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Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.
Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 August 1316 to his death, in December 1334. He was the second and longest-reigning Avignon Pope, elected by the Conclave of Cardinals, which was assembled in Lyon. Like his predecessor, Clement V, Pope John centralized power and income in the Papacy and lived a princely life in Avignon.
Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, died c. 806−816, is the purported author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The works that survive today mainly deal with alchemy and chemistry, magic, and Shi'ite religious philosophy. However, the original scope of the corpus was vast and diverse, covering a wide range of topics ranging from cosmology, astronomy and astrology, over medicine, pharmacology, zoology and botany, to metaphysics, logic, and grammar.
Basil Valentine is the Anglicised version of the name Basilius Valentinus, ostensibly a 15th-century alchemist, possibly Canon of the Benedictine Priory of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany but more likely a pseudonym used by one or several 16th-century German authors.
The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of the Library of Sir Thomas Browne highlights the erudition of the physician, philosopher and encyclopedist, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). It also illustrates the proliferation, distribution and availability of books printed throughout 17th century Europe which were purchased by the intelligentsia, aristocracy, priest, physician and educated merchant-class.
Elias Ashmole was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.
Pseudo-Geber is the presumed author or group of authors responsible for a corpus of pseudepigraphic alchemical writings dating to the late 13th and early 14th centuries. These writings were falsely attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan, an early alchemist of the Islamic Golden Age.
The Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Tablet or the Tabula Smaragdina, is a compact and cryptic Hermetic text. It was highly regarded by Islamic and European alchemists as the foundation of their art. Though attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus, the text of the Emerald Tablet first appears in a number of early medieval Arabic sources, the oldest of which dates to the late eighth or early ninth century. It was translated into Latin several times in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Numerous interpretations and commentaries followed.
Petrus Bonus was a late medieval alchemist. He is best known for his Precious Pearl or Precious New Pearl, an influential alchemical text composed sometime between 1330 and 1339. He was said to have been a physician at Ferrara in Italy, causing him to sometimes be known as Petrus Bonus of Ferrara or as Petrus Bonus the Lombard. An Introduction to the Divine Art is also attributed to him but was printed much later, in 1572.
Muḥammad ibn Umayl al-Tamīmī, known in Latin as Senior Zadith, was an early Muslim alchemist who lived from c. 900 to c. 960 AD.
Monas Hieroglyphica is a book by John Dee, the Elizabethan magus and court astrologer of Elizabeth I of England, published in Antwerp in 1564. It is an exposition of the meaning of an esoteric symbol that he invented.
William Backhouse was an English philosopher, alchemist, astrologer, translator, and the esoteric mentor of Elias Ashmole.
Theatrum Chemicum is a compendium of early alchemical writings published in six volumes over the course of six decades. The first three volumes were published in 1602, while the final sixth volume was published in its entirety in 1661. Theatrum Chemicum remains the most comprehensive collective work on the subject of alchemy ever published in the Western world.
Oswald Croll or Crollius was an alchemist, and professor of medicine at the University of Marburg in Hesse, Germany. A strong proponent of alchemy and using chemistry in medicine, he was heavily involved in writing books and influencing thinkers of his day towards viewing chemistry and alchemy as two separate fields.
Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum first published in 1652, is an extensively annotated compilation of English alchemical literature selected by Elias Ashmole. The book preserved and made available many works that had previously existed only in privately held manuscripts. It features the alchemical verse of people such as Thomas Norton, George Ripley, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, John Lydgate, John Dastin, Abraham Andrews and William Backhouse.
Bernard Gilles Penot was a French Renaissance alchemist and a friend of Nicolas Barnaud.
Lawrence M. Principe is the Drew Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Chemistry. He is also currently the Director of the Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe, an interdisciplinary center for research at Johns Hopkins. He is the first recipient of the Francis Bacon Medal for significant contributions to the history of science. Principe's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and a 2015-2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. Principe is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the history of alchemy.
The Liber de compositione alchemiae, also known as the Testamentum Morieni, the Morienus, or by its Arabic title Masāʾil Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib, is a work on alchemy falsely attributed to the Umayyad prince Khalid ibn Yazid. It is generally considered to be the first Latin translation of an Arabic work on alchemy into Latin, completed on 11 February 1144 by the English Arabist Robert of Chester.
Johannes Nicolaus Furichius (1602–1633) was a Franco-German Neo-Latin Imperial poet laureate, pharmacist, doctor of medicine and alchemist from Strasbourg.
Ortolanus, also known as Hortulanus, was a medieval alchemist. Little information exists about his life and identity. He is best known for his influential commentary on The Emerald Tablet entitled Liber super textum Hermetis. It was composed before 1325, and the original work has two sections.
References
- Entry in Concise Dictionary of National Biography
- Lynn Thorndike A history of magic and experimental science 1934, vol. 3, pp. 85–102
- C.H. Josten The text of John Dastin's 'Letter to Pope John XXII Ambix, 4:1 & 2 (1949), 34-51
- Wilfred Theisen John Dastin's Letter on the Philosophers' StoneAmbix 1986, vol. 33, no2-3, pp. 78–87
- Wilfred Theisen John Dastin : the Alchemist as Co-Creator Ambix 1991, vol. 38, no2, pp. 73–78
- Thiesen, W (2008). "The letters of John Dastin". Ambix. 55 (2): 153–68. doi:10.1179/174582308x255389. PMID 19048973. S2CID 20368465.
- Theisen, Wilfred (1999). "John Dastin's alchemical vision". Ambix. 46 (2): 65–72. doi:10.1179/amb.1999.46.2.65. INIST 1552495.
- John Dastin's Alchemical Dream Kessinger Publishing, 2005
- Pascale Barthélemy et Didier Kahn Les voyages d'une allégorie alchimique : de la Visio Edwardi à l'Oeuvre royalle de Charles VI in Comprendre et maîtriser la nature au Moyen Age. Mélanges d'histoire des sciences offerts à Guy Beaujouan, Genève-Paris / 1994
