Aurora Consurgens

The Aurora consurgens is an alchemical treatise of the 15th century famous for the rich illuminations that accompany it. While the text was in the past sometimes attributed to Thomas Aquinas, its author is now more commonly referred to as "Pseudo-Aquinas".

In its first part, the parchment manuscript contains the text that has been named, on the basis of its outstanding cycle of illustrations, theAurora consurgens. The manuscript also contains numerous other alchemical treatises, for ex. Albertus Magnus onSecreta Hermetis philosophi, Johannes de Garlandia (John of Garland), excerpts from Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan), the Thesaurus philosophiae and theVisio Arislei. Nine other Aurora-manuscripts are currently known to exist: Berlin Die uffgehnde Morgenrödte, Bologna, Glasgow, Leiden, Vienna, Paris, Prague and Venice. The Berlin manuscript, dating from the early sixteenth century and containing the illustrations as well as the texts in German translation, is closely related to the Zürich Codex.