ALCHEMIC SYMBOLISM

«This splendid medal in alchemic gold was coined in 1609 in order to test the success of an Adept.»

In Les Clefs Sècretes De La Chimie Des Anciens, Fabrice Bardeau, First Image, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1975. Coll. part. ph. Suark International.

In the centre of the medal we can see a complex triple symbol composed by three different symbols.

The lower is the spagyrical symbol of the earth or is the subject mineral of the dry way, and the amalgam way that Flamel designates by Saturnie and Basil Valentine by gray Wolf.

The following symbol is of the salt and, upward, a circle with three small spheres in centre, which could mean the gold or sun.

Further, and in the upper part, we can see two curved arms with two blazing heads, which symbolize the alive fire or are the common fire.

On the middle of these two curved arms, we see a figure that resembles the Phoenix and on top of it the spagyrical orpiment symbol.

On the middle level of the triple symbol, on the right side, we see a masculine image seizing in the left hand a sceptre and in the right hand the philosophical sulphur spagyric symbol.

On the left side we sees other masculine image but with feminine dress seizing in the left hand the philosophical mercury symbol.

On the medal underneath date 1609, the spagyric vitriol symbol.

We try to know by the association of these symbols, what would have been the alchemic way done by this artist who made the Philosophical Stone which transmutes the vile metal in gold, out of which medal was coined.

Inside of our modest knowledge we didn't achieve it. Perhaps, this artist just wanted to show us symbolically, that an alchemic work, so much can be done by the vitriol, as described by Basil Valentine in the Testament or Last Will and Testament, by Saturnie, with the salt, by the sun and mercury also symbolized by the two curved arms of the triple symbol, as described by Philalethes in An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of King, in Marrow of the Alchemy and by Flamel in the Brèviére or Testament.

The Phoenix symbolically also represents the philosophical sulphur. With relationship to the symbol of orpiment symbol we didn't know its alchemic meaning in this medal.

Perhaps some of you have better interpretation have about the symbology represented in this magnificent medal, as we have.