Symbolorum: The Secret Wisdom of Emblems

by Mandy Aftel

Discover the esoteric insights and enchanting imagery of the Baroque emblem book, a long-lost cousin of the tarot.

The emblem book, which reached the peak of its popularity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, presented mysterious allegorical images—rather like those we now find on tarot cards—alongside Latin mottoes. A learned text explained the connection between image and motto, and the lessons each emblem held for the reader’s life. Drawing on sources such as medieval bestiaries and Aesop’s fables, emblem books reflected an enchanted view of nature in which our human lives were intertwined with plants, animals, the moon and the stars.

World-renowned natural perfumer Mandy Aftel first encountered emblem books in the course of her researches into antique botanical illustrations, and quickly became entranced. Here she presents one hundred emblems from perhaps the finest emblem book, the Symbolorum et Emblematum of Camerarius, originally published in four parts between 1590 and 1604. Aftel has sensitively tinted in watercolor the bewitching circular engravings of the Symbolorum, in which giant hands reach from the sky; lions, bears, and unicorns gambol; and distant spires beckon. The mottoes and explanatory texts are given in translation from the original Latin, along with Aftel’s own commentary. An illustrated introduction illuminates the history and magic of emblem book.

Symbolorum will be a treasure for anyone who is drawn to uncover ancient wisdom and feel the breath of the universe.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Mandy Aftel is an American perfumer. She is the owner and nose behind the natural perfume line Aftelier as well as the author of nine books, including four books on natural perfume and a cookbook on essential oils.

Reviews

[S. Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giant hands reach from the sky to pluck flowers while spiders spin their webs and frogs have spa days. Lions gambol past village churches and platters heap with abundant fruit. Dragons contemplate their visage in mirrors. Camels recline in repose. Snakes eat their own tails. Swans do a funny little wiggling dance! Each small, round engraving contains an entire world mid-story, frozen in some strange dramatic moment, accompanied by a Latin motto that reveals timeless wisdom drawn from Aesop, Ovid, medieval bestiaries, and a worldview in which human lives are tangled with plants, animals, the moon, and the stars. Natural perfumer Mandy Aftel spent decades reading antique books of botanical illustrations and aromatic lore, discovering not just recipes for perfume but an older vision of the natural world threaded with magic and mystery. When she encountered Joachim Camerarius's Symbolorum et Emblematum from the 1590s, she recognized something extraordinary: a cosmos where nature was animate and instructive, where every creature held wisdom, where everything spoke in symbols. She acquired an original 1654 edition, translated the Latin texts, selected 100 emblems to illuminate with watercolor, and wove her own insights through Camerarius's meditations on existence. Emblems share tarot's symbolic language, speaking not to your rational mind but to your intuitive and emotional self, pairing image, motto, and meditation to convey timeless wisdom about how to navigate life. Knowledge that moves through the body as much as the intellect. Open to a page at random every morning, let the image and its wisdom guide your day. Today, a hairy leg descends from the heavens to tromp on garlic bulbs, PULCHRIOR ATRITA RESURGO—I rise again more beautiful for being crushed. Well then. Maybe being ground down isn't the end of things. Maybe this bruising is exactly where the blooming happens. Essential for anyone hungry for a less rational understanding of the natural world, for readers drawn to uncover ancient wisdom where everything in the cosmos connects, for those who love old books and tarot and understand that symbols engage us in seeking beyond linear reason, and for anyone who recognizes the transformative power held in these curious circular images.

[Andrea Engle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of one hundred emblems (divided into four sections: Plants, Quadrupeds, Birds, and Fish), taken from Joachim Camerarius’ “Symbolorum et Emblematum,” presents beautiful, circular, colored emblems on the right-hand side of each book opening … above each emblem is its Latin motto, with a literal English translation immediately beneath it; and beneath the emblem is a precise description of what is shown, in italics … on the left-hand side is a discussion of the common-sense wisdom to be derived from the emblem, often quoting Ovid or Vergil or another classical writer; and below that are notes relating to the images in the emblem … absolutely exquisite …