A Little Baron Frédéric de Portal Sampler: From ‘About Symbolical Colors, Throughout The Antiquity, The Middle-Ages And Up To Our Modern Times’ (1837)

Title page of ‘About Symbolical Colors’,

by the Baron de Portal.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA is the first of a planned few dedicated to the memory of Pierre Paul Frédéric, Baron de Portal, a French lawyer and author, born in Bordeaux on the fifth of November 1804 and who died in Paris on the tenth of January 1876. He was the son of shipowner and later Minister of the Navy, Pierre-Barthélémy Portal d’Albarèdes (1765-1845). In 1824, he became an attaché at the French embassy in Dresden until the end of 1827 and was later posted in 1828 in Saint Petersburg. Finally, in 1832, back home, he became a master of requests at the State Council. In 1838, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor for his services and achievements as a public servant.

The Baron de Portal is remembered today-mainly as a reference in esoteric publication’s catalog and in academic studies-for his ‘About Symbolical Colors, Throughout The Antiquity, The Middle-Ages And Up To Our Modern Times’, first published in 1837 by Treuttel et Wûrtz (same publisher as Fabre d’Olivet-just saying) and honored with countless re-editions, considered a landmark in modern studies of traditional art, widely informative and subtle in its treatment of the universal metaphysics embodied in religious symbolism.

Here is a representative quote: ‘In the symbolic generation of colors there are three degrees : 1st, Self existence; 2nd, Manifestation of life; 3rd, Action resulting therefrom. In the first, love or the will presides, indicated by red; in the second intellect appears, designated by blue; finally, in the third, action exhibits its symbol in green. According to the prophets, three spheres emanate from God, which occupy the three heavens; the first, or sphere of love, is red; the second, or sphere of wisdom, is blue; the third, or sphere of creation, is green.’

The mystery of an elusive second volume remains tantalizingly unresolved, as there is no indication as whether it had been published following the 1837 publication of volume one. Here are the publisher’s own words: ‘The first volume contains the catalog of colors and the proofs according to the written monuments; the second volume, will be a special publication, in which the applications (of the color codes and rules of volume one) will be exemplified in a series of painted monuments‘. A question to the bibliophiles: Could it have been a ‘sacred edition‘ reserved to a few friends of the author? Did any copy surfaced in an auction or in a book seller’s catalog?

Baron de Portal was the author of the comparative study: ‘A comparison of Egyptian symbols with those of the Hebrews‘ published  in 1840 by Mrs. Widow Dondey-Dupré Bookshop & Press. In this publication, he tackles, upon the recent works and findings of Jean-François Champollion, the flickering legacy of Horapollon and delineates the directions the understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs & symbols will take in further academic research and publications. He then sets a comprehensive and systematic comparative study of Hebrew and Egyptian symbols, which was never done, within the foundational framework laid by Clement of Alexandria in his ‘Stromateis‘ and Sylvestre de Sacy, the main figure in the French nineteen century orientalist school.

He wrote also a remarkable family history in connection with his Cathar (Albigeois), Catholic & Protestants (Huguenots) ancestors in 1860, ‘Les descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots ou mémoires de la famille de Portal‘. His family having been first hand witness, of the infamous ‘crusade against the Albigeois’ from 1209 to 1229, of the dreadful religion wars that tore France between 1562 to 1598, and then the afterquakes of the revocation of the Nantes Edict in 1643 that led to the persecution of the French Protestant who organized a resistance led by the Camisards. It is an important contribution to the French history of religions.

And finally, between 1873 and 1877, the 3 volumes of ‘A study in law regarding the ‘politics of civil laws, or a science of compared legislations.’, were published with the last one, posthumously.

This concludes his bibliography.

Baron Frederic de Portal worked to define and detail the age-old laws of color symbolism. This work constitutes in the eyes of modern psychology an indisputable reference both for its seriousness and the scope of its analysis. Before Structuralism in the 20th century, de Portal notes that symbolic colors are always organized in oppositions; they are not isolated, but ‘in a network of relationships with other colors‘.

He also represented colors as so many languages, each with a distinct grammar. His pioneering efforts laid the groundwork for future studies on the cultural and symbolic significance of colors across different civilizations.

The great ideal which guided the author’s life’s research was the unity of religion among men, which made him a long standing and favored author with masonic publishers, while it is not known or documented (to our knowledge) that he belonged to the Fraternity.

