Vulcan's Aquarium

In reply to a recent enquiry, what exactly is 'the Aquarium of Vulcan' from which this blog is named, its useful to refer to the ancient Greek  literary figure of Athenaeus, author of the Deipnsophistae or 'Banquet of the Philosophers'  the allusive source of the little-known myth of Vulcan's love-gift to Venus.

But first, by far the better-known myth associated with Vulcan is that of the goddess Venus  caught in bed with Mars, trapped by her husband Vulcan throwing an 'invisible net' over the pair of lovers. The Roman poet Ovid supplied rich material for many Renaissance-era artists in his Metamorphoses including a description of how Vulcan responded when discovering Venus and Mars in bed together.

'At once, he began to to fashion slender bronze chains, nets and snares which the eye could not see. The thinnest threads spun on the loom, or cobwebs hanging from rafters are no finer than was that workmanship. Moreover, he made them so that they would yield to the lightest touch, and to the smallest movement. These he set skillfully around his bed.

When his wife and her lover lay down together upon that couch they were caught by the chains, ingeniously fastened there by her husband's skill, and they were held fast in the very act of embracing. Immediately, Vulcan  flung open the ivory doors, and admitted the gods. There lay Venus and Mars, close bound together, a shameful sight. The gods were highly amused; ... They laughed aloud, and for long this was the best-known story in heaven'. [1] 

Vulcan enmeshing Venus and Mars in his net was a popular subject for many Renaissance artists including Velasquez, Tintoretto, Piero di Cosimo, Van Dyck and Rubens. Northern Mannerists artists in particular, such as Wtewael, Spranger and Heemskercke were all attracted to the myth.

Tintoretto in his 'Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan' dated 1551-1552 (below) has Vulcan interrupting Venus and Mar's love-making without his net. Examining by invitation her beauty, in close proximity, Vulcan is momentarily distracted from detecting a seemingly timorous Mars hiding under a bed. 

The Dutch Northern Mannerist artist Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638) painted the moment in which Venus and Mars are surprised by Vulcan in three differing versions (below). The main protagonists of the celestial drama with their respective attributes can all be seen in Wtewael's elaborate staging, including Mercury with his caduceus, Saturn with his scythe along with Vulcan preparing to fling his net over the lovers.

Bartholomew Spranger (1546-1611) was a Flemish artist who worked as a Court artist for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The erotic content of  his 'Vulcan and Venus' (below) is overt with its emphasis upon the Beauty and the Beast aspect of the relationship. The art critic Linda Murray notes of the main  thematic and stylist traits of  Mannerist art - 

'Mannerism can be quite easily recognised and defined: in general it is equated with a concentration on the nude, often in bizarre and convoluted poses, and with exaggerated muscular development; with subject matter either deliberately obscure, or treated so that it becomes difficult to understand -the main incident pushed into the background or swamped with irrelevant figures serving as excuses for displays of virtuosity in figure painting; with extremes of perspective, distorted proportions or scale -figures jammed into too small a space so that one has the impression that any movement would burst the confines of the picture space; with vivid colour schemes, employing discordant contrasts, effects of 'shot' colour, not for descriptive or naturalistic purposes, but as a powerful adjunct to the emotional impact of the picture'. [2]  

Its a seemingly unequal pairing of a submissive Vulcan and dominant Venus in Spranger's interpretation of the two gods relationship.  

With its unusual perspective, depiction of ancient world mythology and eroticism, Maarten van Heemskerck's (1498-1574)  'Venus, Mars and Vulcan'  (below) is closely associated with Northern Mannerist art in subject-matter along with exploring expressions of sexuality. Confident in her seductive qualities, its a not-so demure-looking Venus who gazes into the viewer's eyes in Heemskerck's painting. 

The Graeco-Roman myth of  Mars trapped by Vulcan's net  is included in the hermetic phantasmagoria of the English physician-philosopher Thomas Browne's 'network' discourse, The Garden of Cyrus (1658) its full running title being The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Naturally, Artificially, Mystically considered.

'As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that inextinguishable laugh in heaven; since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it. Although why Vulcan bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythology'.

And in fact the highly symbolic figure of Vulcan opens Browne's hermetic discourse, ('That Vulcan gave arrows to Apollo  and Diana') and ushers its apotheosis in which 'Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his armour'. 

On a mundane level the appeal of the myth of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan may be viewed as social commentary upon the rise of adultery in urban Europe. During the Renaissance, with the increase and mix of population in European cities, opportunities for extra-marital affairs grew. The myth served well as a moral warning to its viewers.  Renaissance painters also seized upon the myth of Venus and Mars and its symbolism in order to comment upon war-torn Europe of the late 16th and early 17th centuries for from the union of Venus, the goddess of Peace and Mars, the god of war, a child named Harmony was born. From an esoteric perspective the union of Venus and Mars is a lesser example of the 'coniunctio' or union of opposites in alchemy which was more often symbolized by the luminaries Sol et Luna.

Although Vulcan was famed for his inventiveness, making armour for the hero Achilles and a chair for his mother-in-law from which she could not escape when sitting on, no painting has survived of  his constructing an aquarium for Venus. In any event, Casaubon's edition of Athenaeus's 'Banquet of the Philosophers' was not published until 1612 and therefore no painting of this subject before this date is possible.  There is however at least one Renaissance painting in which Venus is depicted visiting her husband Vulcan's forge, perhaps for the purpose of requesting a love-gift. 

In the Dutch painter Jan van Kessel's 'Venus at the forge of Vulcan'  of 1662 (below) the stark contrast between the naked vulnerability of Venus and the metallic accoutrements of protective armour scattered in its foreground is notable. 

Thomas Browne for one knew that a close relationship existed between the goddess Venus, water and fish. In his commonplace notebooks the following verse couplet can be found-

'Who will not commend the wit of Astrology ? 

Venus born of the sea hath her exaltation in Pisces'. 

Its possible that Thomas Browne knew of the myth of Vulcan's Aquarium for Isaac Casaubon's 1612 edition of Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae, or 'The Banquet of the Philosophers'  is listed as once in his library. Browne also wrote a short, humorous piece entitled 'From a reading of Athenaeus'. [3]

Athenaeus lived in Naucratis circa the late 2nd to early 3rd century CE In his day Naucratis was an important Egyptian  harbor and a dynamic melting-pot of Greek and Egyptian art and culture. Its also the setting of 'The Banquet of the Philosophers' in which characters such as physicians, philosophers, grammarians, parasites and musicians discuss topics as diverse as Baths, Wine, invented words, feasts and music, useless philosophers, precious metals, flatterers, gluttony and drunkenness, hedonism and obesity, women and love, mistresses and courtesans, the cooking of fish and cuisine in general, ships, entertainment, luxury and  perfumes.

In total the 15 books of the 'Banquet  of the  philosophers',  mention almost  800 authors. Over 2500 separate works are cited in it, making it a valuable source of numerous works of Greek literature which otherwise would have been lost, which includes three surviving lines on Vulcan's aquarium. 

