Notes on the transcriptions
Heinrich Khunrath. Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae. [Hamburg: s.n., 1595].
Concerning the engraved texts surrounding the images of the alchemist's laboratory;
the hermaphrodite; the four, the three,
the two, the one; and the cosmic rose:
Corrections
Outright spelling errors in the engraved text have been corrected.
The typesetter of the 1653 edition also corrected most of these, while committing others.
Corrections are noted only in a few instances.
Regularization of forms
Forms are regularized to those standard in classical Latin.
Changes include, but are not limited to:
- e to ae, as in from celum to caelum and cognates of
caelum
- ae to e, as in interpraetum to interpretum
- separation of pronouns compounded with met and their intensifiers, such as semetipso to semet ipso
- capitalizations have been limited to names, titles, and certain significant nouns, such as Deus and Lapis Philosophorum
- variations of spelling standardized, such as obedientia and oboedientia to oboedientia
Transliterations
Greek and Hebrew text has been transliterated into the Roman alphabet.
In all cases, these transliterations have been italicized.
Where the original text transliterates these words, they are not italicized.
Omega has been rendered as ô; eta, as ê.
Accents and iota-subscripts have not been included.
Transcription of V and U
In all transcribed Latin words majuscule V's and U's are transcribed as
V in this text (non-Latin words retain minuscule v's).
All minuscule V's and U's are transcribed as u.
In these engravings no orthographic distinction is made between the consonant
v and the vowel u.
A distinction is made, however, depending on the position of the character:
in majuscule script, the V is employed only before consonants;
in minuscule script, the u is employed only before consonants.
In both minuscule and majuscule a form we may call cursive-v is employed before vowels.
Apart from size, the character is identical in both minuscule and majuscule script.
The cursive-v looks enough like both u and U to cause confusion.
There are, of course, exceptions.
In the engraving of the alchemist’s laboratory, CVI appears on the tent instead of the expected CUI.
-- Robert A. Nelsen
