The Secret Work of the Hermetic Philosophy

Edition Statement

This Diotimos edition presents a fresh English translation of the complete Arcanum hermeticæ philosophiæ opus printed at Paris by Nicolas Buon in 1623. The historical title page, original address to students, all 138 canons, marginal topic labels, embedded verse, closing farewell and printed Arcanum errata are included. The anonymous original is conventionally attributed to Jean d’Espagnet. That attribution is retained as an attribution, rather than substituted for the title page’s anonymity.

The Latin and English are paired by stable passage identifiers. Modern annotations and the study features belong to Diotimos Editions. A separate reception appendix preserves the two prefaces, the Times of the Stone interpretation, and all 57 numbered notes of W. Wynn Westcott’s 1893 English volume. One diagram from the 1650 English collection accompanies the later interpretation and is identified by its own witness. These later documents are not inserted into the 1623 author’s canons.

The edition is supplied as PDF, editable Word, Markdown, a bilingual EPUB, and a separate English Reading EPUB. The English Reading EPUB retains the full English translation, annotations, reception documents, study material and source references while suppressing the parallel Latin reading blocks. Latin lemmata and titles remain where they serve the commentary.

No historical reading passage of the selected Arcanum has been abridged. The companion Enchiridion, Arthur Dee’s Fasciculus, and the additional address of I.C.Chymierastes are distinct works and are described in the source notes rather than presented as missing canons. Blank leaves, binding surfaces, repeated running heads, catchwords and ornamental printer’s devices are inventoried as physical features. Their exclusion from the reading prose is not an omission of an argument or operation.