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From The Publisher’s Blurb

Symbolic colors had during the Antiquity and the Middle Age a religious importance that has remained untold until today. They kept the same meaning among all nations; everywhere, corresponding divinities carried the same colors. This constant attribution is the most important fact to mention.

As a consequence, it means that the symbolic value of a sacred or mythological figure, being known, we therefore can obtain the signification of the color that was attributed to him/her; likewise the color will be used, to reveal the mysterious character of the divinities.

The symbolic of colors will then become one of the main basis of the interpretation of monuments of the Antiquity, and especially those of Egypt.

Christianity attached to colors the same ideas than paganism did; here archeology will be not sufficient to explain a fact that belongs to the history of Humanity; by proceeding through analysis, it could not offer the solution that only a synthesis can solve.

These research develop in a triple aim: Religious philosophy, Archeology and history of painting; therefore, they are destined to the philosophers, scientists and to the artists.

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Introduction

The history of symbolic colors—still untold, of which I offer only a few fragments—may one day serve to decipher the hieroglyphs of Egypt and perhaps reveal part of the mysteries of antiquity. I do not flatter myself to have achieved this goal in my research; my sole ambition has been to draw the attention of scholars to one of the most neglected and curious points in archaeology.

Colors held the same significance among all peoples of remote antiquity; this conformity indicates a common origin linked to the cradle of humanity, finding its most potent expression in the religion of Persia. The dualism of light and darkness provides, indeed, the two archetypes of color, which became symbols of the beneficent and the malevolent principles. The ancients admitted only two primary colors—white and black—from which all others derived, just as the deities of paganism were emanations of the good and evil principles.

The language of colors, intimately bound to religion, passed into India, China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. It reappeared in the middle-ages, and the stained-glass windows of Gothic cathedrals find their explanation in the ‘Zend‘ books, the ‘Vedas‘, and the paintings of Egyptian temples.

The identity of symbols suggests the identity of primordial beliefs. As a religion drifts from its principle, becoming degraded and materialized, it forgets the meaning of colors, and this mysterious language revives only alongside religious truth.

The closer we approach the origins of religions, the more truth appears stripped of the impure alloy of human superstition. It shines most brightly in Iran, homeland of the first men. The Iranians, according to Mohsen Fani, firmly believed that a supreme God had created the world by an act of His power, and that His providence continuously governed it. They professed to fear, love, and piously worship Him, to honor their parents and elders; they had a fraternal affection for all humanity, and even a compassionate tenderness for animals.

The worship of the celestial army—Sabaism—clouded these sublime doctrines without destroying them; they were preserved in the ‘Desatir‘ and the ‘Zend-Avesta‘. And if truth was hidden from profane eyes, it is still found under the symbols of these sacred books.

The older a religion grows, the more it becomes materialized; from degradation to degradation, it descends into fetishism. The religion of the Africans is the final expression of the doctrines of Ethiopia and Egypt. Already in Moses’ time, Egyptian religion displayed all the signs of decrepitude and dissolution: the symbol had become the deity; truth, forgotten by the people, was exiled to the sanctuaries, and soon even the priests would lose the meaning of their sacred language. Apply these principles to India and its Brahmins, to China and its bonzes, to all religions, to Mosaicism, to those Jews who sacrificed to foreign idols.

This fatal law of humanity explains the necessity for successive revelations. Mosaicism and Christianity are divine, if only because divine intervention was necessary and indispensable. How else can one reconcile the human tendency to materialize worship with the progressive advance of humanity in religious spiritualism?

The ancient religion of Iran is forgotten. Its sacred symbols—light, the sun, the planets—have been deified. It is at the moment when this revolution is complete that Abraham leaves Chaldea, reviving a truth on the verge of extinction. The priesthood still preserved the deposit of divine knowledge in Egypt and India, but the people stagnated in ignorance. Polytheism shrouded the earth in its funereal veils, and God revealed Himself in the calling of the patriarch, beginning the popularization of religion through the fundamental unit of society: the family.

