Tuesday 6 February 2018

Planetary Characters of Bartolomeus Cocles

Thanks to the dilligent work of Joseph Peterson, we were made aware of the planetary characters used by Bartolomeus Cocles in his Chyromantie ac phisionomie anastasis the most likely source of Agrippa s characters.

Any rocket scientist will figure out that Agrippa mirrored them. Most likely this is a typographical error. We ll see in a future article which copy was used for reproducing the seals, or ar least what book was used by the die cutter.  These symbols then became some of the most circulated and widely used characters, to this day, in basically every  grimoire penned after the Occult Philosophy. 

There are two sets of images from this work: One set, named here B(artholomeus)C(ocles)1 is extracted from the 1504 Edition  which is the same used by Joseph Peterson. The other set, BC2, is extracted from the 1517 Edition which has the exact signs as the 1523 Edition (also here). The two differ slightly, and the differences have been noted at each one. 




Saturn BC1


Saturn BC2

Notes: Character 1 begins with a weak loop that slims down to a dot in BC1, which is lost in BC2. Character 4 ends with a separated 5-looking figure in the new set, while in the old set  the line is joined into an A-shape. 


Jupiter BC1


Jupiter BC2

Notes: Character 1 has the dash united with the lower part in the BC1. Character 7 switches the elongated part of the 3-shape.  Characters 9-10 could be one sign printed badly, but this is oddly apparent more in the newer rather than the older version. 







Mars BC1


Mars BC2

Notes: Character 1 is asymetrical in BC1. Character 5 is entirelly mirrored horizontally. 






SunBC1

Sun BC2

Notes: Characters 2 and three seem separate in BC1 and almost linked in BC2. Character 10 appears disjointed in BC2 due to a flaw.





Venus BC1

Venus BC2

Notes: Character 1 seems disjointed in BC1. 






Mercury BC1

Mercury BC2

Notes: Character 1 slants to the right in BC1. Character 2 is seemingly ended in a circle but close examination yielded a tight but free end, like BC2. The same goes for character 5. 







Moon BC1

Moon BC2

Notes: Character one is more curved in BC2. Character 4 has an S-shaped curl, unlike its C-shaped predecessor. 



I know, it s fabulous and fascinating.

Downloadable PDF 

4 comments:

  1. Thanks you saved me from perpetuating the myth.... I have used those reversed symbolis (and flipped) for ages. I am keen to get the proper ones a go

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  2. This is fascinating! I didn't know Agrippa was not the source for these. Thank you for your tireless and selfless work. :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Well, they might be older still. Agrippa brought nothing new I believe. All his knowledge was received. We might know a lot from him, of course, but he wasn t the original source.

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