Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileFrontispiece to Mundus Subterraneus, Volume II
Kircher Mundus Subterraneus volume II cover
About This Work
This engraving features a central female figure seated at a desk, writing in a book that contains geometric illustrations. To her right, a young man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and holding a winged caduceus (representing Hermes/Mercury) leans over her shoulder, while a winged putto to the left holds a framed portrait of a man with long hair. In the background stands a statue of Artemis of Ephesus, recognizable by her cylindrical base adorned with animal reliefs and her characteristic multi-breasted chest. Through an archway in the background, figures are seen laboring in a rocky, subterranean cave, contrasting the scholarly activity in the foreground with the physical extraction of natural resources.
The image serves as the frontispiece for Athanasius Kircher’s 'Mundus Subterraneus', a seminal Baroque encyclopedic work on geology, biology, and natural history that attempts to reconcile empirical observation with Hermetic and Neoplatonic traditions.
Inscriptions(Latin, Greek)
ATHANASII KIRCHERI E SOC. IESU MUNDI SUBTERRANEI TOMUS IIus IN V. LIBROS DIGESTUS QUIBUS Mundi Subterranei fructus exponuntur, et quidquid tandem rarum, insolitum, et portentosum in foecundo Naturae utero continetur, ante oculos ponitur curiosi Lectoris. Orpheus Οὐ νάεις κατὰ πάντα μέρη κόσμοιο γενάρχα Οὐ δαπανᾶς μεν ἅπαντα, καὶ αὔξεις ἔμπαλιν αὐτές Omnes qui partes habitas, mundique Genarcha Absumis quae cuncta eadem, quae rursus adauges. C. vande Pas delineavit. Siourtsma Sculpsit AMSTELODAMI, Apud Joannem Janssonium et Elizaeum Weyerstraten. 1664.
Translation
Athanasius Kircher of the Society of Jesus, Mundus Subterraneus, Volume II. Digested into five books in which the fruits of the subterranean world are explained, and whatever rare, unusual, and portentous things are contained within the fecund womb of Nature are placed before the eyes of the curious reader. (Greek/Latin Orphic Hymn fragments: 'You inhabit all parts of the world, O Creator/Generator... You consume all things and conversely you increase them... You who inhabit all parts of the world, and are the Genarch of the world, you consume all these same things, and again you increase them.')
Connected Texts
Athanasius Kircher
Author of the text for which this engraving served as the frontispiece.