{"title":"Alchemy","description":"\u003cp\u003eScientific manuals and esoteric guides that document theory, practical experiments, and the symbolic philosophy of alchemy. \u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"planis-campy-david-de","title":"PLANIS CAMPY, David de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare first edition of this most interesting medical work based on astrology and alchemy, beautifully printed with a fine engraved portrait of the author and hermetic title, with an additional beautifully engraved alchemical title.  An author who deserves greater attention than he has received is David de Planis Campy (1589-ca.1644), who produced ten works on medical chemistry and traditional alchemy. He was a councillor and Chirurgien ordinaire to Louis XIII, and his works were collected and published in a folio volume in 1646. He wrote that alchemy is a science that teaches the means of separating the elements of each mixed body produced by nature and of separating the pure from the impure. A. G. Debus,  The French Paracelsians . Planis Campy wrote on phlebotomy, musket wounds, the plague, and mineral and chemical remedies. He made several references to Dee s Monas in his works. The engraved title page flatteringly presents King Louis XIII as the  French Hercules . At the foot of the pedestal on the left there is a round diagram representing the principles of  the Great Work  with the Hebrew word  Yah , at the centre, which corresponds to the divine, heavenly principle. On the opposite side are the sun, moon and mercury, within a mountain or the philosophers stone. The portrait of the author is also very fine. The circular French inscription gives his name and states that here, in 1627, he is in his 38th year and is surgeon to the French King. It refers to him as  L Edelphe  a follower of the theories of Paracelsus, also indicated by references to the microcosm and macrocosm in the book placed in front of him. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The present work has the subtitle  the seven illness held, until now, to be incurable, and now treatable with the art of chemical medicine , the hydra of the title having seven heads. The work is thus divided into seven chapters each dealing with one of these illnesses. They are in order; Leprosy,  Podagre  or Gout, Hydropsie, Epilepsy, Cancer,  Noli me-tanger é  or hidden cancer, and  Escrouelles  another form of malign cancer. Each chapter gives a definition of the illness followed by its causes, various forms of the illness, its signs, and prognostics followed by various chemical cures devised by the author. As such it give tremendous insight into the new forms of  chemical  treatments that moved away from traditional Galenic medicine.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLANIS CAMPY, David de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816163844431,"sku":"L3183","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8436.jpg?v=1781794886"},{"product_id":"du-chesne-joseph","title":"DU CHESNE, Joseph","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of the posthumous translation into French of Du Chesne s  Tetras gravissimorum totius capitis affectuum , first printed in 1606. A French physician and follower of Paracelsus, Du Chesne is mostly remembered for his important, if transitional, alchemical theories and for first introducing Paracelsus s antimonial remedies to France. This extensive work consists of discussions of Epilepsy, Vertigo, Apoplexy and Paralysis. Duchesne was born around 1544 in Armagnac and studied at Montpellier, and then at Basle, where he received a medical diploma in 1573. During the 1570s at Lyon, he married Anne Trie the granddaughter of Guillaume Bud é, and became a Calvinist. He went into medical practice and became physician to Francis, Duke of Anjou. He left Lyon in 1580 for Kassel in Hesse, and moved on to Geneva, where in 1584 he received citizenship. Duchesne was elected to the Council of Two Hundred in 1587, and undertook diplomatic missions to Bern, Basle, Schaffhausen and Zurich in the years 1589 to 1596. In 1598, following the Edict of Nantes, Duchesne returned to France and became physician-in-Ordinary attending Henry IV of France. In 1601 Nicolas Br√ªlart de Sillery gave him a mission as envoy to the Swiss cantons. In 1604 he went to the court of Maurice of Hesse-Cassel where he gave scientific demonstrations in a laboratory specially set up for him.  This rare book of neurology has an alchemical background, especially through the preparation and formulation of drugs, taken from the hermetic practice. The last part of the volume deals specifically with this subject:  La signature interne du Vitriol ,  Antimony ,  Gold and Silver ,  Bright Silver or Mercury . Du Chesne treatment for  epilepsy derives from the doctrine of the Galenic School but includes theories of the Spagyric School  o√π il est enseign é que la vraie anatomie des maladies se doit apprendre par la lumière de la nature du Grand Monde, dont l homme est l image . For Du Chesne, as for Paracelsus, the life of man is inseparable from that of the universe, where reign the   principes hypostatiques exprim és par le triangle alchimique: soufre, mercure et sel . His book ends with a curious chapter on  the vinification of gold  and how to make gold drinkable. He writes  le très chrestien roy de France [Henri IV] favorise la chimie: Sa Majest é a donn é permission de bastir un laboratoire avec toutes sortes de fourneaux pour pr éparer des remèdes spagyriques , and he gives a very complete and most interesting description of this chemical laboratory.  A most interesting and rare work; Ustc locates six copies only in libraries.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DU CHESNE, Joseph","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816164598095,"sku":"L3186","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190718_155858.jpg?v=1781794877"},{"product_id":"girolamo-flavio","title":"GIROLAMO, Flavio.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of this scarce alchemical text, obscure and understudied, but full of gems. Little is known of Flavio Girolamo, except that he wrote this in order to demonstrate that  the chemical art is very true  and that  it is possible to obtain gold thanks to the philosopher s stone . The work celebrates the traditional qualities and nature of the philosophers  stone capable of turning base metals into gold the four Aristotelian elements, the Paracelsian fifth, and the shape of gold. In order to succeed in his enterprise, the mystical alchemist should  remain solitary and silent  and in so doing may contract melancholy, which would affect his observations and study. In fact,  external success in the alchemical laboratory  also depends on a  corresponding purificatory transmutation within the soul of the operator , a  purgative process  ridding the body of the melancholic humour (Brann,  The Debate , 279). The work is full of references to the biblical figures associated with alchemy (e.g., Abraham and Noah as astrologers and philosophers), classical deities and figures, and related ancient history (e.g., astrologers in Alexandria had to pay a special tax). The work also portrays the practicalities of an alchemist s life. The reader is allowed to take a glimpse into the everyday work of an alchemist. The  chemical rooms  of the laboratory are portrayed in all their lively aspects  cluttered, full of mechanical things, smoky and pokey . The alchemist has  no delicate nostrils  and, though abhorring the smells that accompany his experiments, he will withstand them considering the  glorious end  of this labour. In the section on  good chemical smells , Girolamo devotes a paragraph to the  smell of money  or  profit , following Juvenal s anecdote:  as Titus complained to his father, Vespasian, of another Urine Tax [for the disposition thereof from public toilets to the city s sewers], Vespasian picked up one of the coins earned from that tax and put it under his nose, as if to say  now tell me if this smell offends you .  A scarce, obscure and engaging alchemical text.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GIROLAMO, Flavio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816165122383,"sku":"L3198","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190718_145922.jpg?v=1781794876"},{"product_id":"plattes-gabriel","title":"PLATTES, Gabriel","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this most interesting work on mining and the discovery of minerals with a large section section on the arts of dyeing and fixing colours. It gives directions for  finding  metals and minerals, for  melting, refining and essaying them , and not only how to test gold but how to make it. Unfortunately, this was at greater cost than its value and of so little benefit to its discoverer that Plattes is  said to have dropped down dead in the London streets for want of food  (Lowndes). The Discovery also included some  interesting notices of the gold and silver mines in Peru, New England, Virginia, the Bermudas, and other parts of America . Sabin.  