James Russell Lowell famously characterized the Deipnosophistae as -'the somewhat greasy heap of a literary rag-and-bone-picker like Athenaeus is turned to gold by time'. In the seventeenth century there was a revived interest in the Banquet of the Philosophers following its publication by the scholar Isaac Casaubon  (1559-1614) in 1612. The  commentary to the text was Isaac Causabon’s magnum opus. Incidentally it was the scholarship of Isaac Causabon which proved from his textual analysis of  the Corpus Hermeticum that it could not have been written by the mythic ancient Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus who anticipated the coming of Christ, as commonly believed, but in fact was a syncretic work of  Gnostic and Greek philosophy dated centuries after Christ's era, circa 200 and 300 CE.

By all accounts Athenaeus was a favourite author of Thomas Browne for he stated in his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica-

'Athenæus, a delectable Author, very various, and justly stiled by Casaubon, Græcorum Plinius (Greek Pliny) . There is extant of his, a famous Piece, under the name of Deipnosophista, or Coena Sapientum, containing the Discourse of many learned men, at a Feast provided by Laurentius. It is a laborious Collection out of many Authors, and some whereof are mentioned nowhere else. It containeth strange and singular relations, not without some spice or sprinkling of all Learning. The Author was probably a better Grammarian then Philosopher, dealing but hardly with Aristotle and Plato, and betrayeth himself much in his Chapter De Curiositate Aristotelis. In brief, he is an Author of excellent use, and may with discretion be read unto great advantage: [4]

From his reading of Athenaeus Browne knew of ancient world sexual activities -   

'The impudent wantonness of the ancients placed sponges in the natural parts of women that by expanding they might produce a lewd and as it were haunching movement in the female, whence a keener lust is provoked in the male. In the elaborations of coition almost nothing has been untried, so that the indecent egg of Marcellus Empiricus is no marvel. Away with these foolish toys of lust'. 

Its in book 2 of  'Banquet of the Philosophers'  that Athenaeus records how the blacksmith of the gods Vulcan set about creating sheets of glass which he bonded together with an early version of tungsten steel. Tungsten is one of the oldest elements used for alloying steel. It forms a very hard carbide and iron tungstite. High tungsten content in the alloy however tends to cause brittleness and makes it subject to fracturing rather than bending. Somehow Vulcan over came this weakness, its speculated through adding 'the salty sweat' of his workshop labourers to the molten crucible. 

The little-known myth is recounted in the Deipnosophistae after heated discussion upon the best sauces to prepare for fish.  The  courtesan and lute-player musician Callipygae recites three verses from a long-lost comedy, now known only by the title of The Chessmen of Odysseus. Its believed that the following lines specifically allude to Vulcan's aquarium -

 As the Pleiades ascended, Vulcan's workshop laboured,

the sound of hammer on anvil could be heard 

echoing through mountains

 until rosy dawn glowed furnace-like in the east. 

 Salty sweat streamed in torrents into hissing troughs, 

smelting and refining the dross. 

Crafted and ready 

to bind with ox-like ribs the thick and cloudy glass,

Vulcan's love-gift  for Venus. 

[6]  (Book 2 Lines 27-29 ) 

Aquariums are mysterious habitats which often evoke great underwater beauty. They function well as calming distractions and their psychological benefits include reducing stress. Looking into an aquarium, observing fish swimming care-free, helps people momentarily forget their worries. 

The symbol of the aquarium invites speculation and analysis. For the seminal twentieth century psychologist C.G. Jung -

'The protean mythologem and the shimmering symbol express the processes of the psyche far more trenchantly than, in the end, far more clearly than the clearest concept.' [7] 

Perhaps Venus made her request to test the fullness of Vulcan's forgiveness, or else to alleviate her boredom with Vulcan spending long hours away from her at the forge, or simply for her amusement and pleasure, its not really known. Nor is it known how many or what kind of fish she choose to place in her aquarium. But whether Vulcan manufactured his love-gift for Venus specifically for any of these reasons remains unclear. What is clear is that the fish in the Aquarium of Vulcan are far more playful than previously imagined. 

Notes

[1] Ovid Metamorphosis  Book 4 lines 180-190

[2] The High Renaissance and Mannerism Linda Murray Thames and Hudson 1977

[3]  1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 7 no. 67

[4]  Pseudodoxia Epidemica . Bk.1 chapter 8

[5] From a reading of Athenaeus 

[6] Deipnosophistae Book 2 lines 27-29

[7] Collected Works of C.G.Jung vol. 13  Alchemical Studies (1967) para. 199

 

Elective Affinities : Johann Goethe and Thomas Browne

Today on the 270th anniversary of the birth of  Johann Goethe (August 28th 1749-1832) its exciting to reveal and elaborate upon the fascinating relationship between the brightest star of German literature to the English physician-philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82). 

Goethe and Browne were  both polymaths who shared a lifelong interest in topics as diverse as botany, anatomy, optics and antiquity. They also held a shared interest in esoteric topics such as Neoplatonism, Pythagorean numerology and alchemy; subjects vital to their scientific thinking and which influenced their literary symbolism.

Goethe and Browne's affinity in anatomical and botanical studies is remarkably close; for example, whilst Browne acquired the skeletal leg-bone of an elephant for his anatomy studies, Goethe somehow acquired an elephant's skull for study; whilst Browne's botanical studies included sea-holly, a plant found on Norfolk’s coastal sand-dunes, Goethe made botanical observations on sea-holly found on the sand-dunes of the Venice lido.

In his botanical studies Goethe  developed the theory that the characteristics from which all plants grow are variations which are modelled upon a prototype plant or Urpflanze. His theory that Nature follows a pre-ordained pattern, or  'inner form' is in accordance with the popular early nineteenth century German school of Naturphilosophie.Writing in terms comparable to Goethe's Urpflanze or 'Prototype plant' of German Naturphilosophie Browne  in Religio Medici proposed that nature has an invisible, prototype 'inner form' thus-

'In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof'.  [1]

German Naturphilosophie adhered to the Renaissance belief that Creation consists of a hierarchical ladder, as described by Browne thus -

'First we are a rude mass,........next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures not only of the world, but of the Universe' [2].

German Naturphilosophie based itself upon the rigid numerical system of five 'evolutionary' forms of life, from there being five senses, five planets and from the many references to the number five in the Bible.  A full century and half earlier Browne in The Garden of Cyrus (1658) celebrated  'fiveness' in  Art and Nature via the quincunx pattern. Browne's idea that Nature is permeated by the number of five may have originated either from his reading of Della Porta's Villa (1592) in which the quincunx is stated to be a universal archetype  or simply from his noticing that many flowers consist of five petals. The Garden of Cyrus includes numerous sharp-eyed observations, and names in total over 140 herbs, flowers, trees and plants. 

German Naturphilosophie held the pre-Darwinian belief that Nature possesses an 'inner form' , a belief which is central to both Goethe's and Browne's botanical studies. Goethe's theory that Nature has a fixed, pre-ordained 'Inner Form' was asserted a full century and half earlier by Browne in Religio Medici (1643).

'I hold moreover that there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy, not only of men, but of plants and vegetables; and in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs of their inward forms. [3]

The two early scientists also shared an interest in Optics; Goethe, as is well-known, stubbornly refuted Newton's theory of Colour, and his motivation for challenging Newton's discoveries remains much discussed. His Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours) was not received as favourably by the scientific community as its author had hoped. Browne's own study of optics resulted in strikingly original optical imagery in his literary works.

