Esoteric Telling

125 Pages·2014·6.7 MB·English

Esoteric Telling
Functionality of a
Printed Alchemical Dialogue
between Master and Student

Kid-Lee R. Vermaase
1876104
August 2014

Research Master
Classical, Medieval & Renaissance Studies
University of Groningen

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. C.G. Santing
Second Reader: Dr. A. van Gijsen
‘How far is man the cause of metals?’

Ramon Llull1

The image on the front page is taken from the Aureum vellus, part III, p. 239, and is adapted by
Kid-Lee Vermaase.

1 Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale, 15450, f. 386. In Thorndike 1934, 6-7.
Acknowledgements
Alchemy is a difficult subject that proved to be somewhat daunting. Thankfully Prof. Dr. Veerle
Fraeters and Dr. Annelies van Gijsen (University of Antwerp) helped me to get familiar with al-
chemical literature and pave the way to this thesis. Van Gijsen also was kind enough to provide
copies of the Duytsche alchimie and give useful advice. With regard to the writing process I am in
debted to my fellow student Nadine Kuipers for her editorial support. Finally I thank Prof. Dr.
Catrien G. Santing (University of Groningen), who supervised this research and provided helpful
feedback.
Contents
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 General ...................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Historiographical Framework ................................................................................................ 1
1.3 Approach .................................................................................................................................. 8
2 Sources .................................................................................................................................................... 12
2.1 Manuscript sources ................................................................................................................ 12
2.1.1 Manuscripts .............................................................................................................. 12
2.1.2 Identification and incipits ....................................................................................... 16
2.1.3 Titles and authors .................................................................................................... 17
2.2 Printed sources ....................................................................................................................... 20
2.2.1 Aureum Vellus oder Guldin Schatz und Kunstkammer ............................................... 20
2.2.2 Duytsche Alchimie ....................................................................................................... 24
2.2.3 De denario medico ........................................................................................................ 26
2.2.4 Penotus Palimbios or the Alchymists Enchiridion ......................................................... 28
2.2.5 Observations ............................................................................................................ 30
3 Nature of the printed Dialogue ............................................................................................................. 34
4 The dialogue genre ................................................................................................................................ 37
5 The content ............................................................................................................................................ 45
5.1 Structure .................................................................................................................................. 46
5.2 Alchemical themes ................................................................................................................. 47
5.2.1 Nature of the Stone ................................................................................................. 48
5.2.2 Sublimation ............................................................................................................... 50
5.2.3 Separation ................................................................................................................. 50
5.2.4 Furnace...................................................................................................................... 51
5.2.5 Conjunction .............................................................................................................. 52
5.2.6 Tinging ...................................................................................................................... 52
5.2.7 Secrecy ....................................................................................................................... 53
5.2.8 Transmutation .......................................................................................................... 54
5.2.9 Multiplication ........................................................................................................... 55
5.3 Observations .......................................................................................................................... 56
6 Textual change ....................................................................................................................................... 58
6.1 Dialogus philosophiae ................................................................................................................. 59
6.2 Tsamenspraecke vanden Meester ende Discipel ............................................................................ 60
6.3 Dialogue of Arislaus & Arislai tractatus ................................................................................... 62
6.4 Inserted explanations ............................................................................................................ 62
6.5 Manuscript elements ............................................................................................................. 64
6.6 Observations .......................................................................................................................... 65
7 Textual corruption ................................................................................................................................ 70
8 Meta-text ................................................................................................................................................ 73
8.1 Aureum vellus ............................................................................................................................ 73
8.2 Duytsche alchimie ....................................................................................................................... 74
8.3 De denario medico ...................................................................................................................... 75
8.4 Alchymists Enchiridion .............................................................................................................. 78
9 Markings and notes ............................................................................................................................... 80
10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 84
10.1 The publication of the books .......................................................................................... 84
10.2 Intended readership .......................................................................................................... 85
10.3 Editing the Dialogue ........................................................................................................... 88
10.4 Tradition ............................................................................................................................. 90
10.5 The Dialogue as complementary ....................................................................................... 90
10.6 Further research ................................................................................................................. 92
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 93
Appendix I: Transcripts ........................................................................................................................... 100
Appendix II: Photos ................................................................................................................................ 113
Appendix III: Research Project Proposal ............................................................................................. 117
Introduction
1 Introduction
1.1 General
In this thesis the content and context of a hitherto uninvestigated concise didactic alchemical
dialogue is researched. The dialogue’s subject is the process of producing the Philosopher’s Stone
in order to transmute base metals into gold, together known as the Great Work. In total four
prints were published that contained an edition of the dialogue. These are the German Aureum
vellus tractatus III (1599), the Dutch Duytsche alchimie (1600), the Latin De denario medico by B.G. Pe-
not (1608) and the English translation thereof, the Alchymists Enchiridion (1692). Because there is
no consensus on the dialogue’s title, the text will be referred to as Dialogue hereafter. This text,
however, turns out to have circulated in manuscript already since at least the late fifteenth centu-
ry, under different titles and with several authors attributed to them, from the Catalan theologian
Ramon Llull2 to a certain Uguictius of Pisa. The variety is remarkable. The Dialogue continued to
be copied into the nineteenth century, leading to a list of thirthy manuscripts in total, although
some cases remain uncertain. The amount of versions suggests the Dialogue saw a fairly broad
distribution in Western Europe and was not unknown to individuals interested in alchemy.