Very little is known about Gabriel Plattes; he was probably born at the beginning of the century. There is little evidence regarding Plattes  career in the period preceding his association with the Hartlib Circle. He seems to have been William Engelbert s assistant, to whom he dedicated his first two books:  A Discovery of Subterraneall Treasure , .. and  A Discovery of Infinite Treasure, hidden since the World s Beginning  both of them published in 1639. These two books were designed to be complementary .. The  scientific  and technological sections were interspersed with remarks about ethical and economic issues, pointing to a religious obligation which Plattes believed that people like him had to nourish in themselves and to disseminate it to the widest public in order to contribute to the improvement of the estate of the nation. These first two books published by Plattes were famous and highly appreciated in England and abroad, Marin Mersenne even expressing his intention to translate Plattes  books in French. The main aim of the books was to construct solidarity as both the instrument and the goal of a program of amelioration. Gabriel Plattes  name was associated with two of the most active personalities that worked in London at that time: the mathematician John Pell and the agricultural improver Richard Weston.Webster claimed that it was due to the association with John Pell, a promoter of Baconian experimental science, that Plattes changed his style and became more of an adept of the  experimental  way.  Oana Matei.  Husbanding Creation and the Technology of Amelioration in the Workes of Gabriel Plattes.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Plattes makes references to the lodestone and discusses the new plantations in New England, Virginia, Bermudas, and the mines in Peru but it is perhaps scientifically most interesting as the first English work to describe the process of separating silver and gold by nitric acid. There are chapters on the origins of mountains and minerals, the smelting and refining of lead, tin, iron, copper, and silver. An entire chapter is dedicated to gold also describing a means  of detecting counterfeit gold, with the following chapter on its alchemical production.The final chapter is most interesting for its discussion of making dyes from vegetable sources and giving various recipes for fixing colours. Plattes is said to have died in extreme poverty He left his unpublished papers to his friend Samuel Hartlib, who later published the utopian work the  Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria , which, though is often attributed to Samuel Hartlib, under whose name it was published, is now recognised as Plattes work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLATTES, Gabriel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816168005967,"sku":"L3274b","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-18-copy_07172d02-14df-487c-a817-b240ab6b5e9e.jpg?v=1781794862"},{"product_id":"le-paulmier-pierre","title":"LE PAULMIER, Pierre.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of the second edition of this fascinating chemical and medical work  tr√®s rare  (Caillet). Pierre Le Paulmier (Palmerius, b.1568) was nephew of Julien, physician to Charles IX. After studying at Paris and qualifying in 1596, he worked as a physician at the H‚àö¬•pital H‚àö¬•tel-Dieu. In 1603, he was summoned to the Faculty of Medicine to defend himself for proposing that apothecaries should be taught Paracelsian spagyric chemistry, the separation and re-assembling of the fundamental elements of bodies (Kahn, 360). First published in 1608,  Lapis philosophicus  worsened his ambivalent reputation as a supporter of the Faculty s Hippocratic and Galenic doctrines and an advocate of chemical medicines, according to Paracelsianism. Whilst believing that health depended on the harmony of the micro- and macrocosm, Paracelsus upheld that physicians should have sound knowledge of chemistry and the natural sciences, pioneering the use of chemical substances and minerals for treating illnesses. Through an attack on his disciple Libavius,  Lapis  sought to compromise between the ancient tradition and Paracelsianism, by celebrating the first whilst preserving the valuable parts of the second ( true alchemy , or chemistry) which, he argued, Libavius and Paracelsus had nevertheless misunderstood. It begins with an account of Paracelsus s ideas, and reasons to reject them, Libavius s Paracelsianism in relation to the  Greek tradition, the nature and chemistry of medicaments, chemical elements,  the necessity of alchemy , and the characteristics of  metalla . The work  attempted to square the use of metallic drugs such as hydrargyrum, stibium and aurum potabile with Galenic orthodoxy.   [this] served as the foundation for a justification   of chemical distillates. A book that purported to be an attack on Paracelsus and   Libavius as poisoners rather than physicians was in fact a defence of the search for celestial essences in sublunary phenomena  (Brockliss, 76). The final section is a case-study on a woman aged 45 with elephantiasis (fibrosis of the skin) who was treated unsuccessfully by Libavius and successfully by physicians of the French School, with the  alchemy of the ancient . A fascinating, important work in the history of chemistry.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LE PAULMIER, Pierre.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820348973391,"sku":"L3431","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-8-copy.jpg?v=1781794802"},{"product_id":"agrippa-cornelius","title":"AGRIPPA, Cornelius","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn attractive, unsophisticated copy, in an unusual, contemporary Netherlandish binding, of this extremely influential philosophical work, praised by the likes of Montaigne and Descartes. Due to the controversial reputation of its author, several early editions have few recorded copies and a complex bibliographical history, i.e., from the first of 1530 (possibly a  ghost ) to 1539, with most bearing neither imprint nor (frequently) a date. According to D. Cl ément s  Biblioth√®que curieuse  (1750),  this edition is very similar to that printed in Cologne. The pages are unnumbered.   It has no suppressed passages. There is one difference: the title is decorated with the bust of Cornelius Agrippa, absent in all preceding six editions  (I, n.86). This is one of his earliest and most reliable portraits. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Agrippa (1486-1535) was a major German polymath, physician, soldier (who travelled extensively in Europe) and official historian to Charles V; he was especially renowned for his  occulta  and ideas on the cabala (Bodin called him  the greatest magician of his age ), which led to clashes with the Inquisition, despite his recantation. Agrippa s ambivalence towards occultism, religion and epistemology caused a mixed reception of  De incertitudine  a harsh critique of all sciences and arts, and Renaissance epistemology in general which Agrippa subsequently defended in print. Each of the 102 chapters summarises wittily, only to berate, a discipline or art, from the elements of the trivium and quadrivium to optics, acting, painting, architecture, politics, natural philosophy, commerce, agriculture, surgery, anatomy, prostitution, veterinary medicine, law and cooking. There are fascinating sections on judicial astrology ( an art bringing no certainty, which can be turned into anything, according to opinion ), physiognomy (which  infers nonsense  from horoscopes based on physical appearance), magic (including necromancy), heraldry (by which  heralds dressed in military uniform astrologise, philosophise and theologise with foolish knowledge ), the inquisition (with a violent attack against the Dominicans  trials of heretics from his native Cologne), and alchemy ( which can be defined as an art, or sham, or persecution of nature ). The conclusion is an  encomium of the ass , i.e., ignorance, which is preferable to this useless knowledge. Despite the serious attacks of great minds like Bodin and Thevet,  De incertitudine  is a deeply ironic work, an aspect of Agrippa s work much praised, for instance, by Philip Sidney.  Like the works in similar vein of Erasmus, Rabelais and many others, [it] is a literary paradox and at the same time a work of polemic  (Bowen, 259), spanning the abuses of the Church and  false  science. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The contemporary annotator of this copy, probably the F. Hassek of the concealed inscription and monogram, highlighted passages against astrology, black magic, references to Agrippa s work on occult philosophy, theories of the soul, pimps, the  arts of women  and cookery. He was knowledgeable as he identified a mistake, where Agrippa used  Kirannides  to mean the name of the author, not the title of his book. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The unusual, contemporary Netherlandish binding, panel-stamped and signed by the obscure K.O., is not listed in Fogelmark s  Flemish and Related Panel-Stamped Bindings  or major bookbinding bibliographies. The stylised imperial escutcheon with the double-headed eagle and the columns with Charles V s motto  Plus Ultra  are reminiscent of BL c46b21. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Only three copies recorded in the US.