Cernunnos Esoteric Visual Histories

Introduction

Cernunnos is an imprint of the publisher Abrams, and is badged as a visually driven house focused on art, icons, and intriguing cultural subjects – which explains why these books read as art objects as much as reference works.

Strictly speaking, Cernunnos badges these Visual Histories as a trio of books by Ed Simon — Pandemonium, Elysium, and The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues — with Laetitia Barbier’s Tarot and Divination Cards as a differently subtitled companion (A Visual Archive). The Ed Simon works provide a curated architecture from infernal to celestial to human. However, physically it is Pandemonium, Elysium and Tarot that have a matching series binding, with a beautifully patterned and textured quarter paper design, while the Sins and Virtues book is similar sized but bound as a tête-bêche (flip book).

Whilst this may be a little frustrating to the aesthetic collector, it does retain some of the loose feel of a cabinet of curiousities to see the different bindings together on a shelf.