Alchemy and the Hermetic writings in their prints: the chemists’ signs, Maier’s emblems and fugues, the Emerald Tablet’s versions, the Chymical Wedding’s riddles, Dee’s monad, Agrippa’s squares and sigils.
Atalanta Fugiens
Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (Oppenheim, 1618): the fifty plates of the Wellcome copy; each motto and epigram in the Latin and German of the print and the English of Yale’s Mellon MS 48; every fugue transcribed note by note, played, and tried against Maier’s rule that the following voice moves as the fleeing one does, his misprints mended by his own errata or by that rule.
About this tool
History
Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens was printed at Oppenheim by Hieronymus Galler for Johann Theodor de Bry, its title dated 1617 in some copies and 1618 in others, the same setting of type. Its title promises emblems for the eyes and the mind and “plus minus 50 Fugis Musicalibus trium Vocum” for the ears: each emblem a copperplate, a motto, an epigram in Latin with a German version, and a canon in two voices over a third. In a closing Monitio Maier owns that many notes were set wrong in his absence, lists the errata of fugues 2 to 30, and leaves the rest to the reader by his rule that the voices must move alike.
How it works
Each emblem shows its plate from the Wellcome copy beside its motto and epigram, in the Latin and German of the print or the English of Yale’s Mellon MS 48. Its fugue is drawn in modern clefs, the print’s values kept, and played voice by voice. Maier’s rule is tried by time: from their first notes the following voice must keep the leading one’s values and steps at one interval, the heading’s give or take octaves. Misprints are shown as printed or mended, each with the Monitio’s words or the canon’s evidence.
How it was checked
Every word and note was read from Brown University’s copy of 1618, most unclear places again in Berlin’s of 1617. The tests confirm the pages of all fifty emblems, six lines of every epigram in three languages, the plates pinned by their SHA-1, and every misprint at the note it names. In the 44 forward canons, 1,833 of 1,861 notes and rests keep Maier’s rule once 73 misprints are mended, 26 of them by his own errata; five fugues print another interval than their heading names. The apple sings one melody in 42 of the 50. A second reader checked 510 notes against the scans and found two errors, both where a staff ends; every staff’s end was then read again, and 19 more were mended.
Limits
The print’s C clefs are shown as treble or bass clefs; the sound is the browser’s, in equal temperament. The first couplet the voices sing is not set under the notes, and the fifty discourses that follow the emblems are not transcribed. Doubtful readings are kept with each emblem’s data. Where Maier names no erratum, a mending rests on the canon alone.