Re: VMs: Serafini et Ely...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 07:55 21/05/2003 -0700, Bruce Grant wrote:
> On the other hand, it also seems reasonable that it is merely a  "prop",
> designed to represent a volume of secret knowledge, but not actually 
> meaningful
> at all.

If I was making the VMS as a prop (or a hoax), I think I'd have 
concentrated my efforts on making something a bit flashier, and perhaps 
connecting to an external mythology or tradition to give it gravitas 
(Solomon, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, etc) [which I guess Bourdieu 
would call "symbolic capital"], plus (of course) alchemy and nigromancy, 
those burning (at-the-stake) issues of the day. :-o

By contrast, the illustrations seem mostly to refer to ideas contemporary 
to 15th Century Northern Italy (herbals, recipes, medicinal baths, etc). 
IMO, it's all a bit "workaday" AFA secret knowledge goes - just a single 
magic circle in the VMS? Not *that* impressive.

However, I do have a caveat: the abstract to Margaret Garber's "Alchemical 
Dissertation" dissertation on Marci (that Rafal mentioned) does mentions 
Marci's theory of seminal forces:-

        In Chapter II, I explore Marci's controversial matter theory in
        which he redefined ontological interactions between matter
        and "substantial form" by supplanting neoaristotelian
        substantial forms with his theory of *seminal forces*.

There's also a differently-pitched abstract (for the same thesis) here:-

        http://depts.washington.edu/hssexec/annual/abstractsp3.html

        He ambitiously proposed semina-carrying light as the
        explanatory mechanism for growth and transformation in
        metals, plants, animals and humans, and one that
        initiated and provoked rays carrying astrological influxes.

The man/plant/bird seed picture on f86v (at the back of Quire 14) seems to 
be vaguely aligned with this kind of mindset, which Marci seems to have 
tried so hard to popularise. If I was Marci, I'd have left the VMS open at 
that page, pondering the connection - perhaps the over-writing (or ink 
smudge?) on that same page is Marci's?

Of course, a further alternative is that it was all hoaxed by Marci - but 
again, he was interested in tracing his ideas back to the Egyptians (and 
beyond), so would seem a little bit reference-free for that. :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list