1. THE ETERNAL HERMES From Greek God to Alchemical Magus With thirty-nine plates Antoine Faivre Translated by Joscelyn Godwin PHANES PRESS 1995

2. 1995 by Antoine Faivre. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, with the exception of short excerpts used in reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher. Book and cover design by David Fideler. Phanes Press publishes many fine books on the philosophical, spiritual, and cosmological traditions of the Western world. To receive a complete catalogue, please write: Phanes Press, PO Box 6114, Grand Rapids, MI 49516, USA. Library 01 Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Faivre, Antoine, 1934- The eternal Hermes: from Greek god to alchemical magus / Antoine Faivre; translated by Joscelyn Godwin p. cm. Articles originally in French, published separately. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-933999-53-4 (alk. paper)- ISBN 0-933999-52-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Hennes (Greek deity) 2. Hermes, Trismegistus. 3. Hermetism- History. 4. Alchemy-History. I. Title BL920.M5F35 1995 135'.4-

3. Contents Preface .................................................................................11 Chapter One Hermes in the Western Imagination ................................. 13 Introduction: The Greek Hermes ....................................................... 13 The Thrice-Greatest ............................................................................ 15 The Arabic Idris and the Alchemical Mercury .................................. 18 The Metamorphoses of Hermes in the High Middle Ages ................ 21 At the Dawn of the Renaissance ........................................................25 Hermes and the New Spirit of Humanism ........................................30 Geoffroy Tory and Fran t. " THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS " 147 'r ',.. Plate 6. Maso Finiguerra or Bacchio Baldini, A Florentine Picture Chronicle, being a series of ninety-nine drawings representing scenes and personages of ancient history, sacred and profane. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1898. Middle of the 15th century.

142. 148 THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS Plate 7. Inlaid floor panelfrom Siena Cathedral, 1488, by Giovanni di Maestro Stephano.

143. THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS 149 Plate 8. From a manuscript astrolabe, attributed to the Barnabite Fathers, second half of the 16th century. Milan, Ambrosiana.

144. ISO THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS , 4, " , " , I Plate 9. Francisco de Holanda, De aetatibus mundi imagines, between 1545 and 1573 (National Library of Madrid, BArtes 14-26). Medallion placed beneath the "Death of Moses," fol. 26'/LII/45.

145. TIm FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS 151 Plate 10. De chemia senioris antiquissimi philosophi, libellus, ut brevis, ita artem discentibus, et exercentibus, utilissimus et vere aureus, nunc primum in lucem aeditus. Ab artis fideli filio, dixit Senior Zadith Filius Hamuel. No place, no date; circa 1560. See also Plates 5 and 11.

146. 152 THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS plate 11. Extract from an alchemical manuscript containing vari- ous watercolors, Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Ms. 16752), between 1577 and 1583. See also Plates 5 and 10.

147. THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS 153 Plate 12A and 12B. Painting on a column of the Salone Sistine (Vatican Library). The series of column-paintings in that room is attributed to Luca Horfei (1587) and represents the "inventors" of scripts and alphabets. Here, Mercurius Thoth is the inventor of the Egyptian ("Mercurius Thoyt Aegyptiis sacras litteras conscripsit"). Above Hermes, an Egyptian alphabet. Professor Frans A. Janssen kindly called my attention to this document.

148. 154 THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS Plate 13.Jean-Jacques Boissard, De divinatione etmagicispraestigiis, Oppenheim, no date (circa 16161. Engraving by Johann Theodor de Bry, the illustrator of Robert Fludd and Michael Maier.

149. THE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS HERMES TRISMEGlSTV. ., ",h, '!'~ iP'ff , . un ., ISS Plate 14. Giovambatista Birelli, Opere, vol. I: Nel qual si tratta dell'Alchimia . .. Can la vita d'Ermete, Florence, 1601, p.5Sl. By permission of the British Library.

150. 156 THE FACES OF HERMES TRlSMEGISTUS .fLCHTMU jANDRE . AVII,RECOGNI I TA. EMNDATA , ET "'IlIa.,IU. dogrn,riDIllIc nttl'illltIlIUJlO.. bPItiS) '1'YM COMMfN1'.I6./O .....ft]!-c.,.... Q..Tl F.XOllNATVS EST y~ . .w 1..nn..

151. TIlE FACES OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS tcHH1t