For Goethe science was a source of imaginative insight which had developed from poetry;  the hasty, breathless, fractured tone of an early draught and the published text of Browne's Garden of Cyrus strongly suggests the physician-philosopher's detection of an archetype in nature, the Quincunx pattern, may,  like Goethe's  scientific insights, have originated from a sudden, quasi-poetical, vision.

Browne's mystical insight that the Quincunx pattern embodies the mysteries of nature is not so dissimilar from Goethe's Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours)  in which the German scientist wanders into contemplation on symbols, in particular the triangle and  the hexagon, thus-

'Colour may have a mystical allusion....The mathematician extols the value and applicability of the triangle; the triangle is revered by mystics;  much admits of being expressed in it by diagrams, and amongst other things, the law of the phenomena of colours: indeed we presently arrive at the ancient mysterious hexagon'.

But as the American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002) stated -

'The human mind delights in finding pattern - so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning'.

In the preface to his Origin of Species (1859) Charles Darwin included Goethe as one who in some way or other anticipated his own ideas. But it was also Darwin who destroyed the 'rule of five' theory of German Naturphilosophie. Before Darwin Creation theories were represented by Classical deities, notably Neptunism and Vulcanism to represent life's origins. Goethe subscribed to the view that life evolved from the element of water, as symbolised by the sea-god Neptune.  However, its the Roman god of fire Vulcan who held significance to Browne, utilizing highly-original proper-name symbolism he alludes to the Roman god in The Garden of Cyrus, in opening, second chapter and apotheosis closing chapter .

Recent scientific evidence suggests life's origins may in fact be a combination of fire and water. Fossil remains of microbes which colonised deep sea hydrothermal volcanic vents more than three billion years ago have been discovered in a region of Western Australia which was once covered by ocean.

Science for Goethe was, equally for Browne, a source of revelation which permitted the enquirer, 'to see how and where God reveals himself that is heaven on earth'. Goethe's scientific outlook has been described as peculiar for being neither inductive or deductive. As an 'intuitive' scientist, one who was suspicious of systems and mathematics in science, his scientific views, like Browne's, have been questioned.

Goethe has been described as - 'one of the last of the universal scientific minds still able to encompass the whole of nature'  and as 'a pantheistic poet wanting to create in science also'. His science has been defined as, 'Platonic ideas in the mind of a creative spirit', all of which is equally applicable to the pre-Newtonian, scientific enquiry of Thomas Browne. An accurate assessment of Goethe's science by John. R. Williams and also applicable to Browne's science, states -

'Goethe's science is an integral part of his life and work,  its flaws are those both of the man and of the age, of his personality and of the current state of knowledge'. [4]

* * * * *

However much  previously overlooked, misunderstood or denied,  both Goethe and Browne were extremely well-versed in esoteric topics such as Hermetic philosophy, Neoplatonism, the kabbalah and alchemy. This deep interest in esotericism influenced their scientific and philosophical thinking as well as their literary creativity.

Goethe first came into contact with esoteric literature while recuperating from a mystery illness during his adolescence when his doctor introduced the budding poet to the occultist circle of Fraulein von Klettenberg. Klettenberg encouraged the young poet to read the esoteric writings of Paracelsus, Boehme and Bruno. However, Goethe's interest in the occult waned once recovered, but in a letter to Klettenberg dated August 26 1770 he wrote, -'Alchemy is still my veiled love' and of her recommendation to read Agrippa the budding poet confessed - 'it set my young brains on fire for a considerable time'.

In 1786 Goethe read Christian Rosenkreutz's allegorical tale The Chymical Wedding which may well have been the inspiration for him to write his Marchen fairy-tale of 1795. Goethe's Tale of the Green Snake and the White Lily is crowded with references to various esoteric beliefs and veiled allusions to the Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris, the cults of Typhon and Horus, the Vision of Zosimus, and the Gnostic Naassenes.  

Goethe found in alchemical terminology apt figures of speech which he utilized in his writings. He once stated, ‘If one deals with the poetic side of alchemy with an open mind it leads to very pleasant reflections’.

Elsewhere, in a statement allusive to the primary template of much esoteric thought, that of polarity or opposites, Goethe declared -

'To sever the conjoined, to unite the severed, that is the life of Nature; that  is the eternal drawing together and relaxing, the eternal syncrisis and diacris'. 

Goethe's allusion to Nature's forces drawing together and separating, strongly resembles the polarity of the alchemical maxim 'solve et coagula'  to dissolve and bind, a fact not unnoticed by a younger English contemporary, the poet and scholar Coleridge (1772-1834).  An enthusiastic admirer of Thomas Browne, Coleridge in 1818 speculated-

Sometimes, it seems as if the alchemists wrote like the Pythagoreans on music, imagining a metaphysical and inaudible music as the basis of the audible. It is clear that by sulphur they meant the solar rays or light, and by mercury the principle of ponderability, so that their theory was the same with that of the Heraclitic physics, or the modern German Naturphilosophie, which deduces all things from light and gravitation, each being bipolar; gravitation = north and south, or attraction and repulsion: light = east and west, or contraction and dilation; [5]

German 'Naturphilosophie' advocated the principle of polarity or opposition, one of the last attempts to reconcile the symbolism of the alchemists to modern chemistry. In Polarity, that is oppositions in nature, German 'Naturphilosophers' perceived the rhythm of the Universe.

As long ago as 1895 the critic R.M.Meyer in the Goethe Jahrbuch proposed that German Naturphilosophie resembled Browne's 'inner form' and that the Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) may have recommended Browne's Religio Medici to Goethe. [6] Browne spiritual testament was first translated into German in 1746. Lavater read it enthusiastically, primarily for its assertive physiognomic statements, such as-

'there are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C.may read our natures'. [7]

Physiognomy,  the questionable belief that the human face can be interpreted is mentioned in each of Browne's major literary works; as an unreliable, yet theoretical diagnostic tool for physicians, Browne's interest in physiognomy was kindled from his reading the Italian polymath Giambattista Della Porta's (1535-1615)  Celestial Physiognomy.

Lavater vigorously promoted physiognomy, became a famous author on the subject and was subsequently shunned by a skeptical Goethe. It remains unknown as to whether or not Goethe read Browne's Religio Medici.

Goethe's many esoteric interests included numerology which originated from his admittance, shortly before his residence in Weimar, to the Order of the Illuminati, whose teachings were based upon Pythagoras. In his novel Der Wahlverwandtscaften (Elective Affinities) of 1809. Goethe describes the number five as - 'a beautiful odd, sacred number'. Browne's own interest in numerology is admitted frankly in Religio Medici thus - ' I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of  numbers.'  [8]

In essence, Goethe's personal philosophy was not unlike Browne's, home-spun, flexible and idiosyncratic. In his semi-autobiographical Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) Goethe confessed -

'Neoplatonism lay at the foundation of my personal religion, the hermetical, the  mystical, the cabalistic, also contributed their share; and thus I built for myself a world that looked strange enough'.

The restless scholar Faust in Goethe's tragic drama shares some psychological traits to those exhibited by the newly qualified Doctor Browne.  After completing many years of study at Oxford and abroad at the Universities of Padua, Montpellier and Leiden, Browne utters as wearily as Faust -

'There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books; which tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge'. [9]

Not unlike Faust, Browne expresses occasional, intense spiritual angst in Religio Medici.

