Apocalypse and alchemy are two paradigms in which the end becomes the necessary condition for evolution toward new forms of being.

“Both articulate discourses around the idea of transmuting the old into the new: one in a religious, prophetic key, addressed to the many, to the community of revelation; the other in a symbolic language, specific to speculative practices, addressed to the few, to those who enter the initiatory circle by allowing themselves to be permeated by mystery. These registers coexist within the medieval and Renaissance horizon, where alchemy often operates within Christian cosmology, enacting a double reading of transformation: material and spiritual.

The alchemical corpus does not merely designate a series of technical processes, but becomes a reflection on becoming itself, without being reducible, anachronistically, to a mere method of self-knowledge. The eschatological dimension prophesied by John is thus cast off like an exuvia, the Great End revealing its teleological endoderm. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance are, of course, the epochs of an apocalyptic romanticism in which the grave emphasis shifts: it is no longer placed on catastrophe, but rather on the understanding of finality.”

— excerpt from the curatorial text by Gilda Ghinoiu