Details
FREEMASONRY -- SCHOTT, Gaspar (1608-1666). Kabalisticheskiia chudesa ili Evreiskaia Kababa. [Kabbalistic Wonders or the Hebrew Kabbala]. Translated from the Latin. S.p.: 1805.
Manuscript on paper, 8° (202 x 120mm), [xii]+190+[vi] pages, 6 pen-and-ink plates, 4 folding, of medals and the Hebrew alphabet etc. Contemporary Russian half calf, 4 gilt rosettes and lettering piece between bands on spine (slightly rubbed). Provenance: 'A R' (Cyrillic initials to spine-foot).
AN EARLY 19TH-CENTURY KABBALISTIC MANUSCRIPT. An apparently unpublished translation into Russian of book XII of Gaspar Schott's Technica Curiosa, sive Mirabilia Artis. There were two main trends in Russian Freemasonry of this period: rational and mystical, with the Kabbalah certainly featuring in the second. Published in Latin only in 1664 and again in 1687, this work would have been distinctly uncommon in Russia -- and a manuscript translation highly desirable -- in the wake of Catherine II's edict of 1787 which suppressed all books of a religious nature not published by the Church. Schott was a student of Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit mathematician and scientist who devoted a good portion of his career to receiving and disseminating scientific knowledge communicated by Jesuit scientists all over the world. Schott travelled to Rome where for three years (1652-55) he worked as Kircher's assistant. It was there that Schott began to organize for publication all the information communicated to himself and Kircher, an undertaking that produced eleven thick and profusely illustrated texts before Schott's death in 1666.
Manuscript on paper, 8° (202 x 120mm), [xii]+190+[vi] pages, 6 pen-and-ink plates, 4 folding, of medals and the Hebrew alphabet etc. Contemporary Russian half calf, 4 gilt rosettes and lettering piece between bands on spine (slightly rubbed). Provenance: 'A R' (Cyrillic initials to spine-foot).
AN EARLY 19TH-CENTURY KABBALISTIC MANUSCRIPT. An apparently unpublished translation into Russian of book XII of Gaspar Schott's Technica Curiosa, sive Mirabilia Artis. There were two main trends in Russian Freemasonry of this period: rational and mystical, with the Kabbalah certainly featuring in the second. Published in Latin only in 1664 and again in 1687, this work would have been distinctly uncommon in Russia -- and a manuscript translation highly desirable -- in the wake of Catherine II's edict of 1787 which suppressed all books of a religious nature not published by the Church. Schott was a student of Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit mathematician and scientist who devoted a good portion of his career to receiving and disseminating scientific knowledge communicated by Jesuit scientists all over the world. Schott travelled to Rome where for three years (1652-55) he worked as Kircher's assistant. It was there that Schott began to organize for publication all the information communicated to himself and Kircher, an undertaking that produced eleven thick and profusely illustrated texts before Schott's death in 1666.
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