'I feel sometimes a hell within myself, Lucifer keeps his court in my breast'.  [10]

Faust, not unlike the enquiring Browne, yearns in his study of Nature for, 'a glance into the earth! To see below its dark foundations / Life's embryo seeds before their birth / And Nature's silent operations'. [11] 

In his quest for forbidden knowledge Faust 'ponders over spells and signs, symbolic letters, circles and signs'. Such hieroglyphs fascinated Browne who declared -

'surely the Heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common Hieroglyphics'. [12]

Although Browne's confessional shares traits exhibited by Goethe's Faust it departs abruptly from it once the pact is made between Faust and Mephistopheles. Browne located Mephistopheles as dwelling internally rather than externally, stating - 'The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in'. [13]

Browne's Christian faith lays at the heart of his medical practise, enquiries into nature and even his rare excursions into the literary world.  Goethe however held an ambiguous and luke-warm opinion of Christianity, objecting to the clanging sound of church-bells in particular.

Whilst Browne's Urn-Burial shares Goethe's antiquarian interests, The Garden of Cyrus shares a number of thematic and symbolic traits to Goethe's late masterpiece Faust II.  As digressive and disjointed in its construction as Goethe's drama and in its associative thought and imagery, with little concern of intelligibility to its reader, it too employs proper-names from Greek mythology to represent scientific and psychological speculations.

During their long, settled, and relatively undisturbed lives, Goethe and Browne became extremely well-read, not only in the scientific advances of their era, but also in Classics of Greek and Roman literature, as the catalogues of their respective libraries reveal. The Classical world, especially Ancient Greece, with its scientific discoveries was for both scholars of great interest and both display a thorough knowledge of Classical literature. The same symbolic names can be found in their respective yet neglected works of fantasy, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus.

The Greek mythological god Proteus is a good example of a symbolic name shared by the two literary figures. In Cyrus Proteus is 'the symbol of the first mass' whilst  in Faust II   Proteus represents organic metamorphosis. The warrior Achilles, the wanderer Ulysses and the nature-god Pan are also mentioned in both works, as is Greek philosopher and botanist Theophrastus, the first to attempt to categorise plants. But  perhaps above others it may be the Greek god Apollo ruler of beauty of form, order, prophecy, medicine and music who represents symbolic significance and artistic importance to both literary polymaths.

Browne's survey of the artistic, natural, botanical and mystical precedents of the Quincunx  in The Garden of Cyrus may be described in Goethe's words as a delight in-

                         

'Formation, transformation, The eternal Mind's eternal delectation' [14] 

The learned doctor in a drowsy soliloquy concluding The Garden of Cyrus observes that, 'the phantasms of sleep which often continueth precogitations making cables of cobwebs', alerts one to Faust's meditation that -

'How logical and clear the daylight seems

Till the night weaves us in its web of dreams'.

This shared imagery of dreams and  the illusory web is evidence that, like the alchemists before them, Goethe and Browne utilized highly-charged poetic symbolism in their attempt to portray  the unconscious psyche.

Goethe's monumental drama Faust held great meaning to C.G.Jung. For the Swiss psychologist Faust is a work which from its beginning to end is full of alchemical themes and imagery. C.G.Jung even regarded his work on alchemy as a sign of his inner relationship to Goethe and never suppressed or denied the persistent rumour that his grandfather was an illegitimate offspring of Goethe's.

Jung often referred to Goethe's drama Faust in order to amplify a psychological observation.  Of Part II of Faust  he stated -

'The second part of  Faust, was more than a literary exercise. It is a link in the Aurea Catena (The Golden or Homeric Chain in alchemy is the series of great wise men, beginning with Hermes Trismegistus, which links earth with heaven) which has existed from the beginnings of philosophical alchemy and Gnosticism down to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Unpopular, ambiguous, and dangerous, it is a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world. [15]  

Although Goethe's Faust Part I and Browne's Urn-Burial are firmly established works of world literature, their respective, other halves, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus have baffled and perplexed most readers, resulting in neither work achieving the popularity of their counterparts.

However, 'though overlooked by all', Goethe's dramatic works, Faust parts 1 and II have a remarkable relationship to Browne's Urn-Burial  and The Garden of Cyrus.  For just as  Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are structured upon the time-honoured schemata of Hermeticism, namely the polarity of Microcosm and Macrocosm, so too are Goethe's Faust I and II 

In conversation with Eckermann Goethe provided clues for employing the concept of polarity in the 'conjoining of Faust I with 'the second part of the tragedy' as he termed it.

'Not all our experiences can be expressed in the round and directly communicated. For this reason I have chosen the means of revealing the more secret meanings to attentive hearts by creative formations which face each other and mirror each other'.

Goethe's understanding of the alchemical quest for Unity necessitated that the 'small world' or Microcosm of Part 1 of Faust, with its subjective world of Faust's love for Gretchen, needed to be balanced with the larger objective world or Macrocosm of Part 2 which, as it wanders through time and space, concludes with Faust's redemption.

Browne's diptych discourses also adhere to the basic tenet of Hermeticism, that of the correspondence between Microcosm and Macrocosm.  Just as Urn-Burial's concern is the earth-bound 'little world' of Man, his suffering, mortality, unknowingness and death, in essence the Microcosm,  The Garden of Cyrus in complete symmetry and polarity features many examples of the Eternal forms and  astral imagery of the heavens, the Macrocosm no less. Equally, just as Faust I concerns itself with the small, little world of man so too the extraordinary settings ranging through time and space of Faust II represent the Macrocosm at large.   As with Goethe’s literary diptych so too with Browne’s diptych Discourses. Only when 'conjoining' the two respective halves of each literary work can  one fully understand and appreciate their total artistic vision.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Goethe's many duties and social life in the Weimar Court, his travels and love-affairs, mark him  a much worldlier person than the devout physician. Ultimately Goethe was a humanist, his message being – He who strives on and lives to strive can earn redemption still. Thomas Browne was likewise affirmative of all that is good in man, asserting  - 

'Me thinkes there is no man bad, and the worst, best; that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities, wherein they are good:there is no mans mind of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony.  [16] 

Julian Huxley in Religion without Revelation (1967) nominated Goethe, alongside Blake, Wordsworth, Thomas Browne and Dante as, 'one of the immortal spirits waiting to introduce the reader to his own unique and intense experience of reality'. Today Goethe and Thomas Browne are remembered not so much for their scientific endeavours but for the originality of their literary creativity.  Through their respective literary creations both writers have bequeathed their own special vision of Humanity and reality which distinguishes them as 'Universal Citizens', or 'World Sages'.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, like Browne before him, belongs to the category of men to whom the improvement of Mankind was a deep concern. Goethe's science and literary creativity has a close, if little recognised elective affinity to Thomas Browne’s.