Human nature’s irresistible tendency toward idolatry ensnared the Jews held captive in Egypt. Moses appeared; truth became a people. But the chosen people, scarcely rescued from vain superstitions, relapsed into lethargy; in the desert, they sacrificed to the Apis bull; on Israel’s soil, they trampled the holy law, divided among themselves, and invoked the bloodthirsty gods of barbarians. Yet the Eternal would not abandon the work of regeneration. The prophetic people had fulfilled its mission; the era of humanity began, and the Son of God, the Savior of the world, called all nations to the feast of life.

Thus, the fall of the first man is reflected in the history of every people: this fatal consequence grounds the universal dogma of the fall and the rehabilitation through divine intervention.

The first chapters of Genesis establish this truth, and the prophets proclaim it in Israel. But the Hebrew people were not alone in lifting their prayers and hopes toward the Eternal; Persia, India, China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome also awaited the Savior of the world. “Do not call me a saint,” said Confucius to his disciples, “the saint dwells in the West.” And it is from the East that came the Magi and the emissaries of Emperor Ming-Ti, who brought back from India the cult of the god Fo. Now, Dupuis and Volney mention these Eastern traditions and attribute them to sun worship, forgetting perhaps that this star rises in the East and that the Saint was to appear in the West.

If the incarnation of the Indian divinity was borrowed from Christianity, I concede it. But if, as science asserts, the sacred books of India predate our era, would not the myth of Krishna be the most astonishing of prophecies?

Egypt claims the same doctrines and inscribes them on the temples of Thebes. Orpheus reiterates them to Greece, and the Sibylline verses announce them to the queen of the world. If I were to quote passages from these prophetic songs, some would say Christians fabricated or falsified them. But were the verses of Virgil inspired by a Gothic monk? Was the pagan Servius, who commented on them, a convent critic? If Virgil was Roman and lived in the time of Augustus, how does he announce that the final times foretold by the Sibyl are fulfilled, that the golden age is coming, that the sun—eternal symbol of the Divine Word—is about to spread its light? Who is this virgin, this child destined to change the face of the world? “It is Augustus,” reply the learned commentators. But if the poet’s flattery applied this prophecy to a man, was it not originally addressed to a God?

The crude mob of antiquity worshipped the material symbols of a divine cult. The school of the eighteenth century, in turn, saw sun worship in Christianity. Every religion is born in spiritualism and ends in materialism. The unbelieving fetishism of Dupuis, like the superstitious fetishism of antiquity, signals the end of a church and the need for a new religious regeneration.

Truth seems foreign to humanity. A gift from heaven, men reject or pervert it. The origin of paganism must be sought in the human heart, not in history, which can only grasp its external manifestation. Politics did not give rise to idolatry; it knew how to exploit it, strengthen it, but not to create this infinite variety of deities. The unity of God would undoubtedly have been the religion created by oriental despotism—its unity of government demanded it. Polytheism could only breed schisms and division.

The symbols of the Divinity, materialized by material peoples, were the origin of the beliefs that debased the nations of antiquity—and for four thousand years, they halted the progress of the human spirit.

Saint Clement of Alexandria tells us that the Egyptians used three types of writing. Varro, the most learned of the Romans, confirms the existence of three theologies. In the history of religions, we find three epochs marked by three distinct languages.

The divine language first addresses all men and reveals the existence of God. Symbolism is the language of all peoples, as religion is the property of every family. The priesthood does not yet exist; each father is both king and pontiff.

The sacred language arises in the sanctuaries. It governs the symbolism of architecture, statuary, and painting, along with worship ceremonies and priestly garments. This first materialization imprisons the divine language under impenetrable veils.

The profane language, a material expression of the symbols, becomes the fare thrown to nations given over to idolatry.

God first speaks to men in the celestial tongue found in the Bible and the oldest religious codes of the East. Soon, the sons of Adam forget this heritage, and God re-speaks the word through the symbols of the sacred language. He dictates the garments of Aaron and the Levites, the rites of worship; religion becomes external, man wishes to see it, no longer feeling it within himself.

At the last degree of corruption, humanity understands only matter; then the Divine Word takes on a body of flesh to speak once more, in the profane language, a final echo of eternal truth.

The history of symbolic colors testifies to this threefold origin; each shade bears different meanings in each of the three languages—divine, sacred, and profane.

Let us briefly trace the historical development of these symbols.

The oldest religious traditions tell us that the Iranians attributed to each planet a benevolent or malevolent influence according to its color and degree of light.

