Aurora Consurgens is a 15th century richly illuminated text in the alchemical tradition. Like a well-wrought puzzle it fuses Bible quotations with quotes from early alchemical texts to conjure up a beautiful rumination on the female figure of Wisdom. While described as beautiful, she wasn't flawless, weak, fearful, or subordinate. She was a strong, intelligent, free-willed, even fearsome creature who had all the knowledge of the world gathered inside. That Wisdom, that everything connected to knowledge and science is naturally a woman's domain appears to be an alien thought to us today. Yet,...