The phantastical Quincunx in Plato

'The shaping influence of Platonism on Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) has long been recognized by those attracted to the intangible atmosphere of his mind.'[1] 

Allusion to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (circa 427 BCE- 347 BCE) occurs throughout Browne’s writings. Plato’s proposal that the world is a living creature which possesses a soul (anima mundi), his allegories of the Cave of human illusion and the ‘wild horses’ of the passions, his political allegory of the lost civilization of Atlantis, along with ‘the fantastical Quincunx of Plato' can all be found in Browne’s literary works.

Above all else the discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) reveals the full depth of the learned doctor’s immersion in Platonic thought. In a kaleidoscopic procession of art-objects, botanical specimens, optical theories and mystical symbols, Browne showcases his very own home-grown Platonic Form of the Quincunx. With virtuoso skill he improvises upon it in geometrical, numerical and mystical variations in order to highlight a foundational hermetic belief: the interconnectedness of life across the Universe. Browne also supplies his reader throughout the  discourse with proper-name symbolism of historical philosopher-Kings and ‘wise rulers’ as advocated by Plato. A timely reminder today with the world-wide rise of authoritarian and demagogue politicians. 

It was the Oxford academic Thomas Lushington (1590-1661) who introduced Thomas Browne to Plato’s philosophy. He also recommended Norwich to his former pupil as an ideal city to establish a medical career. Browne followed his advice, and after qualifying as a physician in 1637 relocated to Norwich where he practiced medicine until his death in 1682. 

Lushington most likely took pride when his former pupil’s Religio Medici (1643) became a best-seller in England and gained recognition across Europe after translation. Plato is encountered several times in Browne’s spiritual testament and psychological self-portrait. For example, the so-called Great Platonic Year, a period of approximately 24,000 years, the length of time which the Greek philosopher believed was required for the celestial bodies to return to their original positions, is defined by Browne as-

'A revolution of certain thousand years when all things should return unto their former estate and he (Plato) be teaching again in his school as when he delivered this opinion'.[2]

Browne expresses his belief in the anima mundi or World-Soul in Religio Medici, a concept originating from Plato and later embraced by hermetic philosophers.

'Now besides these particular and divided Spirits, there may be (for ought I know) an universal and common Spirit to the whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, and it is yet of the Hermetical Philosophers; [3]

Alchemystical philosophers such as Browne related Plato’s concept of the anima mundi or World-Soul from their own spiritual intuition as much as from reading Plato. 

A central tenet of Browne’s spirituality is a belief in an angelic hierarchy, one which he held in common with many in the seventeenth century. It was a belief supported not only from Biblical Scripture, but from Plato also, as Browne informs-

‘Therefore for Spirits I am so far from denying their existence and from denying their existence, that I could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato’. [4] 

Religio Medici (The Religion of a doctor) concludes in decisive favour of Plato and dismissive of his pupil Aristotle,  Browne wittily declaring-

‘Aristotle whilst he labours to refute the Idea's of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum, is a Chimæra, and there is no such thing as his Felicity’.[5]

In Plato's theological, moral and mystical philosophy allegory, symbolism and concepts such as Eternal Ideas or Forms are used to illustrate spiritual truths. As the ‘Father of Western mysticism’ he's the source of much esoteric thought. Plato’s philosophy was fundamentally supplemented with the revival and development of Platonic thought in the early centuries of the Common Era. Neoplatonism flourished through philosophers such as Plotinus (204/5 – 271 CE) Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 233-305 CE) and Iamblichus (245-325 CE) all of whom elaborated and expanded Platonic concepts, often with little connection to the ancient Greek’s original thought. Books by Neoplatonic authors are well-represented in Browne’s library. [6] 

The authoritative scholar Reid Barbour in his meticulously researched biography advances our understanding of Browne’s interest in Plato, explaining-

‘The appeal of Plato underscores Browne’s syncretic conviction that behind all transcendentally inclined philosophies – Hermetic, Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Platonic, Neoplatonic, Chaldaic, Cabbalistic, and Christian – one finds the same supra-rational and even counter-rational truths, which neither dry logic nor blind partisanship can appreciate. [7]

Platonic and Neoplatonic thought influenced numerous artists, poets and thinkers throughout the Renaissance until the late seventeenth century, the low-ebb tide of its influence. The enduring appeal of Platonic thought is succinctly explained thus-

'In the Renaissance, no ancient revival had more impact on the history of philosophy than the recovery of Platonism.....No other renewal of an ancient school had a textual base large enough to support the growth  of a coherent, wide-reaching and independent philosophical system ..For at least three reasons, the new Platonism of Ficino and his successors must be seen as central to any discussion of European intellectual history during the Renaissance. First, the rich doctrinal content and formal elegance of Neoplatonic Platonism made it at least a plausible competitor of Peripateticism. What the Neoplatonists lacked in systematic logic and natural philosophy, they made up for with a stronger appeal to creativity .. They gave more latitude to all kinds of speculation, from aesthetics and mythology to cosmology and theology. After Ficino, anyone who disliked Aristotle could turn to Plato... The second strength of Platonism was its extra-philosophical influence. Despite his harsh words for poetry, Plato initiated a tradition that poets admired.... The same is true of his treatment of music...Finally, certain attitudes and methods of the new science were more Platonic than Aristotelian. The habit of idealizing physics, which was fundamental to the new science of the seventeenth century, came more easily to the Platonic mentality than to the Peripatetic. Even more important was Platonic praise of mathematics. For Aristotle, physics and mathematics did not really mix, while Plato gave good grounds for a mathematical analysis of nature. Platonism never vanquished Aristotelianism in the Renaissance, but it acquired great cultural strength'. [8]

In our own times it is Aristotelean reasoning and materialism which has triumphed over Platonic idealism, as the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung succinctly noted, ‘Greek natural philosophy with its interest in matter, together with Aristotelean reasoning, has achieved a belated but overwhelming victory over Plato’. [9]

Thematically, Browne’s literary diptych Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) concern themselves with themes of great importance to Plato, namely, the destiny of the eternal soul and number as a key to unlock cosmic mysteries. Browne’s diptych discourses closely reflect these two themes, Urn-Burial speculating upon the destiny of the soul and The Garden of Cyrus advocating number as a key to unlock the mysteries of the Cosmos.

Above-  Wall fresco of an ancient Greek drinking party symposium.

Urn-Burial

Browne’s sharp intellect and fertile imagination was sparked from the initial discovery of several Anglo-Saxon funerary urns ‘in a field near Old Walsingham’. In Urn-Burial he forensically surveys the burial rites, custom and beliefs of various world religions. It’s as a pioneering scholar of comparative religion that Browne alludes to Plato’s myth or tale of Er,  informing his reader that-

‘Plato’s historian of the other world, lies twelve days incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the large stations of the dead’.

Plato’s mythic story begins when a man named Er dies in battle. When the bodies of those who died in the battle are collected, some ten days after his death, Er remains undecomposed. Two days later he miraculously revives on his funeral-pyre and tells others of his soul’s journey in the afterlife, including his account of hearing the music of the celestial spheres. With its account of the cosmos and the afterlife Plato’s myth of Er influenced religious, philosophical, and scientific thought for centuries, not least for its teaching that after death moral people are rewarded and immoral people are punished.

Another ‘soul-journey’ cited in Urn-Burial is by the Roman philosopher Macrobius (395-423CE) whose commentary on ‘Scipio’s Dream’  was well-known throughout the Middle Ages. In Scipio’s ‘soul-journey’ the Roman military General Scipio narrates how he voyaged through the zodiac signs of Cancer and Capricorn, believed to be the exit and entrance to heaven and hears the celestial harmony of the spheres. Browne alludes to Macrobius' Commentary, recognises the importance of music in the grieving process as well as ‘the harmonical nature of the soul’ in  relationship to ‘the primitive harmony of heaven’, poetically stating- 

'They made use of Musick to excite or quiet the affections of their friends, according to different harmonies. But the secret and symbolical hint was the harmonical nature of the soul; which delivered from the body, went again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, from whence it first descended; which according to its progress traced by antiquity, came down by Cancer, and ascended by Capricornus'.

A vivid allusion to the ancient Greek philosopher’s allegory of the Cave of human unknowingness can also be found in Urn-Burial. Plato’s famous allegory describes people who have spent their entire lives chained by their neck and ankles in front of an inner wall in order to view the wall of a cave. They can only observe the shadows projected onto the outer wall of this cave by objects which are carried behind the inner wall by people who are invisible to the chained prisoners. Walking along the outer wall with a fire behind them, they create shadows on the inner wall in front of the prisoners who can only ever see the world indirectly, their reality iso only ever fire-lit shadows projected onto a wall.

In Plato’s powerful allegory the senses are proven to be highly unreliable narrators, the soul remains dormant and empirical reality has a transcendent background to it. Browne shared with Plato the same view of the human condition. Using highly original medical imagery he declares-

'A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Platoes denne, and are but Embryon Philosophers'.

Plato’s allegory of the Cave, idiosyncratically translated as ‘denne’ by Browne retains relevance today in our screen dominated lives, as one author states- 

'We can easily imagine Plato believing that we have returned to the world of the Cave, the situation in which our sensibility, values, tastes and desires are decisively shaped by what we absorb from the images presented to us…..Do the media that pervade our culture really contribute to human well-being and happiness, both of which, for Plato, depend on freedom from the control and manipulation that the use of the media can inflict on us ?.... The image of the Cave represented an imprisonment or enslavement by ignorance, illusion, ephemeral interests and harmful desires.... surely Plato’s verdict on our screen-dominated culture would have been severely critical'. [10]

The apotheosis of Browne’s speculations upon the body’s dissolution and the soul’s release includes an inventory of spiritual states of consciousness -

'And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kisse of the Spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them………..  ‘Tis all one to lye in St. Innocent’s Churchyard as the sands of Egypt’.