Notes
[1] R.M.Part I:50
[2] R.M Part 1:34
[3] R.M. Part 2:2

[4] The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography by John R. Williams pub. John Wiley  and Sons Ltd. Blackwell 2001
[5] Lecture notes of 1818 Lecture XII Miscellaneous criticism Collected works of Coleridge
[6] Richard Meyer 'Zur inner form?' Goethe Jahrbuch 1895 vol. 16 pp. 190 - 191
[7] R.M.Part 2:2
[8] R.M.Part I.12
[9] R.M.Part 2:8
[10] R.M.I:51
[11] Faust Part I Night
[12] R.M.Part 1:16
[13] R.M. Ibid
[14]  Faust Part 2  ed. David Luke Oxford University Press 2008  lines 6287-8
[15]  Memories, Dreams, Reflections C.G.Jung  chapter 6
[16] R.M. 2 :11

Vulcan in Art and Alchemy

Today (August 23rd) is the date of the festival of Vulcanalia, held in honor of the Roman god of fire and furnace in the ancient Roman world. Centuries later, during the Renaissance, Vulcan became both a popular subject for painters and synonymous with the art of alchemy, but before discussing the Roman god's symbolism in art and alchemy, its useful to remind ourselves of the original myth of Vulcan in the pantheon of Roman gods.

Vulcan was the son of Jupiter and Juno. As the son of the king and queen of the gods, he should have been handsome, but was ugly as a baby. His mother, Juno was horrified by him. She hurled the tiny baby off the top of Mount Olympus. Vulcan fell down from the sky for a whole day and night, eventually landing in the sea. One of his legs broke when he hit the water and never developed properly. He sank to the depths of the ocean, where the sea-nymph Thetis found him and took him to her underwater grotto, raising him as her own son.

Vulcan had a happy childhood playing with dolphins. When his adopted mother Thetis attended a dinner party held on Mount Olympus wearing a beautiful necklace of silver and sapphires which Vulcan had made for her, Juno asked where she could get such a necklace. Thetis became flustered, which caused Juno to become suspicious; and, at last, she discovered the truth, the baby she had rejected had now grown into a talented blacksmith.

Juno was furious and demanded that Vulcan return home, a demand that he refused. However, he sent her a beautifully constructed chair made of silver and gold. Juno was delighted with this gift but as soon as she sat in it her weight triggered hidden metal bands which sprung forth to hold her fast. The more she struggled the more firmly the mechanical throne gripped her. Juno sat fuming, trapped in Vulcan's chair for three days, unable to sleep or eat. Jupiter finally promised  Vulcan that if he released Juno he would give him a wife, Venus the goddess of love and beauty. Vulcan agreed, married Venus and later built a smithy under Mount Etna on the island of Sicily. It was said that whenever Venus was unfaithful, Vulcan grew angry and beat the red-hot metal with such a force that sparks and smoke rose up from the top of the mountain, creating a volcanic eruption. [1]

During the Renaissance, the subject of Vulcan working at his forge, delivering Achilles armour to Thetis or ensnaring the lovers Venus and Mars, were all popular subjects for artists including Velasquez, Tintoretto, Piero  di Cosimo and Rubens, among others, indeed, the Northern Mannerist artist Joachim Wtewael (1566 –1638) painted the dramatic moment of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan in no less than three differing versions.(below)

Artists interest in the myth of the lovers Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan can be interpreted on at least two levels. Firstly, as a commentary upon taboo topics such as sexuality, temptation and adultery in the growing urban population of Europe and secondly, as symbolic of the 'fixing' and union of opposites in the 'Great  Work' of alchemy.

It was also during the Renaissance that the physician Paracelsus (1491-1540) introduced the mythological figure of Vulcan as the patron deity of alchemy. To the alchemist/physician Vulcan was synonymous with both the manipulation of fire, heating and distilling of nature's properties for medicine, and the transforming power and creative potential locked within the greater, invisible Man slumbering within; Paracelsus declared-

'Alchemy is an art and Vulcan (the governor of fire) is the artist in it. He who is Vulcan has the power of the art ... All things have been created in an unfinished state, nothing is finished, but Vulcan must bring all things to their completion. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and develops it into its final substance ... God created iron but not that which is to be made of it. He enjoined fire, and Vulcan, who is the lord of fire, to do the rest ... From this it follows that iron must be cleansed of its dross before it can be forged. This process is alchemy; its founder is the smith Vulcan. What is accomplished by fire is alchemy - whether in the furnace or in the kitchen stove. And he who governs fire is Vulcan, even if he be a cook or a man who tends the stove'.

Elsewhere Paracelsus writes,

'Alchemy is a necessary, indispensable art ... It is an art, and Vulcan is its artist. He who is a Vulcan has mastered this art; he who is not a Vulcan can make no headway in it'. [2]

The British natural philosopher Francis Bacon however, was skeptical of the claims made by Paracelsian alchemists, indignantly exclaiming in his The Advancement of Learning (1605) -

'Abandoning Minerva and wisdom they play court to the sooty smith Vulcan and his pots and pans'.

Nevertheless, Paracelsian alchemists including the foremost promoter of Paracelsian alchemy Gerard Dorn, the early Belgian scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont, and Arthur Dee, the eldest son of the magus John Dee, all acknowledged the Roman god of forge and furnace as symbolic of their art. Arthur Dee in his Arca Arcarnum mysteriously stated -

'Though I am constrained to die and be buried nevertheless Vulcan carefully gives me birth'.

The Paracelsian ‘deity’ associated with alchemy features no less than three times in Sir Thomas Browne’s hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Firstly, in the very opening sentence of the discourse -

'That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana according to gentile theology in the work of the fourth day may pass for no blind apprehension of the creation of the Sun and Moon'.

Secondly, within the context of Classical  myth in which Vulcan constructs and casts an invisible network ensnaring the lovers Venus and Mars caught in bed inflagrante delicato  -

'As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that inextinguishable laugh in heaven; since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it. Although why Vulcan bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythology'.

Lastly,  at the apotheosis of his literary-alchemical opus, Browne specifies the three factors necessary for determining truth, namely authority, reason and experience; Vulcan  here representing the "higher man" who, not unlike the Gnostic, "Man of Light," uses his craftsmanship and skills to aid, enlighten and liberate the Spiritual Man within.

'Flat and Flexible truths are beat out by every hammer, but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out  Achilles his armour'.

In his late work Christian Morals which was written as a parental 'advisio' for his grown-up children, Sir Thomas Browne alludes a further three times to Vulcan, and just as the Belgian scientist Van Helmont (1580-1644) before him defined alchemy as Vulcan's art.  In a passage which perceptively describes the human psyche as 'the theatre of ourselves', Browne somewhat critically stated-

'Vulcan's Art doth nothing doth nothing in this internal militia; wherein not the armour of Achilles, but the armature of St. Paul, gives the glorious day'.

In modern times the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung interpreted Vulcan as one who:

'kindles the fiery wheel of the essence in the soul when it 'breaks off' from God; whence come desire and sin, which are the "wrath of God." [3]

The alchemists adoption of the mythical figure of Vulcan may be interpreted on several levels. At the lowest scale of interpretation Vulcan represents the cunning amoral demi-urge who blindly gains power over Nature without integrity; this mundane level anticipates the nascent Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The activities of  extracting coal from mines to fuel colossal furnaces to manufacture steel and iron on a gigantic scale, and the subsequent development of the railroad and train throughout Europe and North America are distinctly Vulcan-like activities; as is the general "busyness" of the Protestant work-ethic of industrialised Western society also strongly reflected in this archetypal figure.