1.2 Historiographical Framework
In the past twenty to thirty years, the historiography of alchemy has been changed without ques-
tion and continued to be enriched significantly with new perspectives and information. There has
been a positive re-evaluation of alchemy as research object and it is being studied more extensive-
ly than before. In this chapter this re-evaluation is explained, together with the historiographical
aspects found in the current state of research.
Alchemy as a discipline has long since been the subject of prejudice, which apparently mani-
fested itself so strong that various present-day researchers still consider it necessary to attend to
the problem. Usually, the bias revolves around the terms rationality, experiment and reasoning and
their antonyms. Alchemy has long been considered irrational, and alchemists were believed to be
poor scientific observers and experimenters, which identified the whole discipline as the opposite
of chemistry. This anachronistic assessment has been complemented with equally anachronistic
interpretations that became popular, such as its association with Victorian occultism, ‘black arts’
and the Jungian explanation of alchemical metaphors and allegories.3 In practise some researchers
define their approach to alchemy with a reference to these anachronistic and simplified miscon-

2 I follow A. Bonner in maintaining this spelling, which is modern Catalan. Medieval Latin varieties are (Ray-
mundus/Raimundus) Lul, Lullus and Lullius; English also has Lully. See Bonner 1993, 9, n. 13.
3 Principe & Newman, in Secrets of Nature. Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe. Edited by W.R. Newman
& A. Grafton, 1-38. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001, 385-431.
1
Introduction
ceptions which permeate popular and even academic conceptions through the imagery of, say,
C.G. Jung and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Indeed much has been done to vitiate mis-
conceptions and re-evaluate alchemy, especially in the last two to three decades.4 Researchers
have shown that alchemy is in fact on a par with other early modern scientific disciplines and
cannot be seen separate from and opposite to the Scientific Revolution. In fact, it really is not
opposite to some ‘modern’ and ‘experimental’ chemistry either. Instead, alchemy laid an im-
portant foundation for what we now know as chemistry today. Strictly separating the two has
become untenable, and even the distinction with cookery was sometimes blurred.5 Hence the
term chymistry has been coined to refer to the whole of early modern alchemy/chemistry, in order
to avoid unwanted and anachronistic connotations.6 This term will be used in the rest of this
chapter, but not in the rest of this research, because the Dialogue is medieval.
In recent historiography chymistry has been investigated extensively within the scope of the
Scientific Revolution and early modern society by scholars, who permitted the discipline to speak
more for itself.7 Through this research, an image arises of a rational and experimental chymistry
that formed an important and inherent part of that Revolution. Research went beyond the out-
moded dichotomy, and this seems to have become the habit in present-day scholarship. Hence
recent historiography of the subject acknowledges all of chymistry’s aspects and its influence on
other fields, and deals with the Philosopher’s Stone, alchemical metaphors, scientific experiment,
medicine and modern developments which are in debt with premodern developments, without
including Jungian and occult interpretations of alchemical metaphors.8 Instead, scientific explana-
tions are given for them.9
In line with this rehabilitation and reassessment of chymistry, the discipline has not been
treated as monolithic or static.10 Instead researchers are well aware of the fact that words like
alchemy and chemistry were, and are, umbrella terms, covering for example natural philosophy, la-
boratory practice, technological developments and medicine. Chymistry is studied in its diversity