Above : SCIOLTA (Freed) Symbolic image of the soul released from the cage of the body.  Detail of dove flying from a cage. Suckling Monument (circa 1616) St. Andrew's church Norwich.

The eminent American psychologist James Hillman (1926-2011) stated in words resonate with the prominent moralist found in Urn-Burial -

'religion begins, as we have said, as a reflection upon death. Psychology does too, for it is in the face of death that we ponder and go deep and sense soul, and then build our fantasies for housing it, whether these be the ancient pyramids and sepulchres of religion or the rituals and systems of modern psychology'. [11]

Browne's solitary hint of his Discourses relationship occurs in his Dedicatory Epistle in The Garden of Cyrus where he states-

'That we conjoyn these parts of different Subjects, or that this should succeed the other; Your judgement will admit without impute of incongruity; Since the delightful World comes after death, and Paradise succeeds the Grave.'

Browne’s solitary hint is tantalizing. Together, his discourses have a complex, plexiform relationship to each other. The primary imagery they share is optical. Imagery involving Darkness and Light is replete throughout each Discourse. James Hillman notes - 'The linking of light and darkness sets the stage for a fundamental and recurring theme in both alchemy and Jungian psychology, namely, the coniunctio oppositorum, the unity of opposites, a bringing together of light and darkness into an illuminated vision'. [12]

James Hillman also notes that Light and Darkness are inextricably related to each other as symbolic of Consciousness and unconsciousness. The repeated imagery of Light and Darkness throughout the diptych suggests they function as a product of Browne’s proto-psychology, as such they may be viewed as an early portrait of the psyche in its totality of unconsciousness and consciousness. 

Ingeniously constructed with a myriad of polarities (Browne is credited with introducing the very word ‘polarity’ into English language) the literary diptych includes several uniting symbols. For example, in Urn-Burial the Pyramid is condemned as a vain-glorious monument, while in Cyrus the Pyramid is contemplated a geometric form. The two-faced Roman god Janus is also encountered in each Discourse, as are hand gestures signalling subtraction and multiplication. Above all however it’s the philosophical thought of Plato which decisively unites the Discourses.

The Garden of Cyrus

Like the letters in the proverbial stick of rock The Garden of Cyrus has the five letters of the word PLATO embedded at its core. Each of its five chapters names the ancient Greek philosopher. Its opening page references Plato no less than three times, firstly alluding to the Demiurge figure of Plato's Timaeus via the mythological figure of Vulcan, secondly acknowledging Plato’s theological import, describing him  as ‘the divine philosopher’ and thirdly in his footnote, 'Plato in Timaeo'. Browne was not alone in his interest in Plato's discourse. Ever since 1484 when Marsilio Ficino made a full Latin translation of Plato's  discourse available the Timaeus wielded a near Bible-like authority upon poet, scholar, artist and Hermetic philosopher alike throughout the Renaissance. 

The Garden of Cyrus opens with an account of the Creation, evoking the demiurge figure of Vulcan as the Master Workman. ‘Philosophers of Fire’ such as Browne took their cue from the radical Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) who named the Roman blacksmith of the gods as representative of their alchemical art. To Paracelsian physicians such as Browne Vulcan was synonymous with the demiurge figure who created the Universe as described by Plato in his Timaeus.

Plato's Timaeus is his most Pythagorean, influential and mystical discourse. In it he describes how the Demiurge is a divine craftsman who shapes the chaotic material world into an ordered cosmos by imitating eternal, unchanging Platonic Forms. Acting as a father and artificer, the Demiurge imposes mathematical order on pre-existing chaos, creating a universe that is a living god with its own soul, and creates lesser gods responsible for humanity. Plato’s discourse is assessed thus -

'The most important account of the Creation in the classical world was that given in Plato’s Timaeus (a substantial part of which survived into the Christian Middle Ages) and here we find that it is the Demiurge himself (and not the lesser gods) who puts the divine ‘guiding principle’ into humankind'. [13]

Just as Plato in his Timaeus engages in mystical mathematics in which number is a key to unlock the mysteries of the Cosmos, so too Browne indulges in mystical mathematics throughout The Garden of Cyrus. In what is his most Pythagorean and Platonic influenced work, Browne explores eternal patterns, symbolism, mystical numerology and geometry, showcasing the Quincunx pattern in art and nature as reflecting the eternal forms and archetypes discussed in Plato's Timaeus.

Plato's eternal Forms are perfect, timeless, and unchanging abstract archetypes of concepts, objects, and qualities that exist in a separate "Realm of Forms" beyond our physical world. The material world, known only through the senses, is merely an imperfect, shadowy imitation of these perfect Forms. True knowledge, for Plato, is the intellectual grasp of these eternal Forms, rather than flawed perceptions of the physical world. Browne’s demonstration of the Platonic form of the Quincunx in Art, Nature and mystically is modelled upon Plato's notion of Eternal Forms which pre-existed the Creation. The master workman or demiurge figure who consults the blueprints for the Creation, introduces the Eternal or Archetypal Forms to the World.

Number

The Garden of Cyrus sees Browne give full expression to his 'mystical mathematicks' and numerological inclinations. He first expressed his interest in numerological symbolism frankly declaring in Religio Medici-

'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras and the secret magicke of number'. [14]

In his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) there's a chapter titled Of the great Climatericall year, that is, Sixty three in which he speculates upon whether the number 63 is fatal in human affairs, noting it was reputedly the age which Plato died. He also informs his reader in this chapter that -‘ The Philosophy of Plato, and most of the Platonists abounds in numerall considerations’. [15]

No writings by Pythagoras survive, however Plato, in what is his most Pythagorean influenced work, the Timaeus, integrated and developed the numerological symbolism central to Pythagorean philosophy, and in some ways its equally accurate to describe Browne’s Discourse as Neo-Pythagorean as much as Platonic in concept.

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras (c. 570 – 490 BCE) who taught, ‘All is Number’ based his teachings upon numerological symbolism. Worshipped as a god for almost 1000 years, Pythagoras expressed his mystery religion through symbols such as the celestial 'harmony of the spheres', geometry and a pyramid of dots structured upon the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 known as the tetractys. Browne’s Quincunx can be detected at the very heart of the Pythagorean tetractys.

Received wisdom, often from those unacquainted with Browne’s Garden discourse, will declare that The Garden of Cyrus is ‘all about’ the number five, but in fact the number five is only one of several inter-related symbols used by Browne. The acute angle of V as the Roman numeral for 5, along with its doubling as the letter and symbol X, which in turn is a variant upon the Quincunx pattern, all feature in the Discourse. 

In what is one of the most perceptive explanations on the function of Browne's home-grown Eternal Form of the Quincunx. John Irwin states-

'The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world, i.e. mathematics, language, geometry joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes'. [16]

Incidentally, in addition to his botanical studies, naming and describing over 100 plants in the discourse, the learned doctor also displays his zoological inclinations throughout the Garden of Cyrus mentioning insects, reptiles, crustaceans, birds, water-fowl, fish and mammals in order to illustrate the interconnection of life.

Plato’s mythic excursion to Egypt in quest of wisdom is also touched on in The Garden of Cyrus-

‘whereas it is not improbable, he (Plato) learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Egypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters, the handed crosses, and other mysteries not thoroughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Egyptian…’

Hermetic philosophers such as Browne saw great significance in the fact that the letter X, which they believed to have been invented by Hermes Trismegistus, prophetically became the first letter of the name of Christ in the Greek alphabet. To hermetic sensibilities Plato, among others, the letter X seemed to anticipate and  prophesize that Christ would one day come into the world in order to redeem humanity. The symbolism of the letter X to represent Christ survives to the present day in the short-hand of Xmas for Christmas. The soul itself is declared to be X shaped as Browne, in a near verbatim repetition from Plato’s Timaeus informs-

'Of this Figure Plato made choice to illustrate the motion of the soul, both of the world and man; while he delivereth that God divided the whole conjunction length-wise, according to the figure of a Greek X, and then turning it about reflected it into a circle'.

The Garden of Cyrus was written in great haste, as scrutiny of manuscript evidence by J.S. Finch proved. Browne’s haste is exemplified in shoe-horning into his essay the after-thought - 

‘To omit the phantastical Quincunx in Plato of the first Hermaphrodite or double man, united at the Loynes, which Jupiter after divided’.

In Plato’s Symposium, Eros is an erotic lover who is capable of inspiring bravery and courage along with great deeds as well as vanquishing man's fear of death. Sexuality in the form of Androgyny and homosexuality also feature in the discourse in a myth which narrates how humanity was originally three sexes: male-male people that descended from the sun, female-female people who descended from Earth, and male-female people who came from the Moon. The androgynous humans were spherical and had four legs, four hands and two heads. These androgynous humans dared to challenge the gods of Olympus, who, angered at their divided the primordial humans in two and scattered them across the Earth. The divided searched for their other halves. The women who sought another woman and the men who sought another men were homosexuals.

Above - Ancient Greek vase depicting Plato's hermaphrodite double man.