In Genesis, God says to Noah: ‘The rainbow shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.’ In mythology, Iris is the messenger of the gods and of good news, and the colors of Iris’s sash—the rainbow—are the symbols of regeneration, which is the covenant between God and man.

In Egypt, the robe of Isis sparkled with all the colors, all the shades that shine in nature; Osiris, the all-powerful god, gave her the light; Isis modified it and passed it on to men by reflecting it. Isis is the Earth, and her symbolic robe was the hieroglyph of the material and spiritual worlds.

The Church Fathers, those Platonists of Christianity, saw in the Old Testament the symbols of the New Covenant. If Christ’s religion is of God, if the children of Abraham received the holy word, then the two tablets of Mosaic and Christian law must unite in a common idea. Joseph was a symbol of the Messiah, and that robe, adorned with the most beautiful shades, which his father gave him, was, according to Saint Cyril, the emblem of his divine attributes.

Such were the symbols of the divine language when the sacred language came into being.

The arts were born of religion. It was to adorn temples and sacred enclosures that sculpture and painting made their first attempts. This fact applies not only to the history of humankind but can be verified at the origins of every people. In the oldest monuments of India and Egypt, as well as those from the Middle Ages, architecture, statuary, and painting are material expressions of religious thought.

Painting among the Hindus, the Egyptians, and even today among the Chinese, drew its rules from national cults and political laws; the slightest alteration in drawing or color resulted in severe punishment.

Among the Egyptians, writes Synesius, the prophets did not allow metal workers or sculptors to represent the gods, for fear they would deviate from the rules.

In the temples of Egypt, says Plato, it was never permitted—and still is not—to painters or other artists making figures or similar works, to innovate in any way or deviate at all from what has been established by the laws of the land. And if one pays attention, one finds among them paintings and sculptures created ten thousand years ago—and when I say ten thousand years, it is not figuratively but literally—which are neither more nor less beautiful than those of today and which were produced according to the same rules.

In Rome, one incurred the death penalty for wearing or selling a purple-dyed fabric. Today, in China, whoever wears or buys garments with the prohibited dragon or phoenix designs receives three hundred blows with a rod and three years of exile.

Symbolism explains the severity of such laws and customs: each color, each design carried a religious or political idea—altering it was a crime of apostasy or rebellion.

Archaeologists have noted that Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Etruscan paintings are composed of flat tones in bright colors, but without shading. This was as it should be. Art was not just for the eyes of the profane—it was also the interpreter and guardian of sacred mysteries. Drawing and coloring had a necessary meaning; they had to be bold and distinct: perspective, chiaroscuro, and shading would have introduced confusion. These were either unknown or strictly suppressed.

We may confidently assert, without citing authority, that if Egyptian hieroglyphic drawing was symbolic, so too was its color. Did it not, in fact, offer the most direct way to strike the eye and capture attention? Even today, are not great colorists more popular than great draughtsman?

Going back to the origins of writing, we see that color was the first means of conveying thought and preserving memory. The quipus of Peru and the knotted cords of China, dyed in various shades, formed the religious, political, and administrative archives of these youthful peoples. The Mexicans went a step further in the art of representing speech, and we shall see colors playing an important role in the paintings of this people. The Egyptian hieroglyphs were the apex and final form of this symbolic writing.

The profane language of colors was a degradation of the divine and sacred languages. Traces of it are found among the Greeks and the Romans. In theatrical performances, colors were meaningful. A curious passage from Pollux gives the meaning of these emblems used in stage costumes: tradition is still there, though materialized as it is today.

Christianity gave new energy to the language of colors and recalled their forgotten meanings. The doctrine taught by Christ was thus not new, since it borrowed the symbols of ancient religions. The Son of God, by bringing men back to truth, did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it; this law was the worship of the true God originally revealed to all men and preserved in the sacred ark of Mosaicism. Moses and the prophets cite sacred books not found in the Bible. The Wars of the Lord, the Prophecies, and the Book of the Just had thus announced the divine word to other nations. We will find clear proof of this by comparing the monuments of antiquity with those of the middle-ages.

The three languages of colors—divine, sacred, and profane—correspond in Europe to the three social classes: the clergy, the nobility, and the people.

The stained-glass windows of Christian churches, like the paintings of Egypt, have a double meaning, both apparent and hidden. One is for the common people; the other addresses mystical beliefs. The theocratic era lasted until the Renaissance. At that point, the symbolic genius faded, the divine language of colors was forgotten, and painting became an art, no longer a science.