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AGRIPPA, Cornelius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820352184655,"sku":"L3053","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-9-1_b28b4333-d0de-49a1-93d9-afdb8438502c.jpg?v=1781793817"},{"product_id":"paracelsus-theophrastus-with-sendivogius-michael","title":"PARACELSUS, Theophrastus [with] [SENDIVOGIUS, Michael]","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn interesting sammelband of scarce German Paracelsiana. The Swiss Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493\/4-1541) used the pseudonym Paracelsus for most of his successful career as an alchemist, philosopher and physician. He was very influential in the development of empirical observation and the use of chemistry (embracing toxicology) in medical practice, though associated with Hermetic and occult philosophies. After his death, many spurious alchemical texts were attributed to him for marketing purposes and printed individually or in collections, as here. Hence their complex bibliographical history and his increasing reputation as a magician. ‘De lapide’ gathers three treatises connected with the philosopher’s stone, with references to the false ‘metalworkers’ or ‘cacomedici’, i.e., physicians and alchemists who err in theory and practice. ‘De lapide medicinali’ is concerned with the medical properties of the philosopher’s stone as ‘the perfect balm’, its nature (‘Electrum’), preparation and use. ‘Tinctura physicarum’ and ‘Tinctura planetarum’ include references to the Tabula Smaragdina, reputed to contain the Hermetic secrets of the prima materia, and discuss metal transmutations, the alchemy of the body and the retention of planetary influence. The second work—‘Schreiben’—comprises two treatises. ‘Liber vexationum’ discusses bodily ailments and treatments based on transmutation, including the therapeutic properties of sulphur and mercury, as well as gems. ‘Thesaurus alchemistarum’ includes, among many, a hair-raising transmutation involving corrosive aqua fortis, and very explosive saltpetre and ammonium salts. The third work is attributed to the Polish alchemist and pioneer chemist Sendivogius (Michał Sedziwój, 1566-1636). It focuses on the philosopher’s stone, its properties and making.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe early annotators of this copy were two German alchemists. The C16 one devised a system associating specific ink colours with alchemical signs for metals, better to understand his own underlining, according to a ‘legenda’ he wrote at the beginning of ‘Liber vexationum’. Though not always consistent, yellow was for gold and red for mercury. He was also interested in the medical virtues of gems. The C17 annotator copied a few obscure alchemical poems—a much-used didactic genre in early modern Germany—one by the Lutheran theologian and mystic Johann Arndt (1555-1621). He glossed passages on the philosopher’s stone and Electrum with quotations from ‘Rosarium Philosophorum’ and Arnaldus de Villa Nova, highlighted lines on spagyric chemistry and ‘vulgar’ (base) metals, and glossed Hermes Trismegistus as ‘father of the wise’. He was also interested in astrological questions, and underlined passages in ‘Tinctura Planetarum’. He drew a diagram summarising the four elements, the basic chemical elements and the resulting tincture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PARACELSUS, Theophrastus [with] [SENDIVOGIUS, Michael]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820353331535,"sku":"L3509","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-49.jpg?v=1781793815"},{"product_id":"croll-oswald","title":"CROLL, Oswald","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A perfectly acceptable copy of this rare, posthumous collected edition of two very influential alchemical works. Oswald Croll (1563-1609), professor at Marburg and a follower of Hermetic philosophy, was a major supporter of Paracelsian views on the difference between chemistry and alchemy, and on the importance of chemistry as ancillary to medicine. First published in 1608,  Basilica Chymica  begins with a long  prefatio admonitoria . First, it explains the essence of  true medicine , which can only be practiced using the  book of nature , including planetary influence, and with good knowledge of the natural elements (the  spagyric  art). Second, it illustrates how and why sickness occurs, with references to important Paracelsian theories such as that of  tartarus  (dried salt accumulating in the body as a result of digestion). The core of  Basilica Chymica  discusses how illnesses (including syphilis or  morbus gallicus , epilepsy and the plague) can be  expelled , with instructions and doses for chemical remedies such as vitriol, mercury, antimony, salniter, cinnamon oil, mumia, cordials and balsams. It focuses on their curative properties as, for instance,  odorifera  (healing through their smell), and illustrates two kinds of Paracelsian  zenexton , an amulet worn against the plague. The second part  De signaturis internis rerum  was originally published separately in 1609. It is a study of the Galenic doctrine of signatures, i.e., how herbs which look like specific body parts can be used to treat ailments in those parts. After a theoretical introduction, the works is organised in sections on individual illnesses or kinds thereof, from scrofula to menstruation pain and poisonous bites, listing for each the most important herbal remedies. The early annotator was most probably a physician. In the first part, he highlighted passages on  flowers of sulphur  (powder produced through sublimation) and the effects of Paracelsus s  unguentum sympatheticum seu stellatum ; in the second, he circled a passage on how  nothing can be found in nature which cannot be useful in medicine . A major work in the history of medical chemistry. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The present edition bears the imprint Coloniae Allobrogum. The Latin name for the small Swiss town of Cologny, it is in fact a false imprint for nearby Geneva. In the early C17, Geneva publishers like Joannes Celerius sometimes used the Latin imprint of Cologny, which first appeared in 1565, to circumvent the French ban on exporting books from Geneva.  Geneva in the C17 was the centre of protestant propaganda and the Geneva imprint was regarded in Catholic countries as the sign of heretical literature.   There are on record various official efforts to have these prohibitions removed. Some of them were successful as far as non-theological books were concerned. For the imprint of [theological books], various pseudonymous designations were adopted  (Wing, p.46). A few copies of this edition are recorded with an erasure of  Coloniae Allobrogum , printed using a woodcut ornament, and the addition  Geneuae  below, printed with movable type. Given the non-theological subject of the book, this was probably done to restore the original place of publication after the prohibitions were removed. The 1631 edition of  Basilica  bears indeed the imprint  Geneva .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CROLL, Oswald","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859627647311,"sku":"L3481","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1_b50cc0c7-035a-47a0-a6b4-cf390c232a94.jpg?v=1781793803"},{"product_id":"paracelsus-theophrastus-llull-raimundus","title":"[PARACELSUS, Theophrastus; LLULL, Raimundus]","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A good copy of the first edition of this scarce German Paracelsianum, unusually illustrated with fine woodcuts of surgical scenes. The Swiss Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493\/4-1541) used the pseudonym Paracelsus for most of his successful career as an alchemist, philosopher and physician. He was very influential in the development of empirical observation and the use of chemistry (embracing toxicology) in medical practice, though associated with Hermetic and occult philosophies. After his death, many spurious alchemical texts were attributed to him for marketing purposes and printed individually or in collections, as here. Hence their complex bibliographical history and his increasing reputation as a magician.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . Wundt unnd Leibartznei  is entirely devoted to the treatment of wounds and fractures, with a final section on the  French disease  (syphilis). It is a thematic selection from  Grosse Wundarznei  (or  Chirurgia Magna , 1536) a treatise inspired by his experience as an army physician. The latter was the first medical work attributed in print to  Doctor Paracelsus  and one of few printed in his lifetime (Pagel, 5). According to Paracelsus, wounds should mostly be left to heal on their own, which contrasted with the detailed anatomical, clinical and surgical descriptions of Antoine Par é, who had begun publishing his theories in the 1540s. Paracelsus pays great attention to the corruption of the patient s body through disorderly diet, for instance, as physical balance was paramount to encourage healing. He also provides recipes of herbal or homemade remedies, as well as chemical composites (e.g.,  wundpulver , made of sulphur, vitriol, etc.), which help wounds heal, whilst opposing the use of traditional remedies like dung, as he thought that wounds should be kept clean. The last section of the first part deals with syphilis (Frantzosen Sch‚àö¬ßden): he discusses surgical interventions such as the cauterisation of sores, and proposes the use of mercury as a medical remedy. The second part comprises the treatise  Quinta Essentia  by the C14 philosopher Ramon Llull, concerning the fundamental essence of the universe, which was believed to be present in small quantities also in mercury. A scarce work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[PARACELSUS, Theophrastus; LLULL, Raimundus]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859628368207,"sku":"L3354","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-7_00a9badf-37b9-4367-bd8d-8782a37a0db5.jpg?v=1781793801"},{"product_id":"nazari-giovanni-battista","title":"NAZARI, Giovanni Battista.