Archetype

C.G. Jung notes – ‘The term “archetype” occurs as early as Philo Judaeus (circa 20 BCE - 50 CE) and in the Corpus Hermeticum, where God is called an archetypal light'. The term also occurs several times in the writings of the early Christian Neoplatonist author Dionysus the Aeropagite, all of whom are represented in Browne’s library. [17]

Although the Elizabethan natural philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is credited as the first to use the word ‘archetype’ in early modern English, its Browne in his The Garden of Cyrus who endeavours through highly original proper-name symbolism to depict archetypal exemplars of Plato’s ‘philosopher-King’. Historical figures such as Abraham, Solomon and Moses, Alexander the Great, Augustus and Marcus Aurelius as well as the titular King Cyrus effectively underscore the Platonic ideal that just governance requires ‘wise rulers’. Women aren't overlooked in Browne’s comparative religion symbolism. The ‘Great Mother’ figures of Sarah, Isis, Cleopatra and Juno are also encountered in the Discourse. 

For Plato, as for Browne, the figure of the philosopher-King represents a universal pattern or blueprint of human potential, in which wisdom and justice are perfectly balanced. Browne's discourses were published during the Interregnum era of Cromwell's Puritan Rule. His repeated citing of the philosopher-King archetype can be seen as subtle criticism of Crowell’s Protectorate. The Garden of Cyrus retains relevance today, not only for its hermetic message of the interconnectivity of life, but also as a timely reminder of wise governance with the world-wide rise of authoritarian and demagogue political leaders today.

Late in his life Browne acquired a copy of the Athanasius Kircher’s (1602-1680) Mundus Subterraneous (1664) in which the Jesuit priest and scholar printed a map of  where he speculated the location of Atlantis. [18]. It was Plato who fabricated the existence of the lost civilization Atlantis in his political allegory the Timaeus. Browne notes in his Christian Morals (pub. post. 1716) of Plato’s account of the lost civilization that-

'Others more Ingeniously doubt whether there hath not been a vast tract of Land in the Atalantick  Ocean, which Earthquakes and violent causes have long ago devoured'. [19] 

In Kircher's 1665 map (below) North and South are reversed with Africa to the East and America to the West of the vast, fictitious continent of Atlantis.

Plato’s political allegory of Atlantis projected a philosophical ideal of  ancient Athens. To teach his point, his fictional Atlantean Empire waged war against the known world, resulting in his idealized Athens leading resistance against it, and eventually winning. Atlantis is thus revealed to be an enemy for a Platonic version of Athens to defeat. Plato's usage of political allegory, narrating the decline and fall of the great imaginary civilization of Atlantis, reminds one that - ‘For all his impatience with myth Plato allowed it an important role in the exploration of ideas that lie beyond  the scope of philosophical language’. [20]

Above all else, it was Plato’s moral teachings which appealed to Browne in his pious old age. He shared with the early Church Father St. Augustine (354 - 430 CE) the conviction that Plato was the greatest of all pagan thinkers, primarily for his exhortation of living the morally good and just life.  In Christian Morals Browne alludes to Plato's ‘wild horses’ of the irrational passions, as described in Plato's discourse Phaedrus.

In Phaedrus each individual is likened to the driver of a two-horse chariot, whose reason tries to control the force of two horses, one white named spirit which is cooperative and one black named desire which tries to rebel and drag the chariot in the wrong direction. Although spirit and desire are depicted as battling forces, they communicate in language as talking horses to each other.  Plato’s equestrian allegory is mentioned in Christian Morals in what is one of Browne's profoundest psychological observations on the human condition -

'To well manage our Affections, and wild Horses of Plato, are the highest Circenses; and the noblest Digladiation is in the Theater of our selves'. [21]

In conclusion, Plato’s influence upon Thomas Browne is multi-faceted. Integral to his hermetic philosophy, the learned doctor found inspiration in Plato’s mystical numerology, Eternal Forms and archetypes. As a moralist he valued the ancient Greek philosopher’s exhortations on how to live the good and just life. The abundance of allusion to Plato throughout Browne’s literary oeuvre confirms the observation that – ‘There is probably no English writer of the seventeenth century who more habitually avows and exhibits attachment to the Platonic tradition than Browne'. [22]

Notes 

[1] The Strategy for Truth by Leonard Nathanson pub. Chicago University Press 1967
[2] Religio Medici Part 1: 6
[3]  R.M. 1:32
[4] R.M. 1:33
[5]  R.M. 2:15
[6] Iamblicus  de Mysterriis Aegyptirorum , Chaldaorum Catalogue 16A no.25
Porpyrius Commentary on Epicteus Sales Catalogue p. 15 no. 61
[7]  Sir Thomas Browne -A Life by Reid Barbour pub. OUP 2013
[8]  Renaissance Philosophy - Brian P. Copenhaver & Charles B. Schmitt
[9]  Carl Jung Collected Works Vol. 9 i:149
[10] Plato : All that Matters  Ieuan Williams pub.  Hodder and Stoughton 2013
[11] James Hillman
[12]The Soul's Code - James Hillman pub. Bantam 1997 
[13] Meister Eckhart -Mystical theologian Oliver Davies pub. SPCK 1991 
[14] Religio Medici Part 1:12
[15]  Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 4 chapter 12
[16] The Mystery to a Solution by John T. Irwin pub. John Hopkins University Press 1993
[17] Philo Judaeus Opera  1711 Sales Catalogue p. 1 no. 12
Dionysus the Areopagite Sales Catalogue  p. 1 no. 16
[18]  Mundus Subterraneus pub. Amsterdam 1665 1711 Sales Catalogue page 8 
[19] Christian Morals Part 1:17 citing Timaeus 24e
[20] A Short History of myth Karen Armstrong pub. Cannongate 2005
[21] Christian Morals  Part 1:24 
[22]The Strategy for Truth Leonard Nathanson pub. Chicago University Press 1967

Bibliography

*Sir Thomas Browne -A Life by Reid Barbour pub. OUP 2013

* The Strategy for Truth Leonard Nathanson pub. Chicago University Press 1967

 * Sir Thomas Browne - The Major Works ed. with an introduction by C.A. Patrides pub. Penguin 1977

* Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans - A brief History  by Charles H. Khan  pub. Hackett 2001

*Plato - A Very Short Introduction Julia Annas pub. OUP 2003

* Plato -Timaeus translated with an introduction by H.D.P. Lee pub. Penguin 1965

*The Soul's Code - James Hillman pub. Bantam 1997

*Renaissance Philosophy - Brian P. Copenhaver & Charles B. Schmitt 

*The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious - C.G. Jung C.W. vol 9 Part 1 pub. RKP 1959

*Plato : Ideas that Matters  Ieuan Williams pub. Hodder and Stoughton 2013 

*Atlantis- Lost Lands, Ancient Wisdom Geoffrey Ashe  pub. 1992

*Meister Eckhart -Mystical theologian Oliver Davies pub. SPCK 1991

*The Mystery to a Solution by John T. Irwin pub. John Hopkins University Press 1993 

*A Short History of myth Karen Armstrong pub. Cannongate 2005 

See Also

On the symbolism of X

Magic square of Numbers

Dr. Browne's alchemical mandala

Books in Browne's Library cited

* Chalcides Timaeus de Plato Trans. Notes J. Meurius 1617  Sales Catalogue p.11 no. 106

* Kircher - Mundus Subterraneus, cum. fig. 2 vol. Amsterdam 1665 S. C. p. 8 no. 92

* Philo Judaeus -De Opfico Mundi  1711 Sales Catalogue p. 1 no. 12

* Dionysus the Areopagite Opera Sales Catalogue  p. 1 no. 16

* Iamblicus - de Mysterriis Aegyptirorum , Chaldaorum Catalogue 16A no.25

* Porphyry - Commentary on Epictetus Sales Catalogue p. 15 no. 61

Browne on Aristotle

Not so long ago Jean de Launoy, a theologian of Paris, published a book on the changing popularity of Aristotle; whence he establishes that that most famous philosopher has been sometimes publicy burned, sometimes restored, now condemned by solemn decrees, then restored again, and in fact undergone eight changes in the same university.

Certainly the early Christians, Justin, Clement, Tertullian, Augustine and many others held opinions contrary to the great man's writings. And today he is bitterly cut to the quick by the moderns and almost at the point of death; so that it seems to me that the peripatetic philosophy is now brought to a standstill and can hardly be rescued, or not even hardly.

But while much is lacking in Aristotle, much wrong, much self-contradictory, yet not a little is valuable. Do not then bid farewell to his entire work; but while you hardly touch the Physics and read the Metaphysics superficially, make much of all the rest and study them unwearingly.

Petrus of Abano and Alexander of Aphrodisias have annotated the Problems of Aristotle industriously; better still Petrus Septalius, a physician of great fame.But while, in a less liberal spirit and not tainted with the new philosophy, he expounds almost everything to the philosopher's mind, often and often he hardly gets to the point and does not satisfy a spirit eager for truth.

So it will be worth the effort to weigh them again, so that the truth and reason of the questions may be better determined and where the old rules fail we may pass to new propositions....

British Museum Sloane Mss 1827

 

Why the goddesses sit commonly cross-legged in ancient draughts ?

In the concluding chapter of Thomas Browne's hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) the physician-philosopher fires a rapid volley of tricky questions, including -'Why the goddesses sit commonly cross-legged in ancient draughts, Since Juno is described in the same as a veneficial posture to hinder the birth of Hercules ?'