4 See the Isis Focus section 2011, vol. 102, no. 2. In there, especially: Newman 2011, 313-314; Principe 2011,
307. Also M. Martinón-Torres, ‘Some Recent Developments in the Historiography of Alchemy’, Ambix, 2011, vol.
58, no. 3: 215-237. For alchemy, chemistry and medicine, see A. Debus, ‘Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Per-
spectives on the Scientific Revolution’, Isis, 1998, vol. 89, no. 1: 66-81.
5 Moran 2005, 62-64.
6 Newman & Principe 1998, 41. Their article is central to recent historiography of alchemy.
7 Notable examples are the following books: D. Kahn, Alchimie et Paracelsisme en France à la fin de la Renaissance
(1567-1625), 2007; B. Moran, Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry and the Scientific Revolution, 2005; W. Newman,
Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution, 2006; W. Newman & L. Principe,
Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry, 2002; T. Nummedal, Alchemy and authority in
the Holy Roman Empire, 2007; L. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013.
8 In particular Principe 2013 and Newman 2006. Of particular interest for anachronistic interpretations of chy-
mistry is Principe & Newman 2001 (note 3).
9 See also C. Priesner & K. Figala 1998. They edited Alchemie: Lexikon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft, thus providing
a sound, academic chymical lexicon for the first time, at least in German.
10 Principe 2011, 310; Martinó-Torres 2011, 226.
2
Introduction
and with due observance of that diversity. In early modernity there was a variety of natural-
philosophical theories on matter, substance composition and how to manipulate it,11 and ap-
proaches to the production of the Philosopher’s Stone were different as well. This complicated
subject will only briefly be illustrated below, in order to introduce concepts which are relevant for
this thesis.
‘Alchemy’ has been associated with the Philosopher’s Stone since Antiquity. In theory this
Stone could turn base metals into noble metals, a process called transmutation. There are many
treatises that inform the reader on how to produce this Stone, how to transmute base metals and
thus produce silver and, far more frequently, gold. In early modernity, these transmutational
kinds of alchemy were also known as argyropoeia and chrysopoeia, Greek for ‘silver making’ and
‘gold making’. These terms are also current in scholarship. Not all chymistry, however, deals with
transmutation.
In the sixteenth century a medical reform was brought about with Paracelsus and his follow-
ers. They focused on the application of alchemical theory and practice for medicine and pharma-
cy, with an emphasis on medicines based on minerals, and less on (traditional) herbal medicines.
This approach is known as iatrochemistry or chemiatry, contemporaneous concepts that are still used
as denominations by academics.12 However, for Paracelsus it was embedded in a Neoplatonically
inspired philosophy and cosmology.13 Taken together, this thought is known as Paracelsianism,
which may include magic, astrology and unorthodox Christian ideas as well, on which Paracelsus
also wrote.14 However, not every iatrochemist would have called himself a Paracelsian, for scien-
tific, philosophical and theological reasons. Therefore in some cases it is best to speak of an iat-
rochemist (or chemiatrist).
The final example for the differentiation within chymistry is the variety of views on how to
produce the Philosopher’s Stone. For this, chymists turned to a wide variety of materials. Three
of the more important ‘schools’, though, were the ones who defined vitriol (usually iron sul-
phate), nitre (saltpetre) and mercury as the respective prime ingredients for the Great Work.15
Although a full discussion of all theories and approaches would cover many more pages, the
three essential examples indicate that early modern chymistry was made up of multiple approach-
es and lacked uniformity. The cause of this, along with how individuals dealt with this problem,
has been discussed by scholars. It was ultimately due to the absence of organisation of chymistry