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good copy of this fascinating alchemic treatise on the transmutation of metals, beautifully illustrated and in a contemporary binding. This is the third edition, the first to include the  Concordanza dei Filosofi  at the end, here published for the first time. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Giovanni Battista Nazari (XVI century) was an Italian humanist, historian and alchemist of Saiano, a small town in the province of Brescia (Lombardy, Italy). A scholar of the history and traditions of Brescia, he is most known for his philosophical-alchemical studies.  Du Fresnoy [French bibliographer, 1674-1755] says Nazari had read an infinity of authors, even those little known, and had worked on the subject [i.e. alchemy] for forty years  (Ferguson). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Three dreams on the transmutation of metals , recounts three allegorical journeys, presented in the form of dreams, to the kingdoms of alchemy. The author is guided by Nymphs firstly to the sophist kingdom, based on false alchemical principles, then to the real kingdom, functioning in nature, and finally to the philosophical kingdom, which produces the true metamorphosis of the human into the divine.  The primary model for this work is an alchemical reinterpretation of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). The pilgrim-hero of Nazari s story passes through forests, villages, lakes, tombs, gardens, labyrinths, arches, pyramids, places generally characterized by elaborate architectural constructions and decorated with statues and enigmatic inscriptions. He stops to look at  odd inventions  and then  considers them and goes over them in his memory . The reader is invited, even required, to do the same, as she\/he turns the pages of the book and finds bizarre, hideous, and startling illustrations, such as a dragon with three heads, or an emasculated Mercury with no hands or feet, or a donkey playing a pipe surrounded by dancing monkeys  (Bolzoni). The author is represented sleeping in an oak-wood, or listening to the teachings of Count Bernardus Trevisanus, an Italian alchemist whose name is probably a pseudonym, and details of his life appear to be fictitious. Another curious woodcut depicts a table with 45 compartments, each containing the first letter of the alphabets of different languages. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Appended at the end, we find  Concordanza dei Filosofi , which the author presents as  extracts from the books of the philosophers, divided into theory and practice . It contains a series of sections summarising and translating works ascribed to the alchemist Arnaldus de Villa Nova, mainly concerning the philosophers  stone. These chapters are titled:  Rosario de Filosofi ,  Novo Lume  and  Libro chiamato Magisterio . Remarkably, this edition also includes a famous poem by Rigino Danielli on the philosopher s stone: particularly appreciated by the Italian alchemists of the XV and XVI centuries, this poem is known in different versions and imitations.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NAZARI, Giovanni Battista.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859643638095,"sku":"L3809","price":8750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-6.jpg?v=1781793744"},{"product_id":"weigel-valentine","title":"WEIGEL, Valentine","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this translation into English of this important spiritual work that was to have tremendous influence in England in Theosophist circles in the C19th, especially after it was reprinted with a commentary by Anna Kingsford in 1886. Valentin Weigel (1553-1588) was a mystical writer who drew upon Paracelsist and alchemical ideas. His ideas influenced Jacob Boehme, and other German Protestant mystics of the 17th century. Most of his writings were published after his death, when a small group of Weigelians promoted his ideas, and some texts were issued in his name, pseudonymously. This is the only one of his works that was published in English. ESTC assigns the work to Valentine Wiegel, with the note \"German or Latin original, if any, not traced  It is, however, uncertain whether it was written by Weigel himself. The text was first printed anonymously in 1617 under the title: Astrologia Theologizata,. The following year a German translation was printed under Weigel's name as the  second part  of the  Gnothi Seauton . There is no manuscript tradition associated with this text before c.1620, long after Weigel's death in 1588. But whether written by Weigel, or later by one of his school, it is a good illustration of the way in which mystically inclined Christians of that period, inspired by Weigel, endeavoured to make spiritual conquest of the prevailing Astrology. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The Saxon Lutheran pastor Valentin Weigel (1533 1588) was marked by modern scholars as a mystic, a theosopher, or a Paracelsian. Despite the inspiration he drew from Paracelsus and his natural philosophy, nevertheless, his interests in nature were rather limited. He was no physician, no astronomer and no alchemist .. alchemical themes appear only marginally in his works. Obviously, he is interested in theological topics for the most part. However, his followers allegedly built him a tombstone with alchemical symbols, and some alchemical works were later published under his name. By the end of the 17th century, he is mentioned as one of the figures in the uninterrupted chain of German adepts who reaped the  golden harvest , .. Such a reputation could be established largely due to pseudonymous texts that together with Weigel s authentic works began to spread in print editions after 1609, arousing considerable interest, both positive and negative. .. As a heir of the German Mysticism translated in the language of the Reformation, and a disseminator of some concepts of Paracelsus (esp. his concept of  two lights  or man as microcosm), Weigel could create a general philosophical-theological and epistemological framework suitable also for alchemy. Generally, Weigel s basic concern is man s relationship to God. He draws on Paracelsus  (1493 1541) , Ficino s (1433 1499), and Pico della Mirandola s (1463 1494) ideas of man as a microcosm containing in himself everything: the earthly (elemental and astral), the heavenly, and also the divine. Therefore, the primary issue is self-knowledge: it enables us to see that we are a unity of these  layers  and to ponder the implications this has for us. Similarly, to know God means to know man and to understand the nature of the world. For some, he was a theosophist and alchemist, aiming not at the transmutation of metals, but at the transformation and rebirth of man. His critics connected his ideas with Rosicrucianism ..  Martin _emla  Valentin Weigel and alchemy .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WEIGEL, Valentine","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859650617679,"sku":"L3919","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3919-2.jpg?v=1781793723"},{"product_id":"alchemy-1","title":"[ALCHEMY]","description":"\u003cp\u003e‚ÄòWer rechten Alchomey‚Äô, an exceptionally rare alchemical text in Low German with twenty-eight illustrations of early scientific equipment, together with two related works including a version of the Buch ysaac semys sun von Babilon, manuscript on paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eProvenance:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWritten and decorated, perhaps by the author (see below), for use in practical alchemical experiments, in northern Germany (note use of ‚Äòvl‚Äô spellings for the more common High German ‚Äòfl‚Äô) in the middle of the fifteenth century. To this the original hand, and other later hands over the next century or so, added notes of chants and other alchemical snippets to the first leaf and blank verso of last and to the border of fol. 47r, including the phrase ‚ÄúParturiunt Montes, nascetur Ridiculus mus‚Äù (a line from a fable of the first-century Latin author Phaedrus, alluding to a farcical story in which a mountain appeared to go into labour with loud groans, and a mouse emerged from its foot as an apparent miracle birth).\u003cbr\u003e\nAlmost certainly owned by Emanuel Mai (1812-97), bookseller of Berlin: see his catalogue for 1854, vol. I, no. 276 (there recorded with ‚Äú48 Blatter mit roth und schwartz gemalten Figuren‚Äù with a record of the same second text as here, correctly giving that text‚Äôs Low German spellings (note that in a slight garbling of detail, Mai lists the second text as beginning on ‚Äúpag. 47‚Äù but it is in fact on fol. 46v ‚Äì opposite the leaf numbered ‚Äò47‚Äô).\u003cbr\u003e\nRecently re-emerging in a private collection in in the US.