Its rewarding to explore Browne's obscure question in depth. It originates from his reading of the ancient Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Ovid's long poem the myths of ancient Greece are linked by a common theme of transformation. A chaotic universe is subdued into harmonious order, animals turn into stone, men and women are rewarded and punished by gods and goddesses for their deeds to become trees, birds and stars. One of the most influential works in Western culture, Ovid’s Metamorphoses was a valuable source of information and inspiration to poet, painter and scholar throughout the Renaissance. [1]

The Roman goddess Juno's symbolic body language occurs during the birth of the hero Hercules in which she attempts to prevent the birth of her unfaithful husband Jupiter's child.

'When the time for Hercules difficult birth came, and Capricorn, the tenth sign, was hidden by the sun, the weight of the child stretched my womb: what I carried was so great, you could tell that Jove was the father of my hidden burden. I could not bear my labour pains much longer....Tortured for seven nights and as many days, worn out with agony, stretching my arms to heaven, with a great cry, I called out to Lucina, and her companion gods of birth, the Nixi. Indeed, she came, but committed in advance, determined to surrender my life to unjust Juno. She sat on the altar, in front of the door, and listened to my groans. With her right knee crossed over her left, and clasped with interlocking fingers, she held back the birth, She murmured spells, too, in a low voice, and the spells halted the birth once it began.[2]

The Roman goddess Juno ruled over the primary domains of feminine life in the ancient world, namely, childbirth, marriage and motherhood. She is associated with the peacock and its feathers. As the wife of Jupiter she was one of the most important Roman gods and she is immortalized with the month of June named after her.

Browne's interest in the mystical body language of Juno's crossed-legs is first mentioned in the opening chapter of the Discourse.

'That they sat also crossed legg’d many noble draughts declare; and in this figure the sitting gods and goddesses are drawn in medalls and medallions'.

In ancient depictions, goddesses sitting cross-legged often symbolized their spiritual power. Juno's crossed legs (one imagines the goddesses of antiquity to be long-legged beauties in order to form an elegant, elongated X) is a literal expression of body language, child-birth being impossible with crossed-legs.

Mystical body language also features in the Old Testament book of Genesis in which the patriarch Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh.

'But Jacob crossed his arms as he reached out to lay his hands on the boys’ heads. He put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, though he was the younger boy, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, though he was the firstborn'. [3]

This Biblical episode is alluded to by Browne in The Garden of Cyrus thus-

'the Statuae Isiacae, Teraphims, and little Idols, found about Mummies, do make a decussation or Jacobs Crosse, with their armes, like that on the head of Ephraim and Manasses' [4]

Browne's pioneering comparative religion studies detected that mystical body language is shared by various world religions. His ability to supply Egyptian, Judaic and Roman examples of mystical body language in The Garden of Cyrus demonstrates his finding connections between seemingly disparate concepts and highlights his fascination with hidden patterns underlying human culture and symbolism.

The literary critic Peter Green noted that Browne, 'packs his prose with as much concentrated symbolic meaning as it will stand' and that, 'Every symbol is interrelated with the over-all pattern'.[5]

Browne's inclusion of the Roman goddess Juno in The Garden of Cyrus is exemplary of his methodical usage of proper-name symbolism. Taking his cue from Plato, Browne utilizes proper-name symbolism in order to tentatively sketch primordial patterns of the psyche known as archetypes. Indeed, the very title of the discourse features the archetype of the 'wise ruler' at a time when Britain wasn't ruled by the divine right of a King but during the short-lived proto-Republic of Cromwell. The 'wise ruler' figures of Moses, Solomon, Solon, Alexander the Great and Augustus along with Cyrus are all alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus. 

The archetype of the nurturing figure of the 'Great Mother' is also represented in the Discourse through allusion to Juno, the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Hebrew matriarch Sarah.

X

Received wisdom will claim that The Garden of Cyrus is 'all about' the Quincunx, but in fact the quincunx pattern, the vehicle whereby Browne drives home his message of universal interconnectivity, is quite literally only half of his Hermetic vision. The symbol X (formed by joining the five dots of the Quincunx) features an equal number of times in the Discourse to the quincunx pattern.

The psychologist C.G. Jung noted that symbols can endure paradox and that's just as well because the symbol X is one of the most hard-working and flexible of all symbols and has accumulated many meanings over centuries.

The Roman numeral for ten, the Mosaic code of ten commandments as well as the Pythagorean tetractys (a pyramid of ten dots which Pythagoreans swore by) were all well-known by Browne. The Pythagorean and mathematical aspect of Browne's hermetic vision cannot be overlooked, as his candid confession in Religio Medici reveals-

'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magicke of numbers'. [6]

The art historian J. B. Onians noted - 'The power of the Pythagorean mystery was based largely upon his understanding of the mathematical order of the universe, which could be summed up in visual representation of such numbers as tetractys and Quincunx.' [7]

It was also during Browne's lifetime that the mathematician William Oughtred designated the symbol X to denote the multiplication of number. Browne himself owned an edition of Oughtred's Clavis Mathematica (1648) [8]

Today, the hard-working symbol X can denote invisible X-rays, affection in the form of a kiss, as well as a wrong answer, restrictive viewing or X rated material or an unknown factor. It retains its abbreviated form for Christ in the word Xmas, and in the pattern known as the Criss-cross. Finally, conclusive evidence that all the money in the world cannot buy imagination, the social media platform once known as Twitter was rebranded X by its owner.

Crucially, (a word which itself derives from the Latin of Crux meaning a cross) Browne as a Christian knew that the Greek word for Christ begins with x (Chi) and this interpretation of X as a pre-Christian anticipation of the Coming of Christ is foremost in his hermetic vision.

The crossed-legs of Juno and the Biblical crossed-arms of Jacob are also exemplary of how Browne and other hermetically inclined antiquarians interpreted the ancient pagan world. Hermetic philosophers believed that the mythic Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus (in reality a fusion of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes) was the inventor of number and letter, including the letter X.

It was the Italian Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and his prodigy Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) who first advanced and promoted the profile of Hermes Trismegistus as the founder of a priscia theologia. Ficino and Mirandola made Hermes Trismegistus the author of a pagan tradition of divine knowledge, an ancient theology (priscia theologia) which paralleled and confirmed the revealed truth of the Bible and whose Egyptian providence reinforced tales of Plato’s travels in Egypt.

Browne subscribed to Ficino and Mirandola's belief that the Greek philosopher Plato studied in ancient Egypt, the land of Hermes Trismegistus, stating in The Garden of Cyrus -

'.. whereas it is not improbable, he (Plato) learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Egypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters, the handed crosses, and other mysteries not thoroughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Egyptian, and brought into Greece by Cadmus of that Country. [9]

The symbolism of how X was introduced through Hermes Trismegistus's observation of bird's legs is alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus thus-

'And if Egyptian Philosophy may obtain, the scale of influences was thus disposed, and the genial spirits of both worlds, do trace their way in ascending and descending Pyramids, mystically apprehended in the Letter X, and the open Bill and straddling Legs of a Stork, which was imitated by that Character'. [10]

The worthy Norwich philosopher-physician reinforces the symbolic importance of X and its close relationship to Platonic thought, notably Plato's discourse Timaeus stating-

'Of this Figure Plato made choice to illustrate the motion of the soul, both of the world and man; while he delivereth that God divided the whole conjunction length-wise, according to the figure of a Greek X, and then turning it about reflected it into a circle'; [11]

Plato along with Ovid is mentioned in the opening page of The Garden of Cyrus. The ancient Greek philosopher's influence looms large throughout the Discourse, especially his Timaeus which is named by foot-note in the Discourse's opening. Plato's Timaeus is his most Pythagorean writing. It elaborates upon the relationship between geometry, number and mysticism, all of which are primary thematic concerns of Browne's Garden of Cyrus.

Quincunx

In the discourse's dedicatory epistle Browne wittily declares of the Quincunx pattern that, 'we have not affrighted the common Reader with any other Diagrams, then of it self; and have industriously declined illustrations from rare and unknown plants'.

Such is the potency of the Quincunx pattern as seen in the discourse's frontispiece which Browne 'borrowed' from a book by the Italian polymath Della Porta, that the crossing point or X figure of the pattern is occulted and hidden by circles as if  X-rated material too potent to view.

The phantasmagorical procession of art-objects, botany, star constellations, optical theories and mystical religious considerations in The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial (,)Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically considered has been little understood throughout the centuries, so much so that a stray comma erroneously reproduced in the Discourse's full running title has become embedded in almost all subsequent editions since 1658. However, this stray comma in the Discourses title is incompatible with either the syntax, symmetry or artistic message of the Discourse. The five red dots added to the frontispiece illustration (below) highlights how Browne's Lozenges are Quincuncial. [12]

In recent times the American poet and literary critic John Irwin focussed his critical attention on Browne's quincunx in his labyrinthine book The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story (1994). Irwin's book is primarily concerned with the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and the early magical realist author Jorge Borges (1899-1986) both of whom were admirers of Browne's writings. Irwin recognised that -

'the idea that there is a necessary (because original) correspondence among numbers, letters and geometric shapes, is a belief found in esoteric alchemy and the cabala'.

Irwin continues with one of the most perceptive remarks ever stated about the quincunx pattern -

‘The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world, i.e. mathematics, language, geometry joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes’. [13]

The Argyle pattern (below) is a neat variant of the frontispiece of The Garden of Cyrus. The central point of decussation, X is visible within each lozenge. Its overlaid diamond or Lozenge pattern creates a 3D perspective, an optical trick which without doubt would have intrigued Thomas Browne

Notes

[1] No less than 8 editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses are listed as once in Thomas Browne and his son Edward's combined libraries in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue.

