Anyone who has leafed through a book on the history of esotericism almost certainly knows Robert Fludd's engravings, even without realising it: the great cosmic monochord tuned by a hand emerging from the clouds, the ape of nature chained to Nature herself, the concentric circles descending from divine light to the Earth. Behind those images stands an English physician of the early seventeenth century who tried to hold together the Bible, Hermeticism, Paracelsus and the sciences of his day.
Training and profession
Fludd was born in 1574 in Kent, the son of a crown official. He studied at St John's College, Oxford, and then spent about six years travelling on the Continent, in France, Spain, Italy and Germany, also working as a tutor in noble households. Back in England, he took his medical degree at Oxford in 1605.
Admission to the College of Physicians in London was not easy: his Paracelsian sympathies and undiplomatic character caused him difficulties, but in the end he became a fellow and remained one for the rest of his life, practising medicine successfully. He was a colleague of William Harvey and is remembered as one of the first to look favourably on Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, which he read as confirming the analogy between the heart and the Sun.
Defender of the Rosicrucians
When the Rosicrucian manifestos appeared in Germany, the Fama Fraternitatis (1614) and the Confessio (1615), learned Europe split into enthusiasts, sceptics and seekers of the mysterious brotherhood. Fludd took a public stand with the Apologia compendiaria (1616) and the Tractatus apologeticus (1617), defending the Rosicrucians against charges of diabolical magic and presenting them as bearers of a reform of knowledge.
There is no evidence that Fludd ever met a member of the brotherhood, nor that it existed as an organisation. His apologies are rather a personal manifesto: the programme of a philosophy uniting faith and nature.
The illustrated work
His most famous work is the Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia, the "metaphysical, physical and technical history of the two worlds, the greater and the lesser", printed at Oppenheim by the publisher Johann Theodor de Bry from 1617.
The work is built on the doctrine of macrocosm and microcosm: the universe and man are two mirrors corresponding part by part. The first volume deals with the cosmos, from creation to the structure of the spheres; the second with man, his spiritual anatomy and the "arts" that imitate nature.
Among the best-known images:
- the divine monochord, a string stretched from the Earth to the empyrean heaven, divided according to musical intervals;
- the ape of nature, a symbol of human art imitating the divine work;
- creation as a passage from formless darkness to light, represented by black squares and luminous circles.
Alongside metaphysics, the book also describes arithmetic, music, geometry, fortification, perspective, the art of memory and geomancy: a true encyclopaedia of the early seventeenth century.
The great controversies
That very ambition drew criticism from the protagonists of the new science:
| Opponent | Subject of the controversy |
|---|---|
| Johannes Kepler | In the appendix to the Harmonices mundi (1619) he distinguished his own mathematical harmony, based on measurement, from Fludd's symbolic analogies |
| Marin Mersenne | Accused Fludd of magic and of confusing theology with natural philosophy |
| Pierre Gassendi | Wrote a critical examination of his philosophy at Mersenne's request |
| William Foster | Attacked the so-called "weapon-salve", which supposedly healed at a distance by acting on the weapon rather than the wound |
Fludd's replies are precious to the historian: they show, as it happened, the conflict between two ways of knowing, one by analogy and correspondence, the other by measurement and experiment.
The last years and the Mosaical Philosophy
Fludd died in London in 1637. His last major work, the Philosophia Moysaica, appeared posthumously and was translated into English in 1659: in it he argued that true natural philosophy is to be found in Scripture, read as a revelation of the forces of light and darkness.
Today Fludd is not read for his medical theories, but as a witness to a crucial moment: the last great Hermetic synthesis before modern science separated symbol from measurement for good.
In short
- Robert Fludd (1574-1637) was a London physician, a Paracelsian and a fellow of the College of Physicians.
- He publicly defended the Rosicrucians, though no real link between him and the brotherhood is known.
- The Utriusque cosmi historia illustrates the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm in famous engravings.
- His controversies with Kepler, Mersenne and Gassendi document the clash between symbolic analogy and the new science.
