Maier, Michael, Atalanta fugiens

Maier, Michael. Atalanta fugiens. rhttp //www.levitv.com/alchemv/atalanta.htmll. "Michael Maier s alchemical emblem book Atalanta fugiens was first published in Latin in 1617. It was a most amazing book as it incorporated 50 emblems with epigrams and a... 

Maier, Michael.Atalanta fugiens ed. L. Wuthrich. Edited by L. Wuthrich., 1964. With the Complete Fugue Cycle on Accompanying Cassette... 

Maier, Michael, Atalanta Fugiens (with the complete fugue cycle on accompanying cassette),York Beach, Maine Phanes Press 1989... 

De Jong, Helena M. E., Michael Maier s Atalanta Fugiens Sources of an Alchemical Book of Emblems (Leiden E. J. Brill, 1969). 

Jong, Helena Maria Elisabeth de. Michael Maier s Atalanta fugiens sources of an alchemical book of emblems. Leiden Brill, 1969. xi, 461 p. 

Sleeper, Helen Joy. The alchemical fugues in Count Michael Maier s Atalanta fugiens. Easton (PA) , 1938. 

My quotations and translations are drawn from the original text of 1618, which I have on microfiche. On this seminal work, see Jong for its alchemical art historical context, see Lennep, Alchimie Contribution, especially 181-95. Happily, there now exists a serviceable and economical English version of the magisterial alchemical emblem book Godwin, Michael Maier s Atalanta Fugiens see also (in Spanish) Sebastian, Michael Maier, introduced by J. E Moffitt). 

Another development in the seventeenth century was the proliferation of alchemical books. Certain publishers, notably De Bry of Frankfurt, printed almost nothing else. Apart from Michael Maier s Atalanta Fugiens, other celebrated works included the Book of Lambspring (1599), Heinrich Khunrath s Ampitheatre of Eternal Wisdom (1609), and Altus s Mutus Liber (1677), an illustrated book that almost entirely dispensed with a written text. Encyclopaedic compendia appeared, such as the Theatrum Chemicum (1602), and the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652), edited by Elias Ashmole. 

FIGURE 83. Birth of Athena from the head of her father Zeus (no mother here) and a chemical conjunctio with her brother Apollo (from Michael Maier s Atalanta Fugiens). The conjunctio, or chemical marriage, weds Sol and Luna or Sophie Sulfur and Sophie Mercury (courtesy of The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University). 

Emblem XLIV, Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (Oppenheim Lucas Jennis, 1617 1618). With the permission of the British Library, London. 

Maier, Michael and Adam McLean. Atalanta fugiens emblems hand coloured by Adam McLean. rhttn //www. levitv.com/alchemv/atalanta thumbnails.htmll. 

FIGURE 2. Footless Man, from Michael Maier, Atalanta fugiens, 1617. Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA. 

Musikalische Symbolik in der Atalanta Fugiens von Michael Maier (1618). ... 

It is of some interest to note that while traditionally associated with the priesthood and the shamans, smiths were also seen as brothers to poets, musicians and dancers. Again, alchemy seems to have inherited some of this in the sense that many alchemists were also poets. Some, such as Thomas Vaughan, seem to have been alchemists solely in the poetic sense, while Michael Maier s most famous work, Atalanta Fugiens, is a cycle of fugues scored for three voices. 

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