Every created thing, Jacob Böhme taught, carries its signature: an outward mark of the inward essence, stamped on herbs, stones, metals, and men. If you learn to read the marks then nature becomes a book. De Signatura Rerum, written in February 1622, two years before his death, is Böhme’s grammar for that reading. It is the most alchemical book he ever wrote. The title page says so plainly: here the Stone of the Wise, the temporal cure, is introduced alongside the holiest cornerstone of Wisdom, Christ, the eternal cure. Paracelsus supplied the doctrine of signatures; Böhme turned it into his particular theology. When later writers speak of the signature of all things, from the alchemists down to the novelists, this book is one of the primary sources of that idea.
The frontispiece is one of the great plates of the 1730 edition. A cross inscribed SIGNATURA RERUM stands in glory over the divine name in Hebrew, and beneath them turns the sphere of nature, quartered like a dial and rimmed with the signs of the zodiac and the planets, small suns of flame at its corners; the whole rests on a dark cube above a walled sanctuary with fire on its altar. Heaven at the top, the working world below, and the wheel of nature between them.
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. This is the Signatura Rerum volume of that edition: 244 pages in Fraktur with Gichtel’s chapter-summaries, all sixteen chapters, the frontispiece its only plate. And the last page contains the following final sentence: “For a lily blooms over mountain and valley, in all the ends of the earth: whoever seeks, finds. Amen.” Then ENDE, and a printer’s flourish.
The volume comes from a run of five treatises of the 1730 edition uniformly bound, at a later date, in dark half morocco over marbled boards, the spines gilt in the late-Baroque manner with red and tan lettering-pieces. Each of the five carries a circular engraved ex libris signed by Karl Heinrich Grünler (1761–1823), a Leipzig engraver of the book trade. This copy is clean throughout, with an old repair to the leaf carrying the frontispiece; the binding is firm and handsome.
A note for collectors. This volume is one of five from a uniformly bound run of the 1730 edition, each offered separately: the Aurora, the Mysterium Magnum, De Signatura Rerum, De Tribus Principiis, and the Psychologia Vera (Forty Questions of the Soul, bound with De Incarnatione Verbi). Take 10% off any two volumes, 15% off any three or four, and 20% off the complete run of five. The discounts apply to whichever volumes remain available, and the chance to assemble the complete uniform run lasts only until the first volume finds a home.
Provenance: Circular engraved pictorial ex libris etched by Karl Heinrich Grünler (1761–1823, Leipzig engraver, pupil of Geyser), signed “Grünler fec.”, in each volume of the run.
De Signatura Rerum, oder Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen. From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition of Böhme’s works, 1730. One of five uniformly bound volumes of the edition, offered separately; see the note for collectors above.
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 frontispiece (the Signatura Rerum plate, printed on the verso of its leaf, facing the title); title dated 1730; 244 pp., sixteen chapters, terminal ENDE with a calligraphic knot ornament. Fraktur type, Gichtel’s chapter-summaries throughout. The frontispiece is the volume’s only plate.
Binding: Later dark half morocco over marbled paper boards, leather corners; spine with five raised bands, gilt-tooled in the late-Baroque manner, red and tan lettering-pieces. One of five volumes uniformly bound.
Condition: Clean and solid throughout, without annotations. Paper lightly browned as usual with this stock; old repair to the frontispiece leaf. Binding firm.
Every created thing, Jacob Böhme taught, carries its signature: an outward mark of the inward essence, stamped on herbs, stones, metals, and men. If you learn to read the marks then nature becomes a book. De Signatura Rerum, written in February 1622, two years before his death, is Böhme’s grammar for that reading. It is the most alchemical book he ever wrote. The title page says so plainly: here the Stone of the Wise, the temporal cure, is introduced alongside the holiest cornerstone of Wisdom, Christ, the eternal cure. Paracelsus supplied the doctrine of signatures; Böhme turned it into his particular theology. When later writers speak of the signature of all things, from the alchemists down to the novelists, this book is one of the primary sources of that idea.
The frontispiece is one of the great plates of the 1730 edition. A cross inscribed SIGNATURA RERUM stands in glory over the divine name in Hebrew, and beneath them turns the sphere of nature, quartered like a dial and rimmed with the signs of the zodiac and the planets, small suns of flame at its corners; the whole rests on a dark cube above a walled sanctuary with fire on its altar. Heaven at the top, the working world below, and the wheel of nature between them.
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. This is the Signatura Rerum volume of that edition: 244 pages in Fraktur with Gichtel’s chapter-summaries, all sixteen chapters, the frontispiece its only plate. And the last page contains the following final sentence: “For a lily blooms over mountain and valley, in all the ends of the earth: whoever seeks, finds. Amen.” Then ENDE, and a printer’s flourish.
The volume comes from a run of five treatises of the 1730 edition uniformly bound, at a later date, in dark half morocco over marbled boards, the spines gilt in the late-Baroque manner with red and tan lettering-pieces. Each of the five carries a circular engraved ex libris signed by Karl Heinrich Grünler (1761–1823), a Leipzig engraver of the book trade. This copy is clean throughout, with an old repair to the leaf carrying the frontispiece; the binding is firm and handsome.
A note for collectors. This volume is one of five from a uniformly bound run of the 1730 edition, each offered separately: the Aurora, the Mysterium Magnum, De Signatura Rerum, De Tribus Principiis, and the Psychologia Vera (Forty Questions of the Soul, bound with De Incarnatione Verbi). Take 10% off any two volumes, 15% off any three or four, and 20% off the complete run of five. The discounts apply to whichever volumes remain available, and the chance to assemble the complete uniform run lasts only until the first volume finds a home.
Provenance: Circular engraved pictorial ex libris etched by Karl Heinrich Grünler (1761–1823, Leipzig engraver, pupil of Geyser), signed “Grünler fec.”, in each volume of the run.
De Signatura Rerum, oder Von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen. From the Theosophia Revelata, the collected edition of Böhme’s works, 1730. One of five uniformly bound volumes of the edition, offered separately; see the note for collectors above.
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 frontispiece (the Signatura Rerum plate, printed on the verso of its leaf, facing the title); title dated 1730; 244 pp., sixteen chapters, terminal ENDE with a calligraphic knot ornament. Fraktur type, Gichtel’s chapter-summaries throughout. The frontispiece is the volume’s only plate.
Binding: Later dark half morocco over marbled paper boards, leather corners; spine with five raised bands, gilt-tooled in the late-Baroque manner, red and tan lettering-pieces. One of five volumes uniformly bound.
Condition: Clean and solid throughout, without annotations. Paper lightly browned as usual with this stock; old repair to the frontispiece leaf. Binding firm.
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