Rosary of the Philosophers

The term rosary in the title is unrelated to the Catholic prayer beads; it refers to a "rose garden", metaphoric of an anthology or collection of wise sayings.

The 1550 print includes a series of 20 woodcuts with German-language captions, plus a title page showing a group of philosophers disputing about the production of the lapis philosophorum.

Some of the woodcut images have precedents in earlier (15th-century) German alchemical literature, especially in the Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (ca.

Johann Daniel Mylius' Philosophia reformata of 1622 also includes the twenty Rosarium images, re-designed in early 17th-century style by Balthazar Swan.

The text of MS Ferguson 210, in Glasgow University Library, is the basis of an English translation that was published in the 18th century.