[2] Ovid Metamorphoses Book 9 lines 290-300

[3] Genesis 48: verse 14

[4] chapter 3 of Cyrus

[5] Sir Thomas Browne by Peter Green pub. Longmans, Green and Co. 1959

[6] Religio Medici Part 1:12

[7] J. Onians Art and thought in the Hellenistic Age Thames and Hudson 1979

[8] 1711 Sales Catalogue page 30 no. 13

[9] Cyrus Chapter 4

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid

[12] A 1658 edition of Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica with the two 1658 Discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus appended does not reproduce the stray comma which is featured in most subsequent editions.

[13] The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story. John T. Irwin pub. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996

'A paradise of books' - Dr. Browne's library

In 1671 King Charles II visited Norwich. Accompanying him was the Courtier John Evelyn who wrote in his diary-

'My Lord Henry Howard coming this night to visit my Lord Chamberlain, and staying a day, would needs have me go with him to Norwich, I was not hard to be persuaded to, having a desire to see that famous scholar and physician, Dr. T. Browne, author of the "Religio Medici" and "Vulgar Errors," now lately knighted. 

Evelyn continues - Next morning, I went to see Sir Thomas Browne (with whom I had some time corresponded by letter, though I had never seen him before); his whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities; and that of the best collection, especially medals, books, plants, and natural things.

John Evelyn’s description of Thomas Browne’s house as ‘a paradise and cabinet of rarities’ supplies us with clues to the contents of Browne’s Haymarket home. 

A mid-19th century sketch of Browne’s Haymarket home (above) which he moved into around 1650, having previously lived in Tombland since his arrival in Norwich in 1637.  There certainly looks as if there’s plenty of room to store approximately one and a half thousand books collected over forty years.

Even Browne's garden house or shed seems stately and indicative of his wealth. It stood until as late as 1962 when it was demolished for new shops, roughly where the Lamb Inn and what is now Primark stands.

Another 19th century sketch depicts Browne’s parlour. Embedded in its  fireplace are two yellow onyx stones and the Biblical verse ‘O God arise and scattereth our enemies’ inscribed upon it. The fireplace still survives, over the years it has alternated between being displayed at Norwich Castle Museum and then stored and forgotten about at the Rural Museum of Gressenhall. The ornate stucco ceiling is thought to be in storage with Norwich City Council, although it too may be either lost or its whereabouts forgotten.

Browne's notebooks includes verse inspired by a painting once in his parlour by Peter Paul Rubens. It depicts Saint Paul and Barnabas mistaken as the gods Jupiter and Mercury, visiting humble cottage dwellers.  In its foreground a fattened goose is caught ready for an offering to the visitors. Rubens' painting celebrates the virtue of hospitality and its greater Christian tributary Charity; as such it informs those visiting the family home of their deeply-held Christian values. 

In correspondence to his father Edward mentions another painting once in the family home which depicts the Greek myth of the Fall of Icarus. Equally moralistic to Ruben’s painting, this time warning of the danger of carelessness in youth and the consequence of not heeding parental advice. The parlour painting may have resembled or even have been this Dutch painting dating from 1637. 

Browne’s collection of curios in all probability would have been exhibited within a single room and may have resembled this reconstruction of the Danish polymath Olaf Worm’s collection.  Browne's collection would have featured a display case of coins, various stuffed birds including a pelican, birds eggs, a swordfish's head, an elephant’s leg bone, part of a whale's skull and an ancient Egyptian statuette with magnetic properties.

Although his home, paintings and curios have long since vanished, there’s one document which gives us vital insights into Doctor Browne’s many interests, the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue which lists the contents of his library. It wasn't until 1986 however that a facsimile was published of it, edited by the American scholar Jeremiah Finch, ‘after many years in many libraries’. 

There’s a few caveats to be heeded before consulting the catalogue. First, it lists not only books once in Thomas Browne’s library, but also those owned by his eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708).

Browne’s eldest son Edward (above) became President of the Royal College of Physicians. More adventurous, but less wide-ranging in his interests, Edward Browne’s books are mostly  those relating to his profession, along with French literature and travelogues. Edward Browne was himself a great traveller and the catalogue lists a 1699 publication in which he engagingly narrates his observations while travelling through Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly and Austria. We can also safely assume that any book listed in the Catalogue dated after 1682, the year of Thomas Browne’s death were purchased by Edward Browne.

Secondly, although the Catalogue advertises that books on sculpture and painting were to be sold, none arrived at the auction house for unknown reasons. Almost thirty years passed from Thomas Browne's death in 1682 until the auction and during that time, especially from 1708, the year of Edward Browne's death, until 1711, any number of people, servant, visitor or relative, especially Edward's son young Thomas, who met his death falling off his horse while intoxicated, may have slipped a book aside, especially one of the lavishly illustrated and costly books on sculpture or art. [1]

Nevertheless, the books listed as once in Dr. Browne’s library are extraordinary in diversity of their subject matter. Books on – anatomy, antiquities, Biblical scholarship, botany, cartography, chemistry, embryology, geography, history, law, English and continental literature, mineralogy, optics, ornithology, philology, philosophy, theology, travel and zoology as well as esoteric topics such as alchemy, astrology and the kabbalah are all listed as once in Browne's library. A high percentage of books listed are in Latin, the predominant language of academics throughout the Renaissance, as well as books in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

Browne claimed that his first book Religio Medici was written without the assistance of any good book, however there’s one book which he consistently refers to throughout his psychological self-portrait, the Bible. One cannot under-estimate the enormous influence which the Bible wielded upon him in religion and spirituality. The King James Bible was first published in 1611 just when young Thomas had barely mastered his ABC. Its stately strophes, cadences and parallelisms greatly influenced his literary style, notably in certain passages of Urn-Burial. 

Any selection of books is bound to be subjective. For this introductory essay I’ve selected a few first on natural history, optics and astronomy and finally on alchemy, ancient Egypt and China. 

Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) is a vast work of over two hundred thousand words.  An enormous number of books are referenced in it, it many of which are listed in the catalogue.  

In the second of the seven books of Pseudodoxia Browne writes on magnetism and electricity, frequently referencing William Gilbert's influential book ‘On magnetism’ (1600). The frontispiece of Gilbert’s book (above) depicts a natural philosopher and a mariner, together they are united in the magnet which always points North. Used in navigation, the magnetic compass made  sea-faring, exploration and over-sea trade easier throughout the seventeenth century. [2]

The early English scientist Gilbert also experimented with static electricity in the form of Amber. Because amber is called elektron in Greek, and electrum in Latin, Gilbert decided to name the phenomenon of static by the adjective electricus. However, because Browne chose to write in English and not Latin as Gilbert, it’s the Norwich doctor who is credited with introducing the words ‘electrical’ and ‘electricity’ into English language. 

Thomas Muffett’s 'Theatre of Tiny Animals' is also consulted in Pseudodoxia Epidemica. Muffett (1533-1604) was an English naturalist and physician who supplemented material which he'd inherited from Edward Wooton and the Swiss naturalist Gesner for his book which was ready for publication by 1590. However, due to the expense of its wood-cut illustrations and a general lack of interest in natural science in England at the time, it wasn’t published until many years after his death, in 1634. [3]

The Italian naturalist Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) is also referenced in Pseudodoxia. Rondelet was a professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, one of the three Continental universities which Browne attended for his medical degree. In his book On Fishes (1544) Rondelet compared the swim bladders of freshwater and marine fish. Like other natural philosophers of his day, he made no distinction between fish and marine mammals such as seals and whales, or crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters. He  did however discover that humans share  certain anatomical similarities with dolphins. [4]

The most extensive work on birds in Browne’s day was by the  Italian naturalist Ulysees Aldrovandi (1522-1605). His Ornithologia (above) is a comprehensive study of birds, complete with detailed illustrations. Aldrovandi’s natural history books are well-represented in Browne's library and he himself was a keen bird fancier. At one time or another he kept an owl, a Golden Eagle, a cormorant, a Bittern and even an ostrich. His participation in the sport of falconry in particular points to his animal handling skills. It takes some ability to handle big birds such as  eagles. Some of the birds he kept were eventually dissected,  examined anatomically, cleaned and sent to a taxidermist.  The fate of this stuffed bird collection however was sealed when in 1667 Norwich's city council ordered its destruction, a precautionary measure to eliminate any potential harbingers of disease in the wake of the Plague which had recently decimated the City's population. [5]

Incidentally,  Browne is credited with introducing the word ‘incubation’ into English language.  Its also from his visiting local wetland habitats and repeated use of the phrase 'broad waters' in his Natural history notes that the geographical term 'Norfolk Broads' in all probability originates.

A number of books on optics, that is the scientific study of sight and the behaviour of light are listed in the catalogue, including the Belgian mathematician and physicist François Aiguilon’s 'Six Books of Optics, useful for philosophers and mathematicians alike'. 

Aiguilon's book is notable for containing the principles of stereographic projections. One of the most important uses of stereoscopic projection was in the representation of celestial charts which were increasingly necessary for accurate navigation, exploration and trade-routes, especially for the Dutch and British nations, the two rival Empire building sea-faring nations of the 17th century. 