The transformative power of Vulcan the "higher man" and anthropos figure of the alchemists has today devolved into the negative aspects of a demi-urge figure; none other than modern technological man, who, divorced from God, forges his own destiny, independent of Religion, Divine Love or theological considerations, towards a brave new world or utopia. This is reflected in the fact that today the name of Vulcan is best known as either the name of a bomber plane or as the extra-terrestrial semi-human species as represented by Mr. Spock in the American science-fiction TV and film series 'Star-Trek'.

At a higher level of interpretation however, Vulcan is transformed to become an inspired visionary who is capable of releasing Mankind from the bonds of unknowingness and darkness; which is how alchemists such as Paracelsus and followers such as Van Helmont, Arthur Dee and Sir Thomas Browne interpreted the symbolism of Vulcan.

Author’s note

This article was originally written for Wikipedia in 2003 and subsequently duplicated in various places elsewhere on-line before its eventual deletion.
I assert the right to be identified as the original author of this short essay.
Other on-line writings encountered on thus subject of Vulcan and his relationship to alchemy are mirror duplication from the Wikipedia original, and the product of copy and paste scholarship.

As Sir Thomas Browne once stated -

'Men are still content to plume themselves in other’s feathers’.[4]

Art-work (top) Vulcan at forge by Chris  Appel
Next -  One of three canvases painted by the Northern Mannerist artist, Joachim Wtewael of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan
Last- Tintoretto - Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan

Notes

[1] Abridged from Wikipedia
[2]  Paracelsus Selected writings ed. Jolandi Jacobi Princeton 1951
[3] CW 12 215
[4] Christian Morals Part II Section 9  pub. post. 1716

The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche

The Wedding-Feast of Cupid and Psyche by Guilio Romano.

All the evidence suggests the Italian painter Guilano Romano (1499-1546) was one the earliest artists who can be defined as Mannerist in creative outlook. Romano's The Wedding-Feast of Cupid and Psyche (1532) includes subject-matter of a mythological nature, its staged in a highly theatrical setting and uses unusual perspective as well as eroticism; all of which are characteristics associated with Mannerist art.

The Wedding-Feast of Cupid and Psyche was also painted by Romano's teacher, Raphael. It is however only one of several fresco's painted by Romano on the walls on the Palazzo del Te at Mantua in Italy. The lively and highly-stylized marriage-feast includes nymphs, fauns, satyrs, a drunken Silenus figure and what were at the time, rare and exotic animals, namely a camel and an elephant, both of which are centre-stage in Romano's fresco.

During the Renaissance new sources of myth such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Hygenius' Fabulae became available to artists. It’s in the The Golden Ass by Apulieus, the sole surviving novel of the Roman-era, that the earliest literary source of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche can be found. Written sometime during the 2nd century C.E. the protagonist in The Golden Ass narrates upon his transformation into a donkey. The reader subsequently shares a donkey’s tribulations and perspective upon life which culminates during a ceremony of the cult of Isis, in which the donkey-narrator eats a bunch of roses, resulting in his becoming human once more.

Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne

The Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) has a fascinating, yet little explored relationship to the 17th century physician, hermetic philosopher, scientist and literary artist, Sir Thomas Browne.

It’s only relatively recently in the light of modern understanding, notably by scholars such as Carl Jung, Frances Yates and Jean Seznec that the profound influence of hermetic and esoteric thought upon scientists, artists and physicians during the Renaissance has been recognized.

Following the early death of the 'German Hermes', as his advocates termed him, the writings of Paracelsus, a conglomerate of practical advice on how to develop new chemicals for medicine, mixed with proto-psychology and mystical theology attracted many followers.  The new Spagyric medicine which Paracelsus taught during his short, wandering life, retained a potent influence upon alchemists, early scientists and in particular, physicians. Indeed, the radical physician has been called- "the precursor of chemical pharmacology and therapeutics and the most original medical thinker of the sixteenth century."[1]

The two favoured professions of would-be alchemist and hermetic philosopher alike were those of priest and physician. These two professions witnessed a wide spectrum of the human condition. Daily in contact with suffering and the inner spiritual man, priest and physician often worked in tandem, notably in attendance at the sick-bed. Indeed, the very title of Browne’s Religio Medici, (The Religion of a Doctor) is indicative of the intimate connection between the two vocations. It cannot be under-stated that as devout Christians, both Paracelsus and Browne shared a deep piety and viewed the healing of the sick as a religious duty. In Paracelsus’s own words - ‘Compassion is the physician's teacher’; while in his voluminous theological writings there can be found a theologian as original and free-thinking as his contemporary, Martin Luther.

In all probability Thomas Browne was introduced to Paracelsian literature during his student years when studying medicine either at the university of Padua, Montpelier or Leyden circa 1627-1630. Originally written upon completion of his medical studies, Religio Medici reveals its author as one well-acquainted with the ideas of Paracelsus.

Although objecting that –

‘the singularity of Paracelsus be intolerable reviled all learning before him’,

Browne nevertheless also confesses in Religio Medici to having- 'perus'd the Archidoxis and read the secret Sympathies of things' the Archidoxis being a treatise by Paracelsus on medical cures by means of magical properties attributed to gems and amulets. Likewise, although vehemently refuting Paracelsus' claim to have created a Homunculus, the fabled test-tube human of alchemy, declaring -

'I am not of Paracelsus mind that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction' [2] 

Browne nevertheless did believe in the Swiss physician's claim to have performed the alchemical feat of Palingenesis, that is, the revival of a plant from its ashes-

A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes, to a contemplative and school Philosopher seems utterly destroyed and the form to have taken his leave for ever. But to a sensible Artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element. This is made good by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into stalk and leaves again. [3]

The poet Coleridge, who was an early and enthusiastic reader of Browne, rose to his defence, annotating his  personal copy of Religio Medici thus-

'This was, I believe, some lying Boast of Paracelsus, which the good Sir T. Browne has swallowed for a Truth'. [4]

An even greater number of statements on Paracelsus can be found in Browne's encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-1672).  In an early example of scientific journalism, Browne  revised each of the six editions of his best-selling encyclopaedia in his life-time, duly up-dating reports of his 'elaboratory' experiments, for example -

It is not suddenly to be received what Paracelsus affirmeth, that if a Loadstone be anointed with Mercurial oil, or only put into Quicksilver, it omitteth its attraction for ever. For we have found that Loadstones and touched Needles which have laid long time in Quicksilver have not amitted their attraction. And we also find that red hot Needles or wires extinguished in Quicksilver, do yet acquire a verticity according to the Laws of position in extinction.[5]

Although in Pseudodoxia Epidemica  Browne debunks Paracelsus’s fervid quest for the Philosopher’s Stone –

More veniable is a dependence upon the Philosophers stone, potable gold, or any of those Arcana's whereby Paracelsus that died himself at forty seven, gloried that he could make other men immortal.  [6]

when writing on the mythical creature the Phoenix, he reveals himself to be well-acquainted with Paracelsus and esoteric literature in general-

Some have written mystically, as Paracelsus in his Book De Azoth, or De ligno & linea vitæ; and as several Hermetical Philosophers, involving therein the secret of their Elixir, and enigmatically expressing the nature of their great work  [7]

Strong evidence of Browne's own adherence to the goals of alchemy occurs in the so-called 'Alphabetical Table' to Pseudodoxia Epidemica which includes the index entry - 'Philosophers Stone, not impossible to be procured' a statement which seems to be unequivocal evidence of Browne's cautious and critical, yet believing, approach to alchemy. [8]

It's from Paracelsus' interest in Austrian folk-lore that Browne wrote-

and wise men may think there is as much reality in the pygmies of Paracelsus; that is, his non-Adamical men, or middle natures betwixt men and spirits.[P. E. 4:11].

