Splendor Solis

Splendor Solis ("The Splendour of the Sun") is a version dated around 1582 of the well-known, beautifully illuminated alchemical text attributed to Salomon Trismosin.

This article is about the alchemical work. For the sound album, see Splendor Solis (album).
The peacock in a crowned flask associated with Venus

The earliest version, written in Central German, is dated 1532–1535 and is housed at the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin at the State Museums in Berlin. It is illuminated on vellum, with decorative borders like a book of hours, beautifully painted and heightened with gold. The later copies in London, Kassel, Paris and Nuremberg are equally fine. In all twenty versions exist worldwide.

The original of Splendor Solis which contained seven chapters appeared in Augsburg. In miniatures the works of Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein and Lucas Cranach were used. The author of the manuscript was considered to be the legendary Salomon Trismosin, allegedly the teacher of Paracelsus though the name is thought to be a pseudonym. The work itself consists of a sequence of 22 elaborate images, set in ornamental borders and niches. The symbolic process shows the classical alchemical death and rebirth of the king, and incorporates a series of seven flasks, each associated with one of the planets. Within the flasks a process is shown involving the transformation of bird and animal symbols into the Queen and King, the white and the red tincture. Although the style of the Splendor Solis illuminations suggest an earlier date, they are quite clearly of the 16th century.

  • Philosopher with a flask
  • The solar king and lunar queen meet
  • Miners excavating a hill
  • Philosophers beside a tree
  • The drowning king
  • Resurrection out of the swamp
  • Hermaphrodite with an egg
  • Severing the head of the king
  • Saturn dragon and child
  • Dark sun
  • Women washing clothes
  • Sun rising over the city
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References
    • Splendor Solis at The Alchemy Website, retrieved 2009-01-11
    • Splendor Solis at Rosicrucian Site (incl. text), archived from the original on 2011-07-27, retrieved 2010-08-11CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
    • High Resolution of illumination images from Splendor Solis at the bordel.haghn Site, retrieved 2014-05-04
    • Images from Splendor Solis at occultusthesaurus.com, archived from the original on 2016-11-13, retrieved 2016-11-11
    • Splendor solis cards (all 22 cards) for free download in print quality, retrieved 2020-02-17


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