Book
Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier's "Atalanta fugiens" (1618) with Scholarly Commentary
2020
Tara E. Nummedal
Donna Bilak
Typology category
audioISBN-13
9780813945583
Authors
Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak
Publication year
1618/2020
Entry last updated
2025-09-08Publisher's description
A re-rendering Michael Maier's Atalanta fugiens as an enhanced online
publication, this text allows contemporary readers to hear, see,
manipulate, and investigate Atalanta fugiens in ways that Maier perhaps
imagined but that were impossible to fully realize before now. An
interactive, layered digital edition provides accessibility and
flexibility, presenting all the elements of the original book along with
significant enhancements that allow for deep engagement by specialists and
nonspecialists alike.--Publisher's note
Experimental aspects:
Furnace and Fugue brings to life in digital form an enigmatic seventeenth-century text, Michael Maier’s alchemical emblem book Atalanta fugiens. This intriguing and complex text from 1618 reinterprets Ovid’s legend of Atalanta as an alchemical allegory in a series of fifty emblems, each of which contains text, image, and a musical score for three voices. Re-rendering Maier’s multimedia masterpiece as an enhanced digital publication, Furnace and Fugue allows contemporary readers to hear, see, manipulate, and investigate Atalanta fugiens in ways that were perhaps imagined when it was composed but were simply impossible to realize in full before now.
Practices