This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1652.
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.
Fasciculus Chemicus or Chymical Collections. Expressing the Ingress, Progress, and Egress, of the Secret Hermetick Science out of the choicest and most famous authors is an anthology of alchemical writings compiled by Arthur Dee (1579–1651) in 1629 while resident in Moscow as chief physician to Czar Michael I of Russia.
The year 1652 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Michael Maier was a German physician and counsellor to Rudolf II Habsburg. He was a learned alchemist, epigramist, and amateur composer.
"The Canon's Yeoman's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Projection was the ultimate goal of Western alchemy. Once the philosopher's stone or powder of projection had been created, the process of projection would be used to transmute a lesser substance into a higher form; often lead into gold.
John Worlidge or John Woolridge (1640–1700) was a noted English agriculturalist, who lived in Petersfield, Hampshire, England. He was considered a great expert on rural affairs, and one of the first British agriculturalists to discuss the importance of farming as an industry.
Thomas Norton was an English poet and alchemist best known for his 1477 alchemical poem, The Ordinal of Alchemy.
John Dastin (c.1293-c.1386) was an English alchemist of the fourteenth century. Little is known of his life beyond the texts which are attributed to him. Dastin is known for correspondence with Pope John XXII and Cardinal Napoleone Orsini in defense of alchemical practice, dated to 1320.
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.
Thomas Charnock (1524/1526–1581) was an English alchemist and who devoted his life to the quest for the Philosopher's Stone. His unpublished notebooks are useful, not just for an understanding of Elizabethan attitudes towards alchemy in general, but for the insight they give to Charnock's life and thoughts.
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.
Thomas Wharton (1614–1673) was an English physician and anatomist best known for his descriptions of the submandibular duct and Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord.
Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700) was an English lawyer, courtier, diplomat and scientific writer. While not a published alchemist, he was a significant figure in English alchemical work from the 1650s onwards; he is known to have used the pen-name "Halophilus".
The Mirror of Alchimy is a short alchemical manual, known in Latin as Speculum Alchemiae. Translated in 1597, it was only the second alchemical text printed in the English language. Long ascribed to Roger Bacon (1214-1294), the work is more likely the product of an anonymous author who wrote between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries.
Samuel Norton (1548–1621) was an English country gentleman and alchemist.