Aguilon (1567-1617) commissioned the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens to illustrate his book. Throughout his study on optics Rubens depicts three cherubs who act as heavenly guides who reveal the properties of optical phenomena to the devout enquirer. [6]

The German polymath Athanasius Kircher’s book on optics 'The Great Art of Light and Shadow' was printed in 1646. Its frontispiece (above) depicts a personification of the sun, with the symbols of the zodiac covering his body, below him sits a double-headed eagle. On his right  a woman personifying the moon is covered in stars, below her sits two peacocks. Rays of light hit various lenses reflective of Kircher's optical discoveries. The frontispiece also depicts the hierarchy of Kircher's sources of knowledge in descending order of reliability.  At its top are sacred authority and reason, below are inferior forms of knowledge, the senses (aided by instruments) and profane authority. Kircher's book is significant for its inclusion of the first printed illustration of the planet Saturn. [7]

Optics held both a scientific and mystical dimension for Natural philosophers such as Browne. With its emphasis upon Light and Dark, the visible and invisible worlds and the deceptive nature of appearances optics easily lends itself to moral teachings.  Optical imagery is found in the sacred texts of all world religions, including Christianity notably in Saint Paul's famous imagery of 'seeing through a glass darkly'. 

In Browne’s lifetime which spanned the greater part of the 17th century,  two optical instruments were developed which fundamentally revolutionized understanding of the universe and the complexity of organic life, the  telescope and slightly later, the microscope.

The Italian astronomer Galileo's Duo Sistema mundo or two world systems features a dialogue between two characters who discuss and credibility of the long held Earth centred universe and the new Copernican theory of a Sun-centred Universe. Galileo’s book supported the Copernican or heliocentric view of the Universe and was a fundamental challenge to the authority of the Bible. Humanity, but especially the authority of the Church was undermined. Western consciousness had to face up to a painful truth,  perhaps Earth was not the centre of the Universe after all, our new cosmic address might simply be the third rock from the sun, itself one among thousands of new stars which the invention of the telescope now revealed. [8] 

At the conclusion of Religio Medici Browne seems reluctant to accept the Copernican sun-centred universe, declaring-  ‘there is no happiness under (or as Copernicus will have it, above) the Sun. Nevertheless, his copy of Galileo’s revolutionary work is a first edition from 1635. [9]

One astronomer in particular who has a close affinity to Browne’s scientific perspective is the German astronomer and mathematician, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630).

A fruitful comparison can be made between Kepler to Browne. Kepler’s lifetime like Browne's spanned a watershed in scientific thought. Kepler augmented his rational inductive science and the astronomical discoveries of Galileo with Neoplatonic and Pythagorean ideas. His astronomical discoveries were as much structured upon precise mathematical calculation as deeply held theological beliefs and God-given revelation. 

Kepler’s scientific perspective, just like Browne’s, was a complex fusion of Christian awe of the Creation, precise scientific analysis, and concepts originating from the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Pythagoras.  Browne just like Kepler believed in two, quite contrasting sources of knowledge. In addition to natural forms of knowledge obtained through reason, hypothesis, deduction and experiment, he also believed in supernatural sources of knowledge such as astrology. While Kepler extolled the virtues of the number six in his study of snowflakes, the mysteries of the number five is explored in Browne’s Garden of Cyrus. Kepler is also credited with introducing the astrological and astronomical aspect of the Quincunx to denote planets 150 degrees apart. 

Kepler’s On the New Star in the Foot of the Serpent Handler (1606) reported on the new star which was observable in the night-sky from October 1604 to October 1605. The new star or supernova, now known as Kepler’s supernova, raised serious questions about the Creation,  such as whether the stars were truly fixed and whether the Universe was changeable, making it an important book in 17th century astronomy.  [10]  

Although its not listed in the Catalogue Browne must have perused the pages of the Polish astronomer Hevelius’ Atlas of the Moon  (above) to state-  

'And therefore the learned Hevelius in his accurate Selenography, or description of the Moon, hath well translated the known appellations of Regions, Seas and Mountains, unto the parts of that Luminary: and rather then use invented names or humane denominations, with witty congruity hath placed Mount Sinai, Taurus,… the Mediterranean Sea, Mauritania, Sicily, and Asia Minor in the Moon'. [11]

Helvius’s book may have been one of the books which somehow never made it to the auction house. Incidentally, the word ‘Selenography’ meaning the mapping of the moon’s lunar geography is recorded by the Oxford Dictionary as first used by Browne.

In his lifetime Browne witnessed the cataclysmic events of the English Civil war, the defeat of the Royalist cause, the subsequent execution of King Charles in 1649 and the establishment of the Protectorate and Commonwealth of Cromwell. During this proto-Republic period many Royalist supporters withdrew from society in order not to draw too much attention to themselves. Many retreated into a private world of reading or gardening or even simply whittled time away whittling wood.   

Crowell’s Protectorate saw a liberalisation of printing press licences and a relaxation of censorship laws, these factors along with a general Endzeitpsychosis, anxiety of the world's end and Millenarium expectation, resulted in a surge of  esoteric publications. Indeed the 1650s saw the greatest interest in esoteric literature that England has ever witnessed and books of an esoteric nature from this decade are well represented in Browne’s library. Its against a background of intense social and personal anxiety about the future that Browne penned his diptych discourses Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658).

Jacques Gaffarell’s Unheard of Curiosities (above) is an early example of esoteric literature from this decade. First published in France in 1629 and in  English translation in 1650, Jacques Gaffarel’s book was enormously popular in its day. In his book the librarian to Cardinal Richelieu supplies his reader with a celestial map in which the stars of the night sky are connected to each other, not through the stories of Greek myth but through the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Browne clearly knew of this book for in The Garden of Cyrus he alludes to ‘the strange cryptography of Gaffarel in his starrie booke of heaven’. In doing so he introduced the word ‘cryptography’ meaning the art of inventing and decoding hidden communications into English language.

The Oxford antiquarian Elias Ashmole (1617-92) was among the first to test the waters of the new liberalisation of printing press licenses and relaxation of censorship laws. In 1650 he published albeit under an anagrammatic name, a translation of Arthur Dee’s anthology of alchemical literature known as Fasicuclus Chemicus. Its frontispiece (above) is framed on the left by the instruments of learning and on the right the weapons of war. Ashmole’s own astrological birth-chart is thrust into view by a mysterious hand which obscures the profile of a sculptural bust. At its top, the trickster figure of Mercurius god of communication and revelation sits upon a stool flanked by King Sol with symbolic beast of lion, and Queen Luna sitting upon a lobster-like creature. The frontispiece also features a secret visual allusion to its translator in the form of an ash tree and a mole. 

Arthur Dee was the eldest son of the Elizabethan mathematician and astrologer John Dee (1527-1608). Arthur Dee was a remarkable man, not least for surviving 14 harsh Moscow winters while serving as a physician to Czar Mikhail, founder of the Romanov dynasty. After his wife’s death Dee returned to England and opted to live in Norwich for his retirement where he became a neighbour and friend to Thomas Browne then living at Tombland.  Arthur Dee was none too pleased with Ashmole's unsolicited translation of his anthology and wrote to him – 

‘I am sorry you or any man should take pains to translate any book of that art into English, for the art is vilified so much already by scholars that do daily deride it, in regard they are ignorant of the principles. How then can it any way be advanced by the vulgar? But to satisfy your question, you may be resolved that he who wrote Euclid's Preface was my father. The 'Fasciculus', I confess, was my labour and work.'

On his death in 1651 Arthur Dee bequeathed a number of alchemical manuscripts to Browne who wrote in his correspondence to Elias Ashmole of Arthur Dee - 

'he was a persevering student in Hermetical philosophy and had no small encouragement, having seen projection made; And with the highest asseverations he confirmed unto his death, that he had ocularly, undeceivably, and frequently beheld it in Bohemia. [12]

In  much later correspondence to Ashmole Browne wrote 

'Dr. Arthur Dee was a young man when he saw this projection made in Bohemia, but he was so inflamed therewith that he fell early upon that study, and read not much all his life but books of that subject; [13]

The literary critic Peter French noted- 

‘Little is known of this son of Dee's; one cannot help but wonder however, how much he may have influenced Browne, who was one of the seventeenth century's greatest literary exponents of the type of occult philosophy in which both the Dee's were immersed'. [14]

Encouraged by his success Elias Ashmole published in 1652 Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum an anthology of British alchemical authors mostly from the Medieval era. Ashmole’s book made available many works that had previously existed only in privately held manuscripts. It contains the rhyming verse of several alchemists, poets, including Thomas Norton, Sir George Ripley, Geoffrey Chaucer and John Dee. The page open here (above) shows the serpent-like Uroboros,  symbol of all devouring, recurrent and Eternal Time. [15]

The 1650s also saw an enormous interest in the Swiss physician-alchemist Paracelsus (1493 -1541) whose writings are a conglomerate of practical advice on chemistry, proto-psychology and mystical Christian theology. Paracelsus urged his fellow physicians to experiment with Nature’s properties and the new Spagyric medicine which he taught, the beginning of  modern-day chemical medicine no less, exerted a profound influence upon alchemists, early scientists and physicians alike. The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue lists not only the complete works of Paracelsus, but also many books by his followers, including Gerard Dorn. The large number of books by Paracelsian physicians in Browne’s library suggests that the Norwich physician held far more than a casual interest in Paracelsian medicine. [16]

Paracelsus was fond of inventing new words to describe his alchemical form of medicine and in this context its worthwhile taking a quick look at a verse inscribed upon Sir Thomas Browne's Coffin plate, one surviving half of which is on display at the church of Saint Peter Mancroft. 

