A coloring of John Dee’s Hieroglyphicon Britanicon, from the frontispiece to Rare and General Memorials, pertayning the Perfect Arte of Navigation (written in 1577 - 1578). It was designed to urge Queen Elizabeth to pursue the colonization of North America. There’s a great breakdown of the symbols Dee employed in Jim Egan’s Elizabethan America, from Cosmopolite Press.
The image depicts a sequence of events concerning John Dee’s proposed British Empire and the colonization of North America (which Dee refers to as “Atlantis” on his maps). A common woman on her knees pleads in Greek to Queen Elizabeth (who is joined by Europa and her bull, Zeus) to “Send forth a sailing expedition,” and the banner to her left continues, “to build a steadfast watch-post.” The river depicted represents The John Dee River (which is now called Narragansett Bay), and it is occupied by five ships representing the Cinque Ports, Elizabeth’s naval force. Below the ships, new colonies prosper with trade, well guarded by watchmen to the left.
In the skies above, YHWH is written in Hebrew, the concept represented as an emanating glory of rays distinct from the sun, moon and stars. The archangel Michael (again labeled in Hebrew) flies overhead; Egan asserts that Michael was inserted as clue towards the location of the proposed colony, as Michael’s numerical value in the Shemhamphorasch is 42, and Dee’s world map placed Rhode Island at 42 degrees latitude north of the equator, and 42 degrees longitude west of the Prime Meridian.
Below Michael stands a statue of Lady Occasion (a British, female Caerus figure) with a laureled wreath extended towards Queen Elizabeth. She stands upon a tetrahedron, the fundamental building block of the geometer’s universe; John Dee has an especial affinity for triangles, and used the Greek letter Delta to sign his own name.
There is far more going on in his Hieroglyphic illustration; Dee was a master of riddles and puzzles. The Latin banner which accompanies the original frontispiece states: “Plura latent quam patent,” which Egan translates as “More is hidden than is out in the open.”
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