The aristocratic era began; symbolism, driven from the church, took refuge at court. Scorned by painting, it reappeared in heraldry.

The origin of coats of arms is lost in the mists of time and seems tied to the earliest elements of writing. Egyptian hieroglyphs and Aztec paintings indicated meaning through emblems or “speaking arms.” A glance at Mexican codices and their accompanying explanations leaves no room for doubt. The depictions of Indian and Egyptian divinities—monstrous combinations of human and animal forms—undoubtedly held a mysterious meaning. In Greece, the progress of art freed sculpture and painting from these hybrid creations, but the gods would have blended into the same type. They were thus given attributes: Jupiter had the eagle and thunderbolt for arms, Minerva the olive tree and the owl, Venus the dove.

The middle-ages revived the bizarre creations of high antiquity. On the oldest monuments of Christian art appear hybrid compositions. Christianity, like paganism, could only sculpt and paint its dogmas by borrowing symbolic language. Thus Queen Pédauque was depicted with a goose’s foot on the portals of several churches in France.

The armorial shields of the nobility were, for knights clad in iron, the only means of recognition in the fray. Originally, all arms were speaking: the kingdom of Granada bore nine pomegranates; Galicia, a chalice; León, a lion; and Castile, a castle. Later, heraldry preserved within families the memory of great deeds and feats of arms, though the original meaning was often forgotten.

Colors were surely significant in these representations where everything was emblematic. The authors of heraldic art affirm this and have preserved the meanings of metals and enamels, tracing their tradition back to the Greeks. I will explain the symbolism of these different heraldic colors: the tradition of antiquity remained long pure in this domain. On some monuments, the sacred language of heraldry helped to interpret the divine language used in the central subject—just as phonetic writing in a cartouche gave the name of the person represented on Egyptian anaglyphs.

The gallantry of the Moors and their mystical love poetry closed the aristocratic era and gave birth to the popular language of colors, which has survived to the present day. The seclusion of women in the East gave new importance to color emblems; they replaced spoken language, just as the selam, or symbolic bouquet, became the written language of love. Among the Arabs, as among all peoples, this language had a religious origin. In ancient Persia, spirits or genii had flowers consecrated to them. This symbolic flora is found in India and Egypt, in Greece and Rome.

The selam of the Arabs seems to have borrowed its emblems from the language of colors. The Qur’an gives the mystical reason: ‘The colors the earth displays before our eyes‘, says Muhammad, ‘are manifest signs for those who reflect‘. This remarkable passage explains the multi-colored robe worn by Isis or Nature, conceived as a vast hieroglyph. The colors that shine on the earth correspond to the hues perceived by the seer in the spiritual world, where everything is spiritual and therefore meaningful. Such, at least, is the origin of the symbolism of colors in the prophetic books and the Apocalypse. The Qur’an reproduces the same theory in the visions and vestments of Muhammad.

The Moors of Spain, materializing these symbols, created a language with its principles and its dictionary. A modern author has compiled a list of over sixty of these emblematic colors and the meanings of their combinations. France adopted them and retains traces in popular language. Blue still symbolizes fidelity, yellow jealousy, red cruelty, white innocence, black sorrow and mourning, and green hope.

Thus ends the symbolism of colors, and yet its final, materialized expression still bears witness to its noble origin. Modern painting retains the tradition in church paintings; Saint John wears the green robe, as Christ and the Virgin are draped in red and blue, and God in white. Symbolism, this ancient science, became an art and today is nothing more than a matter of craft.

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Principles

of the Symbolism of Colors

Before attempting to restore the catalog of symbolic colors, it is necessary to understand the grammatical rules of this language. If we proceed by analysis throughout these inquiries, it may be difficult to comprehend the generation of symbols without first presenting the synthesis that governs this system.

Physics recognizes seven colors, which make up the solar ray decomposed by the prism: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.

Painting admits only five primary colors: the first and last [violet and red] are rejected by physics, and the ones painting recognizes are: white, yellow, red, blue, and black. From the combination of these five come all other shades.

According to symbolism, two principles give rise to all colors: light and darkness.

