Latona is the Greco-Roman goddess (Greek Leto) who bore the divine twins Apollo and Diana (Artemis) after being pursued relentlessly by Juno's jealousy across the world. In the classical mythological tradition, she is a figure of persecution and maternal endurance — pregnant with the sun-god and the moon-goddess, she wanders from land to land until the floating island of Delos agrees to receive her. There, Diana is born first and immediately assists as midwife at the birth of her brother Apollo.

In the Atalanta Fugiens, Latona is the subject of Emblem XI, whose motto — 'Make Latona white and tear up the books' — is one of the most frequently cited instructions in alchemical literature. Maier personifies the term Latona from the alchemical word laton (also latten), which the Clangor Buccinae defines as an imperfect, yellow body composed of gold and silver (De Jong, pp. 113-117). The pun between the goddess's name and the technical term for an alloy of gold and silver is the hinge of the emblem's meaning: by depicting the goddess Latona being washed, with Apollo and Diana as children at her knee bearing sun and moon emblems on their heads, Maier translates a chemical instruction — purify the impure alloy — into a mythological scene.

De Jong traces the motto to the Rosarium Philosophorum, which quotes Morienus: 'Make Laton white and tear up the books, that your hearts be not corrupted.' The instruction means that once you understand how to purify the base alloy (make it white), the obscure alchemical books become unnecessary and should be discarded to prevent confusion. Hermes is also cited: 'Azoth and fire wash Laton and take its blackness away.' The making-white of Latona is the transition from nigredo to albedo — the purification stage in which the dark, impure prima materia is washed, heated, and gradually transformed into a white substance.

The discourse develops the metaphor at length. Latona is dark, with black stains on her face that can only be removed by making her white. Maier warns against superficial whitening — cosmetic ointments that whiten only the surface are useless. The philosophers want to make Latona white through and through, penetrating to the very substance. The Clangor Buccinae instructs that if Latona is found in a humble place, she should be brought to greater dignity (purified); if in a worthy place, she should first be immersed in dung (subjected to putrefaction by gentle warmth). Through this process, she becomes truly white, turns into white lead, from which red lead originates — and that is the beginning and end of the opus.

The twins Apollo and Diana, born from the whitened Latona, represent the solar and lunar principles — perfect redness (gold) and perfect whiteness (silver) — that emerge when the base alloy has been properly purified. De Jong notes that the emblem's picture shows Latona being washed, visually enacting the chemical instruction of the motto.

Forshaw connects Latona to the discourse of Emblem XXV, where Latona, Cynthia (Diana), Apollo, and the Python all represent chemical substances and processes. The Python that Juno sends to pursue Latona is another version of the corrosive agent that threatens the gestating substance.

For a general reader, Latona illustrates Maier's method at its most characteristic: a goddess's name happens to sound like a chemical term, and this linguistic coincidence becomes the basis for an entire emblem. The impure alloy of gold and silver is personified as a dark-faced mother who must be washed white so that her radiant children — the perfected Sun and Moon — can be born.

Meanings Across Registers

De Jong shows that alchemical terms operate simultaneously across material, medical, spiritual, and cosmological dimensions.

Alchemical

An imperfect body composed of Sol and Luna, as Bonus describes: she must be whitened (dealbate Latonem) by washing with Mercury to reveal the hidden gold and silver within.

Medical

The diseased or impure body harboring latent health; the patient whose mixed condition contains the seeds of both sickness and cure.

Spiritual

The soul burdened by unresolved contraries; the mother of Apollo and Diana who suffers persecution until her divine children—light and reflection—are born.

Cosmological

The material world pregnant with celestial potential; the earthly matrix from which solar and lunar principles must be separated and purified by the art.