The Swiss alchemist-physician proposed that a particular spirit resided over each element. Nymphs ruled the water, the Salamander, fire, Sylphides, the air, and citing Germanic folk-lore, he claimed that deep in the earth there exists a race of dwarf- like Earth-spirits, which he named Gnomes. According to Paracelsus these little people were the guardians of the earth who knew where precious metals and hidden treasure were buried. The word gnome, another neologism of Paracelsus, originates from a  play on the Greek words of gnomic meaning knowledge and intelligence and genomus meaning 'earth-dweller'. Paracelsus described Gnomes thus-

The gnomes have minds, but no souls, and so are incapable of spiritual development. They stand about two feet tall, but can expand themselves to huge size at will, and live in underground houses and palaces. Adapted to their element, they can breathe, see and move as easily underground as fish do in water. Gnomes have bodies of flesh and blood, they speak and reason, they eat and sleep and propagate their species, fall ill and die. They sometimes take a liking to a human being and enter his service, but are generally hostile to humans.

Browne concluded his speculation upon the existence of little people open-mindedly stating -

we shall not conclude impossibility, or that there might not be a race of Pygmies, as there is sometimes of Giants.  [P. 4:11].

The first ever Gnome named in literature was Umbriel in Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock (1712). An eerie aural depiction of the Gnome can be heard in the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's suite Pictures at an Exhibition which was imaginatively orchestrated by the French composer Maurice Ravel.

Paracelsus, the self-styled 'Luther of Medicine' was an early advocate of opium in medicine. Throughout the history of alchemy a considerable knowledge of substances, minerals and drugs can be found. Widely in use since the sixteenth century, opium was used to relieve such disorders as dysentery and respiratory ailments. By the seventeenth century, physicians required a license in order to obtain Opium, the only available pain-killer and tranquillizer in medicine of the day. Such was its widespread usage in seventeenth century medicine that Browne's contemporary, Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) declared-

Among the remedies which has pleased the Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.

In 1959, the critic Peter Green suggested that one reason why Browne's prose is stylistically unlike any of his contemporaries, may have been due to his experimenting with drugs. Green noted that the twin Discourses of 1658 were penned by a Royalist who was under intense emotional and psychological distress, and proposed that the last chapters of both Discourses were written in a trance-like condition. On several occasions in Urn-Burial Browne poetically links opium's effects with the  theme of the unknowingness of the human condition such as-

The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her Poppy. 

while crucial evidence that he observed the psychological effects of opium can be found in his medical-philosophical declaration-

'There is no antidote for the Oblivion of Time which temporally considereth all things'

The phrase 'temporally considereth all things'  is Browne's succinct observation of opium's psychological effects, whilst the moralist in him however denounced all trafficking in substances, sternly declaring later -  'Oblivion is not to be hired'.

Today there's strict legislation and laws on drug consumption, however, this was not so during the seventeenth century, which saw the foundation of addictions now long-standing in Western society with the widespread introduction and consumption of the newly-discovered tobacco-leaf and Coffee throughout Europe. Although it is difficult nowadays with our politically correct thinking to accept that a devout Christian and respected doctor may have written his 'deep, stately, majestic' prose (De Quincey) with its slow, sombre contemplations under the influence of Opium, for the empiricist, such as Browne, as for the alchemist, the self and the sensory impressions were the seat of all experiment. There are several notes upon the effects of dosages of narcotics in Browne's common-place books but whether his empirical nature endorsed experimenting with drugs it is not documented, however he may well have done so accidentally, or as part of his alchemical quest. It's also worth remembering that as a botanist with an interest in toxicology, Browne may well have been able to identify psilocybin  and fly agaric fungi.

Whether or not Browne ever had his hand in the medicine-cabinet will never be known, however it’s certainly a big coincidence that his labyrinthine prose was 're-discovered' by the early Romantic figures of Coleridge and De Quincey, both of whom suffered from the ravages of drug-addiction at cost to their longevity and artistic productivity.

The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne and his son Edward’s libraries, supplies further evidence that the ideas of the Swiss Renaissance physician were an influence upon the Norwich physician. Not only does it list an edition of the complete Opera of Paracelsus, but also many books by followers of spagyric medicine, including the chief protagonist of Paracelsian medicine, Gerard Dorn, as well as books by Alexander von Suchten, Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, Joseph Duchesne, Martin Ruland, Petrus Severinus and John French. In fact it would have been near impossible for any medical practitioner  of the seventeenth century not to have had a  strong view upon Paracelsus. England saw slower acceptance of what was perceived to be continental medicine. In any event such a number of books by medical advocates  in Browne's library once again suggests more than a casual interest in Paracelsian medicine. [9]

Paracelsus was fond of inventing new words to describe his alchemical/astrological form of medicine. For example he described himself as a pagoyum a neologism composed from the combing the words "paganum" and the Hebrew word "goy". Similarly, Paracelsus described his type of medicine as an 'Yllaster' a word coined from plaster and astrum a star ; in this context its worthwhile looking at the verse inscribed upon the Coffin-plate of Sir Thomas Browne's lead Coffin.

It’s not known who composed the inscription verse upon Browne's Coffin-plate. It may have been written by Browne's eldest son Edward, one of the few people who really knew him well, or the author may have been Browne himself. But whether written by father or son, the fact remains that the Paracelsian word, spagyrici the name of Swiss alchemist-physician's distinctive brand of alchemy, is engraved upon Browne's coffin-plate. The word spagyrici is a typical Paracelsian neologism which is believed to derive from the fusing 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 the spiritual alchemist signified a far deeper goal - the transformation of the base matter of man to acquire spiritual gold –

Hoc locuolo dormiens, corporis spagyricci pulvere plumbum in aurum convertit

translated reads-

Sleeping here the dust of his spagyric body converts the lead to gold.

The usage of the Paracelsian word spagyrici meaning to tear apart and to bind, a polarised maxim not dissimilar to the commonplace maxim of alchemy solve et coagula is perhaps the strongest concrete evidence which refutes claims that Browne's interest in Paracelsian medicine was merely marginal.

Far from being opposed to Paracelsian medicine, all the evidence suggests, that like the German chemist Andreas Libavius (1564-1616) Browne possessed a thorough and critical knowledge of Paracelsian literature, in both its practical and mystical forms, and just like Libavius (who is approvingly alluded to by Browne in P.E.) he was a critical follower of Paracelsian medicine.

But perhaps of far the most important influence of Paracelsus upon Browne is that of the Swiss physician's usage of proper-names from mythology in order to describe the psyche and its components. Most striking of all is Paracelsus's choice of symbolic proper-names to represent the alchemical art, namely Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. A flavour of Paracelsian alchemy can be gleaned from this extract-

This process is alchemy; its founder is the smith Vulcan… And he who governs fire is Vulcan, even if he be a cook or a man who tends a stove….To release the remedy from the dross is the task of Vulcan…This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and chemist of the medicine. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and by the art of alchemy develops it into its final substance….Alchemy is a necessary, indispensable art…It is an art and Vulcan is its artist. He who is a Vulcan has mastered this art; [10]

It can hardly be coincidental that the very opening sentence of Browne’s The Garden of Cyrus depicts the Roman god Vulcan as an alchemist of the Creation.

