Directory of Research and Expertise

History of Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy | History of Alchemy | History of Religions | Jungian Thought

Thesis

Two Physicians in Search of the Unus Mundus: Alchemical Transformation, Meditatio and Imagination in Gérard Dorn and Carl Gustav Jung

Supervisors: Charles Burnett / Alessandro Scafi

Profile

Francesca Croce studied Art History at the University of Turin. Her BA dissertation concerned Aby Warburg’s conference on the Schlangenritual, and its symbolical implications for his mental healing. Her MA at the same university (summa cum laude) concluded with a thesis on the images in C. G. Jung’s Red Book. This study implied a thorough analysis of Jung’s imaginative material with both a historical and interpretative approach.

She also holds an MA from the Warburg Institute with a dissertation (distinction) on the alchemical symbolism in the frontispiece of Gérard Dorn’s Chymisticum Artificium Naturae (1568).

Her PhD research project concerns the importance of the early modern physician and Paracelsian Gérard Dorn (c. 1530-1584) on the thought of C.G. Jung (1875-1961). Particular attention will be given to Dorn’s idea of “unus mundus” and to its role in the development of Jung’s concepts of the Self and synchronicity.

Funding

2016-2017 Warburg Institute bursary

Publications

• “Attraverso l’immagine. Il processo trasformativo di Atmavictu-Philemon nel Libro rosso di C. G. Jung. Seconda parte”, in L’Ombra, X, Moretti e Vitali, Bergamo 2018, forthcoming.

• “Architettura”, in Le mostre del Barocco piemontese (1937 e 1963), ed. G. Dardanello, S. Abram, forthcoming.

• “Attraverso l’immagine. Il processo trasformativo di Atmavictu-Philemon nel Libro rosso di C. G. Jung. Prima parte”, in L’Ombra, VIII, Moretti e Vitali, Bergamo 2016, pp. 47-63.