In the vein of Sir Thomas Browne's peculiar investigations and Robert Burton's recondite divagations, preferably from late middle ages up to the age of enlightening, but in all fairness, period is not too relevant here, what matters most is subject and, above all, the style in which that very subject is being encircled and attacked. I'm not interested in things made abstruse by dint of their abstract nature, so I'm not seeking obscure philosophies that could be found in the Neoplatonic writings or in some scholastic ones, although the writings I'm looking for could very well incorporate these as well. I'd like these writings to have, more or less, the structure of an encyclopedia or, better put, and more realistically, of a dictionary. Of what exactly? Not important in the least, although it would be nice if they would speak about everything: the highly polished and dully supervised phrases resulting from the effort of a polymath. This is why I think the Rennaisance has the best chances to possess such writings. Those men interested in everything, with knowledge about everything, with limitless abilities and indefatigable enthusiasm about the world, and all its perplexitiesI. But, as I said, I'm mostly interested in the style. The style is everything. The lexicon, the syntax, the punctuation! I want these writings to have an arcane character, to be intricate and hermetic, to be written in such a manner that it would attract a rather small number of readers. A remark partaking to biology, a medical research, a study of witchcraft a mathematical point, an alchemical investigation, an astrological theory, any scientific opinion, a metaphysical thought, an experiment in prosody, a spiritual idea, an artistic analysis, an anecdote, a confession, an epigram--anything, as long as it is expressed in an occult style that would permit access only to those initiated (I am referring to the readers of those times) in these domains. I'm interested in a very particular mysterious flavor, as when you open The Anatomy of Melancholy or Religio Medici, the feeling of that work having been elaborated in seclusion, with no intent to reveal too much to the common folk. It must have a hidden aspect, to be redolent of the clandestine.
Any ideas?
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