File:Pandora, das ist, Die edleste Gab Gottes - DPLA - 8e267bf425b3067c2e3eb2b7a0ed8dc0 (page 239).jpg

First edition. This copy lacks parts of pages 2 and 7 as well as pages 183-184 and 255-256. The missing text on pages 2 and 7 was replaced in handwritten pencil at an unknown date. The work was edited by the physician Hieronymus Reusner (1558-), who assigns the book's authorship to a Franciscan friar with the pseudonym Epimetheus. This accounts for the title, which translates to “Pandora, That Is, the Noblest Gift of God”, for it was Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, who accepted Pandora as a gift from Zeus. In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. Includes 22 woodcut plates and several additional in-text illustrations. Most of the illustrations are reproduced from Das Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit an early illustrated alchemical book that had circulated in manuscript since the 15th century. The illustrations encode an actual sequence of chemical processes, using particular motifs to represent various processes. For instance, the sun usually represents gold, and the moon silver. Flying and falling birds suggest sublimation and condensation. A queen standing in a distilling apparatus links the image to laboratory practice.