\u003cbr\u003e\nText and the alchemical illustrations of the codex:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we think of alchemical manuscripts, especially those with any illustrations, the rarity of early examples means that the vast majority of those that come to mind are of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Yet fifteenth-century Germany was a hotbed of medieval alchemy, and produced many new texts and specialists involved in early chemical experimentation. Alchemy was a fundamentally practical subject, never a formal part of the university syllabus, and was most probably learnt as a form of craft apprenticeship, and so while its practitioners often used texts in Latin, their studies existed first and foremost in vernacular languages with masters and students conversing in those over their experiments as they worked. Thus a great part of the value of the present manuscript is in its representing the cutting edge of those studies, as an apparently authentic voice of the dawn of practical alchemy. Moreover, it stands extremely early in the German tradition of such works ‚Äì no alchemical work in German was catalogued by Herwig Buntz before the Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit, written between 1415 and 1419 (see his unpublished thesis: Deutsche alchimistiche Traktate des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, submitted to the University of Munich in 1968, and the same author‚Äôs article on that work in Zeitschrift f√ºr deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 101, 1972, pp. 150-160).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe present codex comprises: (i) the text of Wer rechten Alchomey (fols. 1r-35v), with the first original leaf here once with only the title of this work, followed by the main text beginning on the next leaf ‚Äì and the remaining space on the first original leaf filled up by the main hand with later alchemical notes referring to the source as a work of a ‚Äòbeloved Christopher‚Äô (‚ÄúLieber christoff‚Äù); (ii) a text digesting the work of Isaac Judeus\/Isaac ibn Sulaiman al-Israili (an occultist and doctor, who served as court physician to the last Aghlabite prince, Ziyadat Allah, and the Fatimite caliph, ‚ÄòUbaid Allah al-Mahdi, and who died in 932\/42 in Egypt: here fols. 36v-46r), this text opening ‚ÄúDas ist die puch das ysaac semis sun von Babilon ‚Ķ‚Äù; and (iii) a short and unidentified alchemical work, opening ‚ÄúLieber vett‚Äô ich pitt dich mit vleys du wild daz puech nymant ‚Ķ‚Äù (fol. 46v-48r).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAll parts of this book are of exceptional rarity, and two of the three texts may well be unique. The first text here can be traced by us in only two other witnesses: (1) an unillustrated fifteenth- or sixteenth-century manuscript, now Vienna, √ñsterreichen Nationalbibliothek MS. 3025. (Med. 222), and with a differing ending to that here, and thus perhaps with its text in a truncated form to this witness (see Tabulae codicum manu scriptorum praeter Graecos et orientales in Bibliotheca Palatina Vindobonensi, I, 1864, p. 181, no. 3025); and (2) another unillustrated copy of the text offered by Emanuel Mai as no. 275 in the same 1854 catalogue as the present manuscript ‚Äì  perhaps sharing an origin and provenance with the present manuscript, but evidently unseen in the last one hundred and seventy years. The tiny number of copies and their apparently restricted distribution suggests that none of these stands at any great remove from the anonymous author of the text, and the probable longer version of the text here and the inclusion of an integrated cycle of illustrations, make the present copy the most complete. It may well be the author‚Äôs own copy, from which the other two were made. No other copy of this text appears to have ever been offered for sale before, and a future comparison of this witness with that in Vienna and the short readings preserved by Mai for the lost manuscript promises substantial scholarly rewards for anyone interested in this text or the German alchemical mileau that produced it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe second text here is a close variant of a work recorded in a single sixteenth-century manuscript (Munich, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm 25114), and in this form may well be unique. Likewise, the third text cannot be traced elsewhere by us and may well be unique. This would accord well with the suggestion that this is the author‚Äôs own copy, containing the best version of his Wer rechten Alchomey and perhaps the only surviving copies of the last two texts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe texts here principally concern the transmutation of certain metals, elements and chemical compounds (most commonly here gold and silver, with copper and sulphur also frequently mentioned, as well as ‚Äúsalarmoniac‚Äù [Salammoniac, or ammonium chloride crystals], borax, ‚Äòwhite arsenic‚Äô and mercury, among others). In addition to this, the Wer rechten Alchomey contains an array of drawings of practical equipment for handling and changing the form of these elements, including kilns, heating pans, distillation equipment and vessels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlchemical texts of this great age are of exceptional rarity on the market, and those with any form of diagrams or illustrations far more so,  the last to come to the market the heavily fire-damaged Galletti Alchemical compendium, with twenty-two such diagrams accompanying the Summa perfectionis magisterii attributed to Geber,  written in Germany or the Netherlands c. 1489, and sold immediately after Bloomsbury Auctions‚Äô sale of 7 December 2020 (where it was lot 44).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[ALCHEMY]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859661103439,"sku":"L4014","price":150000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4014-3.jpg?v=1781793699"},{"product_id":"mynsicht-hadrian","title":"MYNSICHT, Hadrian.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.The scarce first edition of this popular compendium of medico-chemical remedies cum  book of secrets . Hadrian Mynsicht (1603-38) was a German physician and chemist trained at Helmstadt, later personal doctor to sundry noblemen, including the Duke of Mecklenburg. Part  book of secrets  part pharmacopoeia,   Thesaurus  contains a description of the preparation of a number of medicines discovered by Mynsicht and still in use, in 1751, by the apothecaries.   He was the first to prepare tartar emetic from roasted antimony sulphide and cream of tartar  (Ferguson). Whilst following iatrochemical theories, i.e., the interpretation and study of medicine and physiology in chemical terms, Mynsicht also included a few Hermetic processes such as how to obtain the Philosopher s Stone, as well as,  Unicornus solare ,  Luna potabilis  and  Liquor Solis aromaticus , from minerals. Each section presents a substance, one or more recipes to obtain it, and   under  Vires, Usus, Dosis  (strength, use, dosage)   its effects for specific conditions and types of patients (e.g.,  virgins and young women ). Among the sources cited are Du Chesne, Croll and Libavius. Mynsicht explains how to extract dozens of kinds of quintessence, pills, electuaries, balms, therapeutic wines, syrups and oils, e.g., from cinnamon, coral, deer antlers, as well as powders to treat epilepsy, gonorrhoea, incontinence, piles, impotence, teeth whitening (using  Farina virginea ), menstrual pain (with laudanum), fevers, backache, kidney stones, insomnia, the plague, gout, melancholy, mania, apoplexy, etc. Part II, called  Testamentum Hadrianeum , reprises both the genres of the  testament , used by alchemical and iatrochemical authors such as Paracelsus, Llull and Basil Valentin, and allegorical alchemical verse, being a Latin poem on the making of the Philosopher s Stone, prefaced by one page on Hermes Trismegistus. An interesting work suspended between competing chemical theories.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MYNSICHT, Hadrian.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859666248015,"sku":"L4048","price":1750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4048-1.jpg?v=1781793690"},{"product_id":"gesner-conrad-5","title":"GESNER, Conrad.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First printing of the posthumous second part of this most successful, charmingly illustrated  book of secrets , edited by Caspar Wolf. Conrad Gesner (1516-65) studied natural and medical science at Basle, Montpellier, and Zurich. Renowned for his zoological masterpiece,  Historia animalium , he was also an expert on botany and compiler of florilegia on surgery. First published in 1552, under the pseudonym Euonymus Philiatrus, Part I of  De Remediis Secretis  quickly became one of the most popular medico-alchemical books of the time, contributing to the wide diffusion of Paracelsian theories. It reprised the structure of the successful medieval genre of  books of secrets , which provided information and recipes for herbal medicine and the combination of substances useful for domestic management. Part II was similarly popular. It focused however solely on the  chimia  of waters, oils and sauces - substances obtained artificially through distillation - giving precise instructions and detailed illustrations of the equipment required for professional results. For each Gesner lists all the infirmities that can be treated. Chap. 1 is devoted to various distillation techniques (e.g., by exposure to the sun,  per balneum , using a furnace, by filtration), the chemical changes liquids undergo during the process, and special vessels required   some being Gesner s own work. Chap. 2 provides recipes for distillations from wine ( quintessentiae ), herbs or animals and their parts (e.g., capon), as well as composite and metallic waters (e.g.,  aqua forte ), and precipitations produced from Mercury. Chap. III is entirely devoted to oils, including balms, extracted from flowers, seeds, fruit, spices, gum and resin, antimony, as well as from less obvious materials such as paper, cloth, linen and wood. Chap. IV explains the preparation of  aqua vitae , juices, salts and (at length)  drinkable gold  or  gold oil , made from gold leaf and lemon juice, and used  against the plague and many other infirmities . A practical book for everyday consultation.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .A c1700 inquisitor noted on the verso of the front ep that Gesner was a  first-class author , i.e., that his entire works were prohibited by the Church.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GESNER, Conrad.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859669066063,"sku":"L4092","price":2850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_0897-copy.jpg?v=1781793681"},{"product_id":"pascal-jacques","title":"PASCAL, Jacques.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Nicely original copy of the first edition of this scarce work on chemical pharmacy, uncommon in all early editions. In 1897, E. Bonnet, author of  L'imprimerie ‚àö‚Ć B éziers , listed the present among the B éziers imprints of which no copies were recorded (p.41). All that is known of the author is that he was an apothecary in B éziers.  Chemical pharmacy  refers to Paracelsian, or spagyric, pharmacy, as opposed to the  ordinary  pharmacy of traditional  materia medica . In the preface, Pascal explains how pharmacy is a fundamental science which continues to be ill-practiced by apothecaries, who, in B éziers, mostly stocked badly prepared, corrupted remedies made  on the cheap . So much so that in the city all the medicaments were seized and judged by a professor from Touolouse, who declared Pascal s own the only one good enough to be sold. The approbation for this book came from the great medicinal professor, François Ranchin, from Montpellier.  Discours  begins with an examination of alchemy and pharmacy, and their medical uses. It explores Paracelsian ideas on the preparation of medical remedies, including compounds and various processes such as fermentation. It also discusses common mistakes made in traditional pharmacy, by both physicians and apothecaries, in the making of concoctions, pills, waters and syrups, and reiterates why traditional pharmacy needs spagyric pharmacy to achieve better-quality medicaments, e.g., through the correct and sufficient pulverization of metals. Pascal draws into the squabble also the University of Montpellier, accusing its professors of not taking a stand in favour of Paracelsian pharmacy. A long section is devoted to the  pierre d azur  (lapislazuli), in relation to Cathelan s work, and to alkermes, with an interesting discussion concerning different theories on the amount of sugar to be used in their preparation, and criticism of the low quality and uselessness of the alkermes prepared in Montpellier. Very interesting and scarce work. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PASCAL, Jacques.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868684788047,"sku":"L4302","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9152.jpg?v=1781793471"},{"product_id":"zwinger-jacob","title":"ZWINGER, Jacob","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of a fascinating work of chemical medicine which remains surprisingly distant from the teachings of Paracelsus. Zwinger (1569-1610)  emphasises the benefits of chemistry for medicine and he shows himself to be a reserved supporter of Paracelsus  (HLS). The son of renowned doctor and medical professor Theodor Zwinger (1533-1588), he studied medicine at the university of Padua, where he was later named consiliarius of the German nation. He worked as professor of Greek at the University of Basel from 1595, explaining his copious references to Greek literature, notably Homer.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The text considers the physical properties of natural substances such as sulphur, antimony, quicksilver and blue vitriol, as well as the uses and dangers of specific metals. The benefits of absinth, copper scales, amethyst, and aloe, are listed, amongst very many other natural resources. They are also considered as outright medical cures: antimony is thought to help with epilepsy, while arsenic is suggested to help a cough and sulphuric oil clears eases the symptoms of asthma. Throughout the work, Zwinger makes reference to the famous scientific names of antiquity, including Hippocrates, Galen, and Aristotle, whom he quotes and discusses at length. He also makes more contemporary references to his father s work and to physician Baptista Montanus (1498-1551)..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ZWINGER, Jacob","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868701270351,"sku":"L4454","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4623.webp?v=1781793444"},{"product_id":"hildebrand-wolfgang","title":"HILDEBRAND, Wolfgang","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An early edition of this curious and wide-ranging work on  natural magic , by the obscure Hildebrand (ca.1571-1635), a near contemporary of Paracelsus, Cardanus and Comenius. His most successful work, it is arranged thematically and divided in four books. Taking  magia  as a general term for scientific pursuits such as alchemy, astronomy and even theology, it explores  recipes for colouring the hair, improving the memory, making a man merry or melancholy. To see by night, one rubs one s eyes with the blood of a bat   other secrets are to see marvels in one s dreams, not to get too intoxicated to quickly, to make men seem headless or with the heads of animals . The fourth book specialises in artificial magic and contains chapters on making steel pliant, on glass, fireworks, waters, artificial gems and an artificial flying dragon. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Telle considered Hildebrand  a cunning robber who compiled foreign texts and thereby achieved a literary achievement that was considered valid at the time . Much of the text comprises passages from other works, often quoted in the original language, including an extensive section of the Quaestiones from Kramer s  Malleus Maleficarum . Other authors of note include Gesner, Albertus Magnus, Jan Baptists von Helmont. Although the majority of scientific, medical and alchemical literature at the time was in Latin, a large portion of the present work, remarkably, is written in German. This made the work more accessible and followed the popular humanist philosophy of the Renaissance, which placed emphasis on human autonomy and progress and instigated a large-scale move towards printing in the vernacular. Its popularity was enduring, going through 10 editions during the 17.th. century alone..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HILDEBRAND, Wolfgang","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868705694031,"sku":"L4455","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5371-rotated.jpg?v=1781793434"},{"product_id":"book-of-secrets-1","title":"[BOOK OF SECRETS].","description":"A most interesting ms collection of excerpts from alchemical texts, produced as a reference work by some physician or alchemist c.1700. A witness to  the persistent interest in alchemy, natural magic and Paracelsian medical chemistry  in C18 France (Debus, p.36). Produced by a physician, apothecary, or scholar of alchemy, this ms is a copy, with minor variations, of Book IV, Part II, of the Sieur de Sainte-Hilaire s  Les remedes des maladies du corps humain  (first ed., 1685). The Sieur de Sainte-Hilaire was likely related to Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), a precursor of evolutionary-developmental biology. The section, called  De la Preparation des vertus \u0026amp;amp; usages des Arcanes, ou plus rares Secrets de Medecine , is largely based on Paracelsus  theories. Saint-Hilaire mentioned that this section had been written by an anonymous, very capable alchemist. It is an expanded version, with variations, of the  Arcana Paracelsi  by Van Helmont, who considered Paracelsus  the vindicator and healer of almost all diseases  (Hedesan, p.176). (Van Helmont s liquor  alkahest  is twice mentioned and attributed to him.) The chapters discuss his  precipit é diaphoretique , a panacea from  fleurs de mars argent érs ,  poudre bezoardique dor ée , Llull s tincture,  panac ée aperitive ,  Sel volatile des Plantes , the  stomachique universel , the  petit precipit é de Paracelse ,  alkalis volatile  (made from mercury), Van Helmont s anti-hydropique remedies, mineral mumia, and Paracelsus   baume de suye . Each section lists the benefits of a particular remedy, and how to prepare and administer it, using alchemical procedures. Among the authorities mentioned are Paracelsus, Llull, Arnaldus de Villanova, and Van Helmont. As a medical book of secrets, it is quite technical and addressed to physicians or apothecaries trained in alchemy. 'There was close and stable interaction between C18 academic chemists and certain groups of educated practitioners, especially apothecaries, assayers, mining officials, and, especially in France, commissioners of state manufacturers.   a significant number of practitioners, especially apothecaries, were acknowledged as chemists  (Klein, p.18).","brand":"[BOOK OF SECRETS].","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868707529039,"sku":"L4345","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20250123_182030-copy.jpg?v=1781793428"},{"product_id":"ulstad-philipp-1","title":"ULSTAD, Philipp.","description":"\u003cp\u003ePhilipp Ulstad was a Nuremberg nobleman who taught medicine at the Academy in Fribourg in the early C16. He is primarily known to posterity for his Coelum philosophorum, an extremely popular and frequently reprinted work which served  as a standard authority on the preparation and use of distillates for nearly a century  (DSB). Its popularity and influence is partly to be attributed to the clarity of Ulstad s exposition of distillatory processes and to the numerous and informative woodcut illustrations.  Despite his use of alchemical terminology, Ulstad clearly dissociated himself from the enigmatic aspects of the alchemical tradition in offering his concise and rational account of the preparation of distilled remedies.   The lucidity of his technical directions was a major reason for the influence exerted by Ulstad. His discussion of apparatus and manipulative procedures afforded the sixteenth-century investigator an accurate summary of the best distilling theory then available.  (DSB).  \u003cbr\u003e\n Throughout his book, Ulstad made great use of the four authors he names in the letter of dedication: Albertus Magnus, Ramon Lull, Arnald of Villanova, and John of Rupescissa. Ulstad wanted to present his readers   which would have included apothecaries, surgeons, and aspiring alchemists   with ideas and techniques which could serve a practical or scientific use.  The first nine chapters of the book are devoted to a discussion of the manipulative techniques used [for the preparation of the Quintessence]. These techniques are illustrated by means of woodcuts referred to in the text. Then follow twenty-eight separate recipes for the preparation of the Quintessence or ..aurum potabile.. from a wide variety of substances including gold, spices, fruits, flowers, precious stones, antimony, honey  (Atkinson and Hughes, 105). Ulstad also outlines fourteen methods for the preparation of ..aqua vitae.. as a cure for several ailments.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Formerly part of the vast library established by Alonso Osorio, VII marqu és de Astorga (c. 1533-1592); in the following centuries it came to incorporate the libraries of the Conde-Duque, Sessa, Velada, Montemar, and others. After Osorio s death in 1816, his library was dispersed (see ..Catalogue de la biblioth√®que   de le Marquis d Astorga.., 1870).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ULSTAD, Philipp.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868708970831,"sku":"L4479","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/ulstad-L4479-4.jpg?v=1781793422"},{"product_id":"scribonius-wilhelm-adolf-widdowes-daniel-ed","title":"SCRIBONIUS, Wilhelm Adolf; WIDDOWES, Daniel, ed.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first English translation of Scribonius  work on natural science. Probably from the library of the botanist Edmund Pitt (1613-88), Alderman of Worcester, who corresponded, among others, with Robert Boyle. Three further books with the same ms autograph, all concerning medicine and natural science, are preserved at the BL. \u003cbr\u003e\n W.A. Scribonius (fl.1576-1583) was a German philosopher, and the author of several works on natural science, including  Rerum naturalium doctrina methodica  (1583), of which the present is an abridged translation. With this work, Scribonius applied the principles of Ramist logic to natural science, which Ramus himself had never properly attempted, providing an introduction for the use of university students.  The overall aim of Petrus Ramus (1515-72) was to provide a reform of logic, or dialectic, in order to make it more suitable than scholastic logic for use in teaching the liberal arts  (Enc. Ren. Phil., 2545). Widdowes  translation begins with an introduction to basic concepts in natural science (e.g., substance, accidents, qualities, colours, the zodiac constellations, the planets and their properties, the four elements), as well as short explanations of odd phenomena, such as the  false Sun ,  imprinted in the cloud by the reflection of his beams . The major focus of this translation is however on metals, their qualities and medicinal properties (e.g., brass, quicksilver, iron, lead, tin, diamonds, gems, salts, etc.), which made this a very useful work for C17 English alchemists. The early annotator of this copy marked on the margins most of the sections on minerals. Other sections are devoted to plants (e.g., nutmeg, myrrh, palm trees, pineapple, berries, cereals, etc.) and their properties, with short descriptions of their ideal habitats, and to herbs (e.g., saffron, ginger, acorus), weather and precious stones. Another section is devoted to a variety of subjects, from the senses to types of dreams, appetite, conception, humours, and anatomy, animals and insects. A very interesting, clear and concise introduction to natural science for young students.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SCRIBONIUS, Wilhelm Adolf; WIDDOWES, Daniel, ed.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710183247,"sku":"L4311","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4311-Scribonius-2.jpg?v=1781793410"},{"product_id":"plattes-gabriel-1","title":"PLATTES, Gabriel.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Two important works of alchemy and natural science, both in their first editions and designed to be complementary. Gabriel Plattes (c.1600 44) was part of Samuel Hartlib s circle of social and agricultural reformers, conducting his own experiments to improve agricultural practice in England.  Under the guide of husbandry and economic schemes, Plattes developed a natural philosophy that emerges throughout all his works. On a first reading,  Discovery of Subterraneall Treasure  discloses a series of experiments with metals and transmutations, while in fact it establishes the foundations of Plattes s alchemical theory of matter.  A Discovery of Infinite Treasure  [...] on the one hand, discusses Plattes s cosmology and asserts that all bodies in the universe are made of essentially the same matter, but, on the other hand, it provides accounts of technologies that may be used to improve the soil (assaying, fertilization, enclosure) based on a theory of plant nutrition and cyclic chemical change  (Encycl., p.1643). These first two books published by Plattes were famous and highly appreciated in England and abroad, Marin Mersenne even expressing his intention to translate Plattes  books in French. The first work beings with a discussion of the globe, as made of earth and water, and the causes of their stability. It proceeds to analyse the importance of agricultural tools and how traditional husbandry techniques  will produce in length of time nothing but poverty and beggary . The remainder provides sundry agricultural methods to increase efficiency and production, e.g., how to prevent the  blasting  of corn, mildew, the rotting of sheep, as well as the reasons why new inventions seeking to reduce the number of workers are not conducive to the prosperity of a  Common-wealth overcharged with people, but rather the contrary . The second work is on mining and the discovery of minerals with a large section on the arts of dyeing and fixing colours. It gives directions for  finding  metals and minerals, for  melting, refining and essaying them , and not only how to test gold but how to make it.  Plattes makes references to the lodestone and discusses the new plantations in New England, Virginia, Bermudas, and the mines in Peru, but it is perhaps scientifically most interesting as the first English work to describe the process of separating silver and gold by nitric acid. There are chapters on the origins of mountains and minerals, the smelting and refining of lead, tin, iron, copper, and silver. An entire chapter is dedicated to gold also describing a means of detecting counterfeit gold, with the following chapter on its alchemical production. The final chapter discusses the making dyes from vegetable sources and giving various recipes for fixing colours. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLATTES, Gabriel.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868712247631,"sku":"L4559","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/plattes-L4559-3.png?v=1781793396"},{"product_id":"khunrath-conrad","title":"KHUNRATH, Conrad.","description":".Rare  sixth  edition (sextum aucta \u0026amp; renovata) of this popular compendium of distillation and other alchemical processes by the German alchemist and metallurgist Conrad Khunrath (1555-1613), first published in 1594 and  much enlarged  in 1605 (Ferguson I, p. 461). It went through at least eight editions, the last in 1703. The German text is divided into  tracts  on various substances and chemicals, including clays, gums, liquors and spirits, the second part dedicated to distillation of waters, salts and oils. Occasional brief sections attribute Khunrath s recipes to the treatment of specific diseases, such as melancholy, plague and gonorrhoea..