MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD
ESSAYS ON ALCHEMY AND RENAISSANCE CULTURE
Edited by STANTON J. LINDEN Washington State University
AMS PRESS, INC. New York Contents
Introduction vii
Part One: Lives and Works of the Alchemists
JoNATHAN HuGHES The Humanity of Thoma Charnock, an Elizabethan Alch mi t 3
MICHAEL WILDING A Biography of Edward Kelly, the Engli h Alchemi t and As oci- ate of Dr. John Dee 35
L YNDY ABRAHAM A Biography of the English Alchemist Arthur Dee, Author of Fasciculus Chemicus and Son of Dr. John Dee 91
Part Two: Alchemical Artifacts: Texts, Collections, and Classifications
VLADIMIR KARPENKO Witnesses of a Dream: Alchemical Coins and Medals 117
R. IAN McCALLUM Alchemical Scrolls Associated with George Ripley 161
GEORGE R. KEISER Preserving the Heritage: Middle English Verse Treatises in Early Modem Manuscripts 189
THOMAS WILLARD Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602-1702 215
v vi MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD
Part Three: Spirit and Flesh
MI HAEL T. WALTON Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Six Days of Creation 233
PETER J. FoR HAw Subliming Spirit :Physical-Chemistry and Thee-Alchemy in the Work of Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605) 255
UR ZULA SZULAKOWSKA The Alchemical Medicine and Christology of Robert Fludd and Abraham von Franckenberg 277
Part Four: Alchemy and Seventeenth-Century English Authors
YAAKOV MA ETTI "This i the famou stone": G orge Herbert's Poetic Alchemy in "The Elixir" 301
ALAN RUDRUM "The e fragment I have shored against my ruins": Henry Vaughan, Alchemