The end of a cycle : when Athanasius Kircher composed his own hieroglyphics

The abundant work of Father Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) marks a turning point, rather than a break with the spirit and practices of the Renaissance. The famous Jesuit is known - among other things - for his numerous works in which he attempted to accommodate hieroglyphic inscriptions to the Christian faith by virtue of a theological presupposition(prisca theologia). From a methodological point of view, Kircher remained largely a Renaissance man. Far from denying the symbolic approach of the humanists, he amplified it by extending his encyclopedia to all forms of knowledge (alchemy, magic, science) and all types of sources (notably Arabic and Hebrew, but also with links to the Far East). However, he distinguished himself from his predecessors by working on a corpus of authentic (or supposedly authentic) texts. The last of the thirty dedications - a hieroglyphic inscription of his own on an obelisk - which he offered to the Holy Roman Emperor to open theOedipus Aegyptiacus, will serve as a point of reference for this final lesson. This personal composition marks both a continuity with the spirit of the Renaissance, by demonstrating the ability of modernists to write new hieroglyphic texts, and a break with it, insofar as Kircher abandoned the repertoire of signs in vogue during the Renaissance in favor of signs attested on Egyptian monuments, thereby lending a veneer of authenticity to his composition.