Light is represented by white and darkness by black; but light exists only through fire, whose symbol is red. On this basis, symbolism accepts two primary colors: red and white; black is considered the negation of colors and is attributed to the spirit of darkness.

Red is the symbol of divine love; white is the symbol of divine wisdom. From these two attributes of God—love and wisdom—emanates the creation of the universe.

The secondary colors represent various combinations of the two principles:

Yellow arises from red and white; it symbolizes the revelation of God’s love and wisdom.

Blue also derives from red and white; it signifies divine wisdom manifested through life, through spirit or breath—it is the symbol of the spirit of truth.

Green results from the union of yellow and blue. It indicates the manifestation of love and wisdom in action; it was the symbol of charity and the regeneration of the soul through works.

In this system, one recognizes three levels:

1. Existence in itself.

2. The manifestation of life.

3. The act which results.

In the first degree, love, desire, or will dominates—marked by red.

Symbolism does not claim that yellow is physically composed of red and white (as these together make pink); rather, the symbol of yellow derives from the symbols of red and white. Thus divine revelation, symbolized by yellow, arises from divine love and divine wisdom, denoted by red and white. In the second degree appears intelligence, speech, or the Word, signified by yellow and blue; and in the third, realization or act finds its symbol in green.

These three levels, which mirror the three operations of human understanding—will, reasoning, and action—are also found within each color. Each bears three meanings depending on its degree of light. The same hue, therefore, implies three orders of ideas depending on whether it appears: In the luminous ray that it colors, in translucent bodies, or in opaque bodies.

Painting could not reproduce these distinctions, but they are evident in the written monuments of antiquity. Thus, the garments of God shine like lightning, like the flame of fire, like a sunbeam: this is colored light revealing to the prophet the love and will of Divinity. Precious stones, transparent, represent the second level, where light is internally reflected—they relate to the inner world of man or to the spiritual world. Finally, opaque bodies, such as stones and linen garments, which project light from their surface, indicate the third level—the natural order—manifested in action.

Though we will not dwell long on these distinctions, it is important to note them to fully understand the absolute value of the symbols. White, for example, signifies wisdom at all three levels:

1. the first level, white light indicates divine wisdom, which is goodness itself.

2. In the second, the diamond and crystal are symbols of spiritual wisdom, which has inner understanding of the divine.

3. In the third, opaque white stone and linen garments indicate natural wisdom or outer faith, which produces works.

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Rule

of Combinations

Following the five basic colors come the composite shades—rose, purple, hyacinth, violet, gray, tan, etc. These hues derive their meanings from the colors that compose them; the dominant one gives the shade its general significance, and the subordinate one modifies it.

Thus: Purple, which is a bluish red, signifies love of truth. Hyacinth, a reddish blue, represents truth born of love. These two meanings seem to merge at their source, but their practical applications will reveal the difference between them.

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Rule

of Oppositions

The rule of oppositions applies not only to the language of colors but to all symbolism in general; it assigns to each symbol the opposite meaning of its direct sense. In Genesis, the serpent represents the evil genius, and the Church Fathers call the Messiah the good serpent. In Egypt, water was the symbol of regeneration, while the sea was consecrated to Typhon, a figure of moral degradation. Likewise: Red may signify love, selfishness, or hatred. Green may represent heavenly regeneration or infernal corruption, wisdom, or madness.

Far from introducing obscurity or arbitrariness, this rule gives a power and depth to symbols unknown in common languages. Color symbolism could have done without this device, and yet it preserved it as one of its greatest beauties. For example, black, when combined with other colors, reverses their meaning. As the symbol of evil and falsehood, black is not a color, but the negation of all hues and what they represent.

So: Red alone signifies divine love; when red is combined with black it symbolizes infernal love, selfishness, hatred, and all the passions of the degraded man.

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In the first chapter, I believe I have sufficiently established that colors were symbolic in antiquity and the middle-ages. In the chapters to follow, I will search for this significance in religious and historical sources; I hope to demonstrate that, if colors were meaningful, they represented the ideas I have assigned them.

In the third part, which will be a separate work, painted monuments will confirm this theory and show its applications—so vast and so ingenious. (A Via-Hygeia note: Again, this mention of ‘a separate work‘…)

(To be continued)

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Source

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Coming soon

A Little Baron Frédéric de Portal Sampler: From

 ‘A comparison of Egyptian symbols with those of the Hebrews’ (1840)

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