Corallus sub aquis ut crescit & aëre induratur, sic lapis

Michael Maier, 1618 “Corallus sub aquis ut crescit & aëre induratur, sic lapis.” Atalanta Fugiens, Emblema XXXII, page 137, the motto printed over the engraving.

Symbolica, 2026 Maier’s Latin, put into English here: As coral grows under the water and hardens in the air, so does the stone.

Michael Maier, 1618 “Planta maris vegetans Siculi sub fluctibus uda
Ramos sub tepidis multiplicavit aquis.
Illa, CORALLUS, habet nomen sibi, durior exit,
Cum Boreas rigido mittit ab axe gelu:
Fit lapis, & rubeum multa cum fronte colorem
Possidet: haec Physicae est apta figura Petrae.” Atalanta Fugiens, Epigramma XXXII, page 137, the six lines printed under the engraving.

Symbolica, 2026 Maier’s epigram, put into English here: A living sea plant, wet beneath the Sicilian waves, multiplied its branches under the warm waters. Its name is CORAL. It comes out harder when the north wind sends its frost down from the rigid pole. It becomes a stone, and takes on a red colour over much of its surface. This is a fitting figure of the Philosophers' Stone.

Tap a motif on the picture, or a line below. Its note opens under the line, with the reading its author gave it.

1. Primary motif
2. 1The Waterthe river the man lifts the coral out of

The man lifting coral from the river on a line, the bridge and the town behind. By eye

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