Merton College, 5 December 2025, 5pm
Join the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group for the final event in their Michaelmas Term ’25 programme in the Mure Room at Merton College at 5pm on Friday 5 December (Week 8) where Sergei Zotov (Warburg Institute, London) will speak on ‘Between Science and Allegory: Alchemical Images as Vessels of Knowledge’
The talk examines how alchemical images in medieval manuscripts forged a distinctive mode of knowledge at the threshold of science and imagination. Originating as visual experiments, they developed into a symbolic language that articulated natural philosophy through allegorical form. Far from mere decoration, these images mediated between empirical inquiry and religious, zoological, bodily, or social interpretation — becoming vessels in which medieval science and allegory converged.
For any questions, or to be added to the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group’s mailing list, contact Fergus Bovill at oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com