FIGURE TWELVE (Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine)

Two flowers, scarlet and white, coming out of the crucible, fully blossomed, indicate two Stones, that is, the completion of the dry path. The richly and festively dressed artist, who has laid one hand on the crosshairs of the stems, while holding tongs in the other, triumphs, for he has achieved success. In front of him is a blazing furnace.

A lion devouring a snake is a symbol of vertical thrust, the power of admiration of sulfur by Mercury, the hieroglyphic signs of which are intertwined above two flowers. Their five-petalled corollas indicate to us that this is a wild rose, that is, a wild rose, chosen by alchemists as a sign of gratitude to God and Nature for the wealth and health sent down to the Adept, without prejudice to other people. In our memory, the coat of arms of the monastery in Cimiez pops up again - a blossoming rose.

The Latin inscription under it undoubtedly emphasizes the incompatibility of the success of alchemical work with ambitious aspirations, dirty thoughts, shameless greed and, on the contrary, recalls the nobility, which the philosopher is both the soul, and the herald, and the guide, however, powerless, if he does not possess the high virtues of faith, courage, perseverance, constancy and inner silence. This flower, this rose, plucked by the alchemist in the evening hour of his great labor, blooms harmlessly: INNOXIA FLORET

Pic. source: Les dovze clefs de philosophie de frere Basile Valentin, c. 1660 https://archive.org/details/lesdovzeclefsdep00basi/page/n19/mode/thumb