![\"monas1.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/monas1.jpg\")
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I swear I didn’t go hunting for this. Among the various library collections at the Internet Archive one can find The Getty Alchemy Collection<\/a>, a substantial gathering of very old alchemical texts scanned in a variety of formats. John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica<\/em><\/a> caught my eye during a random search, a third edition of his treatise from 1564 in which he describes his Monas Hieroglyphica, a glyph designed to combine symbols of the Sun, the Moon, the Elements and Fire in a single figure.<\/p>\n The glyph also intentionally resembles a human form, and Dee relates its individual parts to various astrological and chemical symbols. I’ve mentioned before<\/a> that Dee scholar Derek Jarman deliberately based Prospero on John Dee in his 1979 film of The Tempest<\/em>, giving the magus a scrying wand shaped to resemble the Monas Hieroglyphica.<\/p>\n I produced my own variations on the glyph in 2009 when working on the cover of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, Finch<\/em><\/a>. The symbol recurs in Jeff’s fictional city of Ambergris and I seem to recall there being some discussion about including this doorway design somewhere in the book. In the end it was incorporated into the cover design in a rather subtle fashion. I think this is the first time the design alone has appeared in public.<\/p>\n The Internet Archive has a few other Dee-related items, including Lists of manuscripts formerly owned by Dr. John Dee; with preface and identifications<\/em><\/a> (1921), a 500-page book by antiquarian and ghost story writer MR James.<\/p>\n Previously on { feuilleton } I swear I didn’t go hunting for this. Among the various library collections at the Internet Archive one can find The Getty Alchemy Collection, a substantial gathering of very old alchemical texts scanned in a variety of formats. John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica caught my eye during a random search, a third edition of his treatise … Continue reading “John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,4,21,7,16,23],"tags":[559,511,142,766,2414,773],"class_list":["post-9738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-design","category-fantasy","category-film","category-occult","category-work","tag-alchemy","tag-derek-jarman","tag-jeff-vandermeer","tag-john-dee","tag-laurie-lipton","tag-mr-james"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2x4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"monas2.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/monas2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"monas3.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/monas3.jpg\")
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\n\u2022 Mister Jarman, Mister Moore and Doctor Dee<\/a>
\n\u2022 Alchemically Yours<\/a>
\n\u2022 Laurie Lipton\u2019s Splendor Solis<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Arms of the Art<\/a>
\n\u2022 Splendor Solis<\/a>
\n\u2022 Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Tempest illustrated<\/a>
\n\u2022 Cabala, Speculum Artis Et Naturae In Alchymia<\/a>
\n\u2022 Digital alchemy<\/a>
\n\u2022 Designs on Doctor Dee<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"