Si de quattuor unum Occidas, subitò mortuus omnis erit

Michael Maier, 1618 “Si de quattuor unum Occidas, subitò mortuus omnis erit.” Atalanta Fugiens, Emblema XIX, page 85, the motto printed over the engraving.

Symbolica, 2026 Maier’s Latin, put into English here: Kill one of the four and all at once are dead.

Michael Maier, 1618 “Bis duo stant fratres longo ordine, pondera terrae
Quorum unus dextra sustinet, alter aquae:
Aeris atque ignis reliquis est portio, si vis
Ut pereant, unum tu modo morte premas:
Et consanguineo tollentur funere cuncti,
Naturae quia eos mutua vincla ligant.” Atalanta Fugiens, Epigramma XIX, page 85, the six lines printed under the engraving.

Symbolica, 2026 Maier’s epigram, put into English here: Twice two brothers stand in a long row. One holds the weight of earth in his right hand, another that of water; to the rest belong the shares of air and of fire. If you want them to perish, press only one of them down with death, and all will be carried off in a kindred funeral, because the mutual bonds of nature tie them together.

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. 1Death and the Skullthe man at the right with the club raised over the four brothers

Four naked men, one striking another down with a club. By eye

The picture read whole, in the archive's words, from the sources quoted on the marks. Read on, and the picture follows: the motif under discussion keeps its colour.

Decoded: every motif is marked, and each mark carries the reading its author gave it, quoted from the text, or says that it is observed on the picture and not read. The reading above is the archive's own, made from those sources and no others.