11 See C. Lüthy, J.E. Murdoch & W. Newman (ed.), Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories,
2001.
12 See Priesner & Figala 1998, 98-100.
13 Hannaway 1975, 27.
14 For a discussion of the denomination and its difficulties (in relation to recent scholarship), see B.T. Moran, in
Hanegraaff 2006, 915-922.
15 Newman 2006, 513.
3
Introduction
through guilds and universities,16 which meant the lack of regulated training, prescribed hand-
books and official consensus on theoretical matters and definitions. This entails sufficient room
for chymists to develop their own ideas.17 In order to establish a sound chymical discipline and
secure chymical knowledge, acceptance within the academic curriculum was important, which
chymistry did not have since it entered Europe in the Middle Ages. For some part, this had to do
with a lack of classical and therefore authoritative sources. It also conflicted with traditional Aris-
totelian philosophy.18 According to Aristotle a metal, for instance, may change its colour, but this
aspect is only arbitrary and not essential; the essence of the matter cannot be altered.19 Furthermore,
there has been a series of religious condemnations of chymistry and producing gold from the late
thirteenth century.20 This was due to the claim of some alchemists that art could match nature,
and, assuming that the produced gold is never true gold, its trade would be fraud. Still, the con-
demnations may also be related to the contemporaneous obsession with heterodox beliefs and
temptations.21 Moreover, this hostile religious attitude is connected to education. The effort of
making chymistry acceptable for universities was, however, taken up by some iatrochemists,22 and
eventually it would be through medicine that chymistry found acceptance at universities.23 None-
theless chrysopoeia with the idea of transmuting metals remained controversial throughout early
modernity amongst academics, its popularity notwithstanding.
Besides academic circumstances, scholars in the history of science and literature have paid at-
tention to the private and artisanal circumstances, in relation to the increase of vernacular in-
formative texts and chymistry. Outside the universities, there were networks of knowledge as
well. As literacy and the demand for it increased from the thirteenth century onwards (particularly
for the relatively urbanised Netherlands),24 there was a growing demand for theoretical and prac-
tical knowledge.25 Therefore texts on for instance medicine, surgery, husbandry and chymistry
became increasingly available.26 What texts on such subjects share is their informative, instructive
purpose and intention to convey theoretical and practical knowledge, and are known as artes litera-
ture, where artes refers to the medieval disciplines. Artes texts were generally written down and

16 Nummendal 2007, 18-19.
17 Cf. Moran 2005, 35.
18 Moran 2005, 104.
19 Fraeters 1999, 35-36.
20 Newman 1989, 439-440.
21 Newman 1989, 441.
22 Moran 2005, 104.
23 Newman 2006, 510.
24 Huizenga et al. 2001, 17. Fudge 2007, 22.
25 Moran 2005, 57.
26 Pettegree 2011, 300. E. Huizenga signals the rise of Middle Dutch medical artes literature in prose in the four-
teenth century. Huizenga 2003, 36.
4
Introduction
copied for personal use and the direct environment.27 Chymistry itself was sometimes classified as
one of the artes mechanicae, because there was a strong practical aspect to it.28 From the late Middle
Ages onwards chymical literature appeared more frequently, not only in Latin, but also in the
vernaculars. This susceptibility for vernacularisation is related to chymistry’s practical and useful
aspects and the idea that it is unlikely that artisans spoke Latin while operating a furnace.29 Many
a person lacked the education and skills to read Latin, a situation which gave rise to vernacular
literature on ‘the arts’. Since the fourteenth century vernacular alchemical texts were produced for
the upper class (nobility and bourgeoisie),30 and the tendency to vernacularisation appeared in
Western Europe in particular, but was comparatively strong in sixteenth-century Germany.31 In
order to provide more people, such as the growing group of artisans, with chymical theory and
instructions, printed vernacular textbooks appeared in the sixteenth century. Of all chymical
books published between 1469 and 1536, texts meant for artisans formed the most significant
group, and many were in vernacular.32
The history of the book, the role of the printing press and the use of vernacular and their in-
teraction has been researched for some decades now. For example, focus has been put on the
process of translating and on the intrinsical relationship between text and the physicality of the
text.33 Nonetheless, hitherto the production, distribution, and readership of chymical books has
received less attention. Chymical books appeared in an early stage of the printing era: first slowly
in the 1470’s, but considerably more in the 1480’s, notably in German-speaking areas.34 Pharma-
copoeian material in German vernacular was comparatively well-presented in the 1520’s.35 The
amount of chymical material in Latin and vernaculars had become bewildering around 1600.36 As
the book business was internationally oriented, it can be assumed these chymical books spread
throughout Europe early on. The amount of publications declined in the late seventeenth centu-
ry, together with the position of transmutational alchemy, a tendency which continued well into
the 1720’s.37
Together, then, the printing press, artisanal activities, the use of vernacular and the demand
for knowledge stimulated the circulation and development of chymical knowledge, but also
blurred the boundary between specialisms, between artisanal and natural-philosophical

27 Huizenga et al. 2011, 31.
28 Newman 1989, 426.
29 Pereira 1999, 337.
30 Pereira 1999, 338.
31 Pereira 1999, 347. Hirsch 1950, 118.
32 In Moran 2005, 47.
33 Allen et al. 2011. Goyens et al. 2008.
34 Hirsch 1950, 119.
35 Fudge 2007, 27-28.
36 Nummendal 2007, 18-19.
37 Principe 2013, 83-90.
5