to read a symbol in its context rather than in isolation.

In short

• The Rosarium Philosophorum was printed in Frankfurt in 1550 in a collection of alchemical texts.
• The text is an anthology of quotations, but the book's fame comes from its twenty woodcuts.
• The first series leads from the mercurial fountain to the Rebis, the second to the red stone.
• The images lend themselves to both an operative and an inner reading, and were also studied by Jung.