Hieroglyphica
Horapollo Nilous
Written reputedly by an Egyptian magus in the fourth century A.D., the Hieroglyphica is an anthology of nearly two hundred “hieroglyphs,” or allegorical emblems, said to have been used by the Pharaonic scribes in representing natural and moral aspects of the world. The work describes how various kinds of natural phenomena, emotions, virtues, philosophical concepts, and human character types were symbolized by the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, providing detailed explanations for each individual emblem. Translated into Greek in 1505, it informed much of Western esoteric iconography from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries.