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Some Notes On De Vita Coelitus Comparanda
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The genesis of this essay was some correspondence from a reader of my translation of Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis who enquired about the Latin text of the two illustrations from a manuscript of De Vita Coelitus Comparanda that I included. In response, I translated the relevant passages, in the process discovering some interesting connections to the Corpus Hermeticum, alchemy, and the Art (Latin Ars) of μαγικός as understood by Pliny the Elder, Ovid, and Tacitus, with Pliny in Book XXX, iii relating that Homer’s Odyssey is based upon that Art and recounts a legend that Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato, all journeyed abroad to learn that Art.
Image Credit:
Galaxy UGC 12591. NASA, ESA, Hubble Space telescope.
David Myatt 