Titus Burckhardt (1908-1984) (Ibrāhīm ‘Izz ud-Dīn) was the son of the Swiss sculptor, Carl Burckhardt, and a member of a patrician family of Basle. Although he first followed in his father’s footsteps as a sculptor and illustrator, he was since his childhood always strongly attracted to oriental art. This led him to a theoretical study of eastern doctrines and to repeated sojourns in the Islamic countries. After some years of studying the history of art and oriental languages, he became director of a publishing house, the Graf-Verlag, which specialised in facsimile editions of ancient manuscripts. In 1972, he was appointed to UNESCO for the preservation of the ancient city of Fez. He was himself an artist and a writer. Well known as the general editor of a magnificent series of art books on sacred cities, and the author of these that deal with Sienna, Chartres and Fez, he has also written such authoritative works as Moorish Culture in Spain; Sacred Art in East and West; An Introduction to the Sufi Doctrine; Letters of a Sufi Master and Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, which is perhaps the best book on Alchemy to be written in the twentieth century. His collected essays have appeared in English under the title Mirror of the Intellect.