How to know Everything

Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minores metaphysica, physica atque technica historia. Oppenheim: Hieronymus Galler for Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617. Fol.

Encyclopaedic work by Robert Fludd (1574-1637), English Paracelsian physician and Rosicrucian apologist. Starting with the Macrocosmos, Fludd’s mega project discusses all known sciences, independent of Christian theology. In all, seven folio volumes appeared, with many engravings by De Bry and Mattheus Merian. Two of them are highlighted here:

- The black quadrangle that was, or was not, before the Creation (and before Malevich): unformed matter without dimensions or quantity, but extending from infinity to infinity;

- The temple of music was probably intended as a mnemotechnic device to memorize music theory. Below is the famous scene of Pythagoras entering the forge where he noticed the consonant pitches produced by four hammers.