That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology,may passe for no blinde apprehension of the Creation of the Sunne and Moon, in the work of the fourth day; When the diffused light contracted into Orbes, and shooting rayes, of those Luminaries.

The Roman god Vulcan, patron 'saint' of alchemists is named twice more in The Garden of Cyrus, crucially at the discourse's apotheosis in which Browne states his determinants for acquiring scientific certainty.

Flat and flexible truths are beat out by every hammer, but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his Armour.

Scattered, throughout both Urn-Burial  and The Garden of Cyrus there can be found observations made from two of Browne's amateur pursuits, namely archaeology and botany which add empirical depth to the  alchemical theme of the discourse's study of 'solve et coagula' or decay and growth; more importantly Browne's diptych discourses, not unlike passages of the Ur-Psychologie of Paracelsus, attempt to delineate components of the psyche. Indeed, not only does one of the very earliest usages of the word 'archetype' occur in The Garden of Cyrus but throughout the discourse highly original proper-name symbolism is employed to designate components or archetypes of the psyche.

In the twentieth century C. G. Jung held a deep interest in Paracelsus. The Swiss physician was well-aware of his earlier compatriot's importance in the history of the understanding of the psyche, an understanding which only began with a tentative recognition of the psyche itself, in writings by hermetic philosophers such as Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne. Jung's two essays on Paracelsus remain rewarding reading. Indeed, during the darkest hours of World War II in 1943 Jung calmly lectured upon Paracelsus in Zurich. Jung also shares with Browne a remarkably similar assessment of Paracelsus for while he described Paracelsus' writings as –

'long dreary stretches of utter nonsense (which) alternate with oases of inspired insight'.[11]

Browne, late in his life considered –

'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations. [12]

Today, Jung’s assessment of the relevance of Paracelsus to our own time has become equally applicable to the growing interest in Sir Thomas Browne-

Paracelsus was, perhaps most deeply of all, an alchemical "philosopher" whose religious views involved him in an unconscious conflict with the Christian beliefs of his age in a way that seems to us inextricably confused. Nevertheless, in this confusion are to be found the beginnings of philosophical, psychological, and religious problems which are taking clearer shape in our own epoch.

Notes

[1]  Manly Hall

[2] R.M. I: 36

[3] R.M.  2:35

[4] R.M. 1 :45

[5] P.E Bk 2 :3

[6] Bk 3:12

[7] Bk 3 :12

[8] 1658 edition in author's possession.

[9] 1711 Sales Catalogue

[10] Paracelsus - Selected Writings Jolande Jacobi pub. Princeton 1988

[11] C.W. 15

[12] Christian Morals  2:6

Putrefactio

C.G. Jung identified the 17th century as the era of alchemy's last and greatest flowering.  And indeed, many noble flowers from the garden of alchemy including lavishly illustrated art-works, ornate in their imagery, accompanied by extraordinary dense texts which elaborate upon 'Celestial Agriculture', germinated and bloomed during the 17th century. 

It was also during the 17th century that the slow, but decisive, fissure and schism between Science and Faith opened up; the new man-made truths in astronomy, anatomy and physics unearthed by the enquirers and advocates of the 'New Learning', embryonic scientists no less, eventually challenged and competed for dominance in intellectual supremacy over the God-given Cosmology and the eternal  truths of Christianity.

The 17th century, often described as the last great age of religious Faith and private devotion, was an era of specific interest to C.G. Jung. According to the Swiss physician in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, his many years study of alchemy were inaugurated by a dream in which he visited a large Ducal Palace situated somewhere in Northern Italy. While exploring the palace's vast chambers, he heard in his dream, its heavy doors slamming shut. Jung interpreted his portentous dream as signifying he was now 'trapped' in the 17th century, his confinement signified he believed, a long study of alchemical literature originating from the baroque century, until somehow set free.  

C.G.Jung recognised that the single profession which engaged in the art of alchemy were physicians. These alchemist-physicians, invariably of a Protestant background, many of German or English background were often cautiously sympathetic to the new 'chemical' medicine of Paracelsus. They used distinctly apt symbols closely related to their profession, notably from anatomy, optics and astronomy to discourse upon their sometimes unorthodox, and even near-heretical, spiritually-orientated studies. 

Included among the treasures of seventeenth century alchemical art are a series of illustrations rich in symbolism entitled Philosophia reformata (1622) by the German author Johann Daniel Mylius (c.1535-1642) who wrote on medicine and alchemy. Emblem 9 in Mylius's sequence of 28 illustrations is entitled Putrefactio (above). It is described thus - 'On the top of a flaming black globe stands a skeleton holding a black crow in its right hand. On each side of him there is a winged angel, both of which point to the black globe. In the heavens above, the Sun and the Moon are visible. In the lower foreground can be seen a regenerating tree stump'.

The skeleton and the skull are frequently encountered in Christian and alchemical art symbolism. They retain a vestige of their numinous content as reminders of mortality and Death.   

A belief in angels was once a vital entity of spiritual belief. Many people, educated and illiterate, throughout 17th century Europe fervently believed in both angel and witchcraft. Angel's roles include that of musician and  psychopomp, most often they are depicted as celestial messengers. 

The Rotundum is a symbol frequently encountered in alchemical imagery, as are the crowded perches and aviaries associated with bird symbolism in alchemy; a feathered assembly of swans, ostriches, doves, eagles, vultures and pelicans flock the pages of alchemical art. The blackbird, crow and raven are each associated with the Nigredeo stage as is the operation of Putrefactio, along with the variant stages of Mortificato and Calcinato.

Whether Thomas Browne as a young medical student studying abroad circa 1627-1630 ever perused the books of the German alchemist-physician J.D. Mylius isn't known, nor is there any recorded evidence of J.D. Mylius's books being listed in the 1711 Sales Auction catalogue of Browne's library. However, several decades after completing his three years medical study on mainland Europe, Browne made what is credited as his single scientific discovery. Its a discovery utterly characteristic of his era, when human life was often precarious and short for many from the ravages of Civil War, plague and disease and utterly compatible to the dark Nigredo contemplations of Urn-Burial.

Browne augments his solemn funerary threnody adding to the heaped pyre of images and symbols, a short, but detailed description of his medico-scientific discovery. His observation on the effects of Putreficato and the formation of the waxy substance which coagulates upon body fat, known as adipocere, can be found in chapter 3 of Urn-Burial, a work which has been described as 'reeking of the Grave'.

  

In a Hydropicall body ten years buried in a Church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the Earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat, into the consistence of the hardest castile-soap: wherof part remaineth with us.

More than one scientific observation can be found in Urn-Burial along with several archaeological hypotheses, there is even a far-sighted prediction of future forensic science  in the proposal that - 'Physiognomy outlives our lives, and ends not in our graves.'

Upon more than one occasion the Norwich-based early scientist concludes his observations with the remark, 'whereof part remaineth with us'!