The Paracelsian word, spagyric the name of Swiss alchemist-physician's distinctive brand of medicine can be seen engraved upon it. The word spagyric  was invented by Paracelsus from the fusing together of the Greek words Spao, to tear open, and  ageiro, to collect. Browne’s coffin-plate inscription alludes to the commonplace quest of alchemy, the transformation of metals, which for spiritual alchemists such as himself signified a far deeper goal - the transformation of the base matter of man to acquire spiritual gold –Translated the inscription reads – ‘Sleeping here the dust of his spagyric body converts the lead to gold’. Although often highly critical of esoteric aspects of Paracelsus, Browne’s coffin-plate is perhaps the strongest evidence of his adherence to Paracelsian medicine.

There's one illustration  which expresses how Browne may have felt during the 1650s; it can be found in the Theatrum Chemicum. [17] The six doorstep size tomes of the Theatrum Chemicum were printed over several decades of the 17th century and they remain the most comprehensive anthology on alchemy ever published. A woodcut illustration in the first volume of the Theatrum Chemicum depicts the adept or hermetically-inclined philosopher experiencing the initial stage of the alchemical process known as the Nigredo, under the influence of the black, malefic planet Saturn, commonly associated with melancholy, Time and old age (below). Browne would easily have recognised this psychic state and may well have identified with this illustration, confessing in Religio Medici, 'I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me'.  [18]

Browne must have perused his edition of the Theatrum Chemicum extremely closely for somewhere in the 800 pages by the Belgian philosopher Gerard Dorn featured in its first volume, he found an astral image which he liked and borrowed in order to triumphantly  assert at the apotheosis of Urn-Burial  - 'Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us'. 

The frontispiece to the Italian polymath Mario Bettini's Beehives of Univeral Mathematical Philosophy (1656)  is a fitting visualization of the overall mood-music of the discourse The Garden of Cyrus. [19]

Like The Garden of Cyrus Bettini’s frontispiece (above) alludes to artificial, natural and mystical aspects of scientific enquiry. This particular frontispiece is in fact from a latter second edition of Bettini’s work and a very early example of colour printing. Although Bettini’s book is predominately on optics, geometry and perspective it also includes scientific ideas contrary to general opinion, mathematical paradoxes, geometrical problems not yet solved, curious machines and engines, optical illusions, games and tricks as well as studies in geometry and perspective.

The foreground of Bettini’s frontispiece features mathematical, optical and geometric instruments in vases as if cultivated plants. In the centre of a Villa courtyard a peacock stands upon a sphere and displays its feathers as water flows from its feathered eyes, creating a streaming fountain. The alchemical deity Mercurius, god of communication and revelation stands aloft a pyramid of beehives holding an armillary sphere. Ten bees in quincunx formation hover beside him. A spider’s web can also be seen.

Peacocks are often encountered in optical and alchemical literature, primarily because the 'multiple eye' symbolism of their feathers evoke watchfulness. The iridescent gleam of the peacock's feathers also appealed to optical study.

Bettini’s book includes chapters on the Holy Grail of optics, the camera obscura, the scientific precursor to photography, as well as examination of the mathematics and geometry of the spider’s web. Likewise, in The Garden of Cyrus fleetingly mentions ‘pictures from objects which are represented, answerable to the paper, or wall in the dark chamber’ and 'the mathematicks of the neatest Retiary Spider.’  

One book above all others seems to have fascinated Browne in the 1650s decade, the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher’s greatest work, Oedipus Egypticus or The Egyptian Oedipus. [20]

The frontispiece to The Egyptian Oedipus depicts a youthful looking Kircher successfully answering the Sphinx's riddle. The three door-step sized volumes of Kircher's Egyptian Oedipus are a triumph of the printing press, taking four years in total to print. In Oedipus Aegyptiacus Kircher sets out to explore the esoteric traditions of theosophical systems of Zoroaster, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato and the Hebrew Cabala. 

Athanasius Kircher (1602-80) was an archaeologist, an avid collector of scientific experiments and geographical exploration, he probed the secrets of the subterranean world, deciphered ancient languages and experimented with optics and magnetism. Kircher's books are well-represented in Browne’s library and his influence upon the Norwich doctor was considerable.  For example, Browne conceded to Kircher's authority, altering many of his own speculations upon Egyptian hieroglyphics, declaring -

'But no man is likely to profound the Ocean of that Doctrine, beyond that eminent example of industrious Learning, Kircherus’.[21]

In his early work The Magnetic Art (1631) [22] Kircher explored different forms of magnetism. He believed that human relationships, love, sex and music all held magnetic properties because of their ability to exert an invisible attraction. In The Magnetical Art the Italian polymath reproduced notated music which he claimed could cure those bitten by the tarantella spider when performed. Browne seldom if ever questioned even the wildest  of Kircher's ideas, stating in Pseudodoxia-

‘Some doubt many have of the Tarantula, or poisonous Spider of Calabria, and that magical cure of the bite thereof by Musick. But since we observe that many attest it from experience: Since the learned Kircherus hath positively averred it and set down the songs and tunes solemnly used for it; Since some also affirm the Tarantula itself will dance upon certain stroaks, whereby they set their instruments against its poison; we shall not at all question it. [23]

Browne was attracted to all kinds of secret, hidden forms of knowledge whether in the form of anagrams, riddles, codes, cryptograms, or symbolic as in the Hebraic kabbalah, as well as astrology and alchemy, but above all else it was the hieroglyphs (sacred writings) of ancient Egypt which fascinated him most. 

Thomas Browne's study of ancient Egypt was multi-faceted; as a doctor he naturally took an interest in its medicine, as a devout Christian he knew that the Old Testament books Genesis and Exodus are set in Egypt. Crucially, in common with almost all 16th and 17th century alchemists and hermetically-inclined philosophers he believed ancient Egypt was  home to the mythic Hermes Trismegistus as well as the birthplace of alchemy and where long-lost transmutations of Nature were once performed. And indeed, the early civilization skills of baking, brewing and metalwork, as well as cosmetics and perfumery were all once very closely guarded secrets. 

Kircher’s The Egyptian Oedipus includes a detailed reproduction of the Bembine Tablet. Named after Cardinal Bembo, an antiquarian who acquired it after the sack of Rome in 1527, the Bembine Tablet is an important example of ancient metallurgy, its surface being decorated with a variety of metals including silver, gold, copper-gold alloy and various base metals.  The Rosetta Stone of its age, many antiquarians attempted and failed to decipher its hieroglyphs. However, the Bembine Tablet has long since been identified as a Roman work dating from circa 250 CE, and a copy of a much earlier ancient Egyptian artefact. Its not, as both antiquarians believed, a work originating from ancient Egypt whatsoever. 

The engraved drawing  of the Bembine Tablet  in Oedipus Egypticus seems to have fascinated Browne for he alludes to it no less than three times in The Garden of Cyrus. First, in a fine example of how Christian scholars attempted to ‘Christianize’ pagan beliefs and artefacts, stating-

'he that considereth the plain crosse upon the head of the Owl in the Laterane Obelisk, or the crosse erected upon a picher diffusing streams of water into two basins, with sprinkling branches in them, and all described upon a two-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphics of the brasen Table of Bembus; will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality in them'.

Its mentioned once more in The Garden of Cyrus (chapter 3) -

'We shall not affirm that from such grounds, the Egyptian Embalmers imitated this texture yet in their linnen folds the same is observable among their neatest mummies, in the figures of Isis  and Osyris,and the Tutelary spirits in the Bembine Tablet'. 

But perhaps best of all - Browne may have felt convinced of the archetypal nature of his quincuncial network when detecting that the engraved drawing of the Bembine Tablet depicts an Egyptian god who is decorated in a network pattern identical to his discourse's frontispiece. (Figure on bottom row, second from left). He hastily mentions it in Cyrus thus -

'Nor is it to be overlooked how Orus the hieroglyphic of the world is described in a Network covering. from the shoulder to the foot'. 

Predating Greek and Latin script  Egyptian hieroglyphics were once believed to contain hidden wisdom. The Egyptian Ankh symbol (above) is the most frequent and easily recognisable symbol of all Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sometimes referred to as the key of life and symbolic of eternal life, the Coptic church of Egypt inherited the ankh symbol as a form of  Christian cross. Like other Hermetically inclined philosophers Browne attempted to reconcile pagan wisdom to Christianity, thus in The Garden of Cyrus he declared-

‘We will not revive the mysterious crosses of Egypt, with circles on their heads, in the breast of Serapis, and the hands of their Geniall spirits, not unlike the characters of Venus, and looked on by ancient Christians, with relation unto Christ'.

But the much simpler truth is that although Christian scholars believed ancient Egyptian symbols such as the Ankh symbol anticipated Christianity and the Coming of Christ in fact Christianity  borrowed and adapted aspects of Egyptian theology and symbols for their own use. 

In essence, Browne justified the study of so-called pagan, pre-Christian antiquities and beliefs in exactly the same manner as the Italian Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and his successor, Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) by giving credence to a Prisca Theologia, a single, true theology which threaded through all religions and whose wisdom was believed to be passed down in a golden chain of mystics and prophets including Zoroaster, the Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Plato along with the Hebraic figures of King Solomon and Moses. For devout Christians the Hebrew prophet Moses in particular was a strong link in this golden chain, Browne for one believing Moses to be  'bred up in the hieroglyphicall schooles of the Egyptians'. But above all others, it was Hermes Trismegistus, the first and wisest of all pagan prophets who was revered by hermetic philosophers such as Browne. Modern scholarship however has now determined the mythic figure of Hermes Trismegistus to be an amalgam of the Egyptian god Theuth or Thoth and the ancient Greek god of revelation, Hermes. Even when the Swiss scholar Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614) conclusively proved that Hermetic texts were written after Christ's era and not before, Christian scholars none the less continued to appropriate hermetic teachings for their own agenda and persisted in belief that Hermes Trismegistus  or ‘thrice greatest’ on account of his being the greatest priest, philosopher and king, was a contemporary of Moses who anticipated the coming of Christ. Such imaginative comparative religion not only justified the study of philosophers such as Plato, but also sanctioned the antiquity, wisdom and superiority of the Bible to devout Christians.

