Everything in the world, Böhme taught, carries the signature of what it is: the outward form is the mark of the inward essence, and whoever learns to read the marks can read creation like a book. De Signatura Rerum, written in February 1622, two years before his death, is his grammar of that reading. The title page promises more than natural philosophy. Along the way, it says, the Stone of the Wise is introduced, in the manner of a likeness, for the temporal cure of the body, together with the most holy Cornerstone of Wisdom, Christ, for the eternal cure of the new birth. Two stones, two cures, one operation at two scales. The alchemists never let go of this book.
The plate, numbered XIV. in the edition's suite, faces the title: a great spoked wheel ringed with the zodiac and stars, a comet streaming past, a dark cube holding the crescent moon, towers at the wheel's edge, and the book's name hung on a placard from a cross. Sixteen chapters follow, on the birth of the elements and metals, the sulfurous death, the great Mystery of all beings, and the wonders of the philosophic work, 244 pages in all. The last of them ends on the sentence Böhme's followers took for a prophecy: "For a lily blooms over mountain and valley, in all the ends of the earth: whoever seeks, finds. Amen." Then ENDE, and the printer's knot.
The text appears here in the celebrated edition of 1730, the Theosophia Revelata, a revised collected edition of Böhme's works, assembled from the editorial apparatus of Johann Georg Gichtel and carried through the press by his disciple Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld. The binding is the original one: stiff paper boards covered in red-daubed paste-paper, the spine titled in ink in an eighteenth-century hand between ruled bands. The spine has taken considerable wear: the ink title is partly rubbed away, and the paper is chipped at the ends. Inside, the copy is clean, without annotations, the plate fresh.
Provenance: None recorded beyond the binding itself.
De Signatura Rerum, oder Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen. From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition of Böhme's works, 1730, with the emblematic plate. In original stiff paper boards, entirely unsophisticated.
BÖHME, Jacob (1575–1624). De Signatura Rerum, oder Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen (written February 1622). From the Theosophia Revelata, the revised collected edition, ed. Johann Georg Gichtel, seen through the press by Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld. No place or printer: "Gedruckt im Jahr des ausgebornen grossen Heils," 1730.
Physical Description: Small 8vo. Engraved emblematic plate numbered XIV. ("Signatura Rerum") facing the special title, dated 1730 ("Im Jahr 1622. im Febr."); Verzeichniß der Capitel with woodcut foliate headpiece; author's preface and text paginated 1–244, sixteen chapters, terminal ENDE with calligraphic knot ornament. No blanks present. Fraktur type, Gichtel's chapter-summaries throughout.
Binding: Original stiff paper boards covered in red-patterned paste-paper, spine with manuscript ink title between ruled bands; an untouched, unsophisticated period state. Spine ends chipped with small losses to the covering paper, ink title partly abraded, joints and edges worn.
Condition: An old crease to the special title; paper toned and foxed as usual with this stock. Clean of annotations; the plate fresh. Preserved in its original boards.
Everything in the world, Böhme taught, carries the signature of what it is: the outward form is the mark of the inward essence, and whoever learns to read the marks can read creation like a book. De Signatura Rerum, written in February 1622, two years before his death, is his grammar of that reading. The title page promises more than natural philosophy. Along the way, it says, the Stone of the Wise is introduced, in the manner of a likeness, for the temporal cure of the body, together with the most holy Cornerstone of Wisdom, Christ, for the eternal cure of the new birth. Two stones, two cures, one operation at two scales. The alchemists never let go of this book.
The plate, numbered XIV. in the edition's suite, faces the title: a great spoked wheel ringed with the zodiac and stars, a comet streaming past, a dark cube holding the crescent moon, towers at the wheel's edge, and the book's name hung on a placard from a cross. Sixteen chapters follow, on the birth of the elements and metals, the sulfurous death, the great Mystery of all beings, and the wonders of the philosophic work, 244 pages in all. The last of them ends on the sentence Böhme's followers took for a prophecy: "For a lily blooms over mountain and valley, in all the ends of the earth: whoever seeks, finds. Amen." Then ENDE, and the printer's knot.
The text appears here in the celebrated edition of 1730, the Theosophia Revelata, a revised collected edition of Böhme's works, assembled from the editorial apparatus of Johann Georg Gichtel and carried through the press by his disciple Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld. The binding is the original one: stiff paper boards covered in red-daubed paste-paper, the spine titled in ink in an eighteenth-century hand between ruled bands. The spine has taken considerable wear: the ink title is partly rubbed away, and the paper is chipped at the ends. Inside, the copy is clean, without annotations, the plate fresh.
Provenance: None recorded beyond the binding itself.
De Signatura Rerum, oder Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen. From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition of Böhme's works, 1730, with the emblematic plate. In original stiff paper boards, entirely unsophisticated.
BÖHME, Jacob (1575–1624). De Signatura Rerum, oder Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen (written February 1622). From the Theosophia Revelata, the revised collected edition, ed. Johann Georg Gichtel, seen through the press by Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld. No place or printer: "Gedruckt im Jahr des ausgebornen grossen Heils," 1730.
Physical Description: Small 8vo. Engraved emblematic plate numbered XIV. ("Signatura Rerum") facing the special title, dated 1730 ("Im Jahr 1622. im Febr."); Verzeichniß der Capitel with woodcut foliate headpiece; author's preface and text paginated 1–244, sixteen chapters, terminal ENDE with calligraphic knot ornament. No blanks present. Fraktur type, Gichtel's chapter-summaries throughout.
Binding: Original stiff paper boards covered in red-patterned paste-paper, spine with manuscript ink title between ruled bands; an untouched, unsophisticated period state. Spine ends chipped with small losses to the covering paper, ink title partly abraded, joints and edges worn.
Condition: An old crease to the special title; paper toned and foxed as usual with this stock. Clean of annotations; the plate fresh. Preserved in its original boards.
