Tried and tested: the appreciation of hermetic and alchemical manuscripts from the 15th to the 20th century

The 'Philosophical Hand' accompanying Isaac Hollandus' Hand of the Philosophers (17th-century manuscript, England) is an appropriate emblem for the exhibition, which presents alchemical and hermetic works in many hands (and in various languages) from the 15th to the 20th century. Some 90 manuscripts offer a kaleidoscope of hermetic and alchemical works by or attributed to amongst others Hermes, Geber, Lullius and Paracelsus, showing how these authors and their works were read, copied, annotated and passed on by an appreciative circle of scribes. The final part of the exhibition is devoted to the English occultist A.E. Waite and his circle, who in the first half of the twentieth century copied and edited the works featured in the exhibition with an enthusiasm equal to that of their peers in earlier times, proving the vitality of the manuscript tradition. One of the works republished by Waite was the Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers, a compendium first published in 1815, which is a veritable roll-call of authors belonging to the hermetic tradition. A considerable number of these is represented in the exhibition.