Kircher’s Egyptian Oedipus includes detailed illustrations of Egyptian mummies. Browne mentions his interest in Egyptian mummies in his medical essay A Letter to a Friend (pub. post 1690) stating in what may be one of the world’s earliest dental jokes.

'The Egyptian Mummies that I have seen, have had their Mouths open, and somewhat gaping, which affordeth a good opportunity to view and observe their Teeth, wherein 'tis not easie to find any wanting or decayed: and therefore in Egypt, where one Man practised but one Operation, or the Diseases but of single Parts, it must needs be a barren Profession to confine unto that of drawing of Teeth, and little better than to have been Tooth-drawer unto King Pyrrhus, who had but two in his Head'.

The pyramids, mummies and hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt are frequently encountered throughout the discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus as is imagery closely relating to optics.

In many ways optical imagery is a fundamental template of the diptych discourses. Urn-Burial opens in the depths of the subterranean world, it investigates archaeological finds which are hidden in the earth. The religious beliefs of those going into the darkness of death are examined in it,  the enquirer or adept is said to be ‘lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing’. Browne laments that men remain in the dark to their own moral darkness until death. The discourse includes superb medical-optical imagery in which two infants not yet born and in the darkness of the womb discuss the world they are about to enter. Plato’s famous cave of  shadows and human illusion is also mentioned. 

While Urn-Burial explores the invisible world of death, The Garden of Cyrus explores the visible, living worlds of Nature and Art. In its dedicatory epistle Browne informs his patron that he's encouraged to write after meeting blind men who have the ability to discuss  not only sight but also growth. The discourse  opens with the dazzle of ‘shooting rays and 'diffused Light’ of the Sun and Moon on the fourth day of Creation, the effect of the Sun and Moon's rays upon plant growth is discussed, along with how the visual or optic nerve functions in eyesight. The workings of the camera obscura are also alluded to. Even disturbed, distorted ways of seeing in human perception are included with the word ‘hallucination’  being introduced into the English language. 

The Garden of Cyrus features dozens of sharp-sighted and perspicacious botanical observations. As well as using his eyes to study and examine Nature, Browne was also deeply appreciative of simply contemplating Nature and Art, as he wittily informs readers of Religio Medici  - ‘I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse’.     

Throughout Cyrus Browne attempts to enlighten his reader on the beauty of Nature. The word 'elegant'  frequently occurs in the essay. Visual examples of how the archetypal symbols of order, the number five and the quincunx pattern are generously supplied to the reader 'artificially, naturally and mystically' as prime evidence of God's intelligent design and universal interconnectivity. Though little understood throughout the centuries The Garden of Cyrus remains the greatest work of hermetic philosophy in the  canon of English literature. Taken together the diptych discourses are unique as a literary work. Polarity, in particular, optical imagery involving Darkness and Light are fundamental to their construction. United they form a Cosmic vision and are a rare example of an alchemical mandala in World literature.

With the restoration of Monarchy in 1660 Browne must have felt a sober joy. Only two years earlier he'd reassured readers of The Garden of Cyrus of the imminent return of social Order, prophetically declaring – 'All things began in Order, so shall they end and so shall they begin again'.  

When King Charles II visited Norwich in 1671 Doctor Browne was rewarded with a knighthood, not only for the European fame of Religio Medici and Pseudodoxia, but also for his unwavering support of the Royalist cause. 

In his old age Browne became more than ever interested in far-off lands. His geographical curiosity was stimulated with the publication of Kircher’s  China Illustrated (1667). [24]

Being based in Rome Kircher had access to reports from Jesuit missionaries as far afield as Peru and China. His China illustrata was a work of encyclopaedic breadth. It included accurate maps as well as mythical creatures, and drew heavily on reports by Jesuits returning to Rome who had visited China. Kircher emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined and highlighted the early presence of Nestorian Christians in China. However, he also claimed the Chinese were descended from the sons of Biblical Ham and that Chinese characters originated from Egyptian hieroglyphs!

Browne references China illustrated in correspondence dated 1679 to his son Edward in what must be an early recorded mention of the medicinal herb Ginseng. His citing of a specific page number of China illustrated suggests that Edward Browne also had access to a copy of Kircher’s book.

Deare Sonne, - You did well to observe Ginseng. All exotick rarities, especially of the east, the East India trade having encreased, are brought in England, and the profit made thereof. Of this plant Kircherus writeth in his China illustrata, pag. 178, cap. "De Exoticis China plantis". [25]

Kircher’s  book on China was a valuable source of information about China for over two centuries. In a single illustration aspects of Chinese botany, horticulture, costume and customs, as well as architecture, are all faithfully recorded in an eyewitness account of a social gathering  and feast upon the giant 'polomie' jackfruit.

But the Dutch artists who were commissioned to illustrate Kircher’s ground-breaking book didn’t always get it right.  Written reports, like Chinese whispers, can be misread as the exaggerated size of a pet Chinese squirrel illustrated below shows !

In his old age Browne penned his solitary work of fiction, Museum Clausum or the Sealed Museum (circa 1675) an inventory of lost, imagined and rumoured books, paintings and objects. Its testimony to his holding an extraordinary imagination as well as his sly sense of humour in his old age.

One of Browne’s greatest admirers in the 20th century was Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1996). The Argentinian author, famous for quips such as describing the Falklands war as, ‘two bald men fighting over a comb’  once declared, ‘to write vast books is a laborious task, much better is to write a summary as if those books actually existed’. Borges short-cut advice was anticipated centuries earlier by Browne in Musuem Clausum which includes strange book titles such as-    

* A Sub Marine Herbal, describing the several Vegetables found on the Rocks, Hills, Valleys, Meadows at the bottom of the Sea.

* The Roman philosopher Seneca’s correspondence to Saint Paul

* The Works of Confucius, the famous philosopher of China, translated into Spanish. 

Finally, Browne has some interesting things to say about books and libraries in his Christian Morals (circa 1675). Its as if he had the relatively new Millennium library in Norwich, risen from the ashes of the old Central library in mind, that he rapturously declares-

‘What libraries of new Volumes aftertimes will behold, and in what a new world of Knowledge the eyes of our posterity may be happy, a few Ages may joyfully declare.’ [26]

But its also in this advisory essay that Browne cautions on the dangers of too much reliance upon books and book-learning, moralistically stating-

‘They who do most by books who could do much without them, and he that owes himself unto himself is the substantial man’. [27]

Browne's precocious self-awareness in Religio Medici defined himself a Microcosm or Little World. His extraordinary library with its ancient Greek and Roman authors, Medieval theologians, Renaissance philosophers, travellers accounts of distant lands, scientific discoveries by European polymaths and mystical symbolism of alchemists is also a Microcosm, a little world of 17th century knowledge and a veritable paradise of books. 

Notes

[1] A Facsimile of the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne and his son Edward's Libraries. Introduction, notes and index by J.S. Finch  pub. E.J. Brill: Leiden, 1986

[2] Sales Catalogue page  19 no. 94 

[3] S.C. page 18. no. 51

[4] S.C. page 18 no.49

[5] S.C. page 18 no. 28

[6] S.C. page 28 no.12

[7] S.C. page 8 no. 89

[8] S.C. page 29 no. 50

[9] Religio Medici Part 2:15

[10] Sales Catalogue page 29 no. 18

[11] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 6 chapter 14

[12] Bibl. Bodleian MS No. 1788 Dr. Browne to Mr Elias Ashmole 25 January 1658

[13] Bibl. Bodleian Ashmole MS 1788 Dr. Thomas Browne to Elias Ashmole March 1674

[14] John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, by Peter J. French Pub. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1972

[15] S.C. page 47 no. 56

[16] Paracelsus Opera S.C. page 22 no. 118. Paracelsian physicians listed in Sales Catalogue includes Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (S.C. page 25 no. 98 page 51 no. 103,104) Joseph Duchesne, (page 33 no. 8 page 34 no. 63) Alexander Suchten (page 51 no. 128) Petrus Severinus ( page 18 no. 50 page 20 no. 23, 24, 25,26) John French (page 51 no. 118) Johann Glauber (page 43 no. 10) and Gerard Dorn (page 25 no. 118).

[17] S.C. page 25 no. 118

[18] Religio Medici Part 2 Section 11

[19]  S.C. page 28 no. 16

[20] S.C. page 8 no. 91

[21] S.C. page 8  no. 89

[22] P.E. Book 3 chapter 27

[24] S.C. page 8 no. 24

[25]  Thomas Browne's Correspondence Keynes 1934

[26] Christian Morals Section 2 para 5

[27] Christian Morals Section 2 para. 4

See also 

* In the bed of Cleopatra Thomas Browne's Egyptology

* 'Lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing   'Urn-Burial' as the Nigredo of the alchemical opus

* The alchemical mandala of Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus

* Sir Thomas Browne on China