\r..An associate of the German physician and alchemist Philip Theophrastus von Hoffenheim, better known as Paracelsus, Khunrath was strongly influenced by Paracelsian ( spagyric ) medicine and uses several of Paracelsus s recipes here, such as those for  Theophrastian  balsam. However,  his reference to Georg Agricola and Conrad Gesner confirms the influence also of metallurgical knowledge on the development of chemistry. Although Khunrath, as his contemporaries were doing, occasionally attributed cures to God s blessing [as he does in the preface] or the effects of the signs of the zodiac and the planets, his book represents a masterpiece of clear, practical prescriptions and in the 17th century appears to have been considered a storehouse of information on curing  (Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1981), vol. VII, p. 355)..","brand":"KHUNRATH, Conrad.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868713984335,"sku":"L4452","price":1850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Khunrath-1.jpg?v=1781793381"},{"product_id":"alchemy-3","title":"[ALCHEMY]","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare third edition of this compendium of popular medieval French poetical works on alchemy, first published 1561, though La Fontaine s poem had certainly appeared earlier. The three poems are: the fifteenth-century Fontaine des Amoreux de Science by Jean de La Fontaine; a thirteenth-century  attack  on alchemy, delivered from the perspective of Nature, and with the Alchemist s prudent response, by Jean de Mean, along with a brief section on alchemy from his continuation of the Roman de la Rose; and the Sommaire Philosophique, attributed to the supposed alchemist Nicholas Flamel. Finally, there are two anonymous works, apparently later: one a short poem on alchemy, the other a prose defence of alchemy, apparently by the publisher of the first edition, against the efforts of one J. Girard to  outrage  the alchemists. The poems are hardly of any literary merit, serving rather as vehicles for a more basic kind of alchemical knowledge and the description of alchemical processes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[ALCHEMY]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868716573007,"sku":"L4787","price":3850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/La-metallique-transformation-1.jpg?v=1781793375"},{"product_id":"panteo-giovanni-agostino","title":"PANTEO, Giovanni Agostino","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition  of great rarity  (Duveen) of this early printed alchemical work by a Venetian Catholic priest, this copy annotated and augmented with extensive manuscript tables by a contemporary reader, possibly a medical student.   \u003cbr\u003e\n Panteo s work was concerned with the alchemical transmutation of metals into gold. He attempted to identify numerical secrets in the Cabbala, which could be used to determine proportions of metals to be used in the processes of transmutation, which he divided into putrefaction, generation and alteration.  In a second preface to the reader he promises to elucidate completely   the transmutation of metals. Actually he only succeeds in making the matter more mysterious by various charts, diagrams and columns of letters and numbers as well as the Tetragrammaton and Greek and Hebrew characters   In additional to all this mystic reckoning, such tremendous secrets are imparted as that the first principle of nature is matter and that the second principle is heat   It is explained that air is generated from the heat of fire and the moisture of water, while earth comes from the dryness of fire and the coldness of water combined  (Thorndike, p. 538). The second part, addressed to a Polish nobleman, Gulielmus Hyerosky, contains recipes for the transmutation of silver and gold, with numerical tables giving the proportions of each metal to be used, as well as instructions for the preparation of pestles, etc.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Panteo was the first Christian author who attempted to blend the Cabbala with the Hermetic alchemical tradition. Panteo s letter to Pope Leo X, framed within a charming woodcut border, justifies alchemy as a pious, scholarly pursuit. Leo was interested in alchemy, and the letter is preceded by his edict authorising the publication of Panteo s book and protecting it from piracy, etc., subscribed by his secretary Pietro Bembo, thus ignoring C15th prohibitions on alchemy passed by the Catholic Church. Panteo s work was eventually placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559. \u003cbr\u003e\n The extensive manuscript additions at the end appear to be a schema for human intellectual pursuits, beginning with  bonorum humanorum,  or good things of men, in which alchemy, astrology, mathematics and medicine are eventually figured as derivatives of broader ethical categories: the tables deal first with the virtues, which are arranged and further divided up, and secondly with the aspects of a faithful religious life, including liberality, friendship, innocence, mercy, etc., which are again set out and divided into their constituent parts. The annotator then divides intellect into human and divine parts, the former containing magic, which contains the obviously bad parts such as witchcraft, divination, etc., but also alchemy, pyromancy, geomancy, etc. etc. (Strangely, alchemy is given no further treatment, despite this annotator s sustained and intensive engagement with Panteo s text.) The other branches of human knowledge, which constitute the next few tables, are rhetoric, logic, metaphysics, mathematics, astrology, music, and practical or  real  things, which include on one side politics and economics, and on the other armoury, navigation, mechanics, and medicine. The annotator then dedicates several tables to medicine, dividing the discipline chiefly between Hippocrates and Galen, who are both subjected to long and detailed tabular derivations, but especially the latter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PANTEO, Giovanni Agostino","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868717457743,"sku":"L4834","price":29500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"glauber-johann-rudolf","title":"GLAUBER, Johann Rudolf.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first French edition of this rich compendium of alchemical processes and their medical uses by the German alchemist Johann Rudolf Glauber s (1604-70), illustrated with his inventions of furnaces for distillation, mineral baths and the separation and refining of metals, first published 1646-49 in Latin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe book describes five different models of furnaces designed by Glauber, followed by a volume of annotations to the fifth part. The first volume includes a description of glass vessels and the process by which they can be used with the first furnace for the distillation of essential oils and liquors. Glauber then outlines the many botanical and mineral oils, etc., that one can distil, along with their medical benefits: a spirit made from paper or linen, for example, can be used to treat gangrene. Other sections include the production of  flowers  or crystals from precious metals and minerals, the use of mercury to treat scabies and venereal diseases - elsewhere Glauber warns of the terrible dangers of  abusing  mercury - and the use of spirit of salt in cuisine when cooking chicken, pigeon or veal, etc. The second furnace is used for producing acids, nitres and sulphurs, as well as distilling pearls, crab's eyes , i.e. hard stones found in crayfish, etc. The third book gives an account of wooden cabinets with furnaces that can be used for bathing in mineral waters or brewing beer, etc., the illustrations showing a bearded man enclosed in the casement with only his head emerging from a small hole in the top.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe fourth volume is the one most clearly dedicated to alchemical sciences, beginning with an interesting and personal account of Glauber s efforts developing his furnaces, including a breakdown in his mental and physical health, caused in part by the toxic substances used in his researches. Glauber also iterates his commitment to the medical applications of alchemy and describes this as the philosophy behind his inventions. He describes methods of separating metals, refining metals, making glass for mirrors and making metallic glasses. The fourth and fifth books also give extensive instructions for making Glauber s furnaces, including which clay to use, as well as for the production and proper maintenance of crucibles and the glass vessels used for distillation, with several illustrations. The final part consists of annotations on the appendix to the fifth book, which is a list of  secrets  or recipes for various concoctions and chemical processes, for example for making a sugar that resembles West Indian sugar; in each case, Glauber expands on a secret for the benefit of the  incredulous or ignorant.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GLAUBER, Johann Rudolf.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723519823,"sku":"L4457","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-10_at_17.24.12_e989640e-32dc-48a7-aa90-fae20a2b0247.png?v=1781279849","url":"https:\/\/sokol-books-ltd.myshopify.com\/collections\/alchemy.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}