The Hermetic Frontispiece: Contextualising John Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad

This essay examines the elaborate title pages of some of alchemist, astrologer,and bibliophile John Dee’s publications with a focus on the two best known works that feature his famous Hieroglyphic Monad, the Propaedeumata Aphoristica (1558) and Monas Hieroglyphica (1564). The aim is to cast light on its context, identify sources for some textual influences in the works, unpack the visual symbolism in the two “monadic” title pages in relation to the two complementary sciences of “superior” and “inferior” astronomy, speculate on some of the more enigmatic details, and conclude with a brief discussion of a possible astrological significance to the dates of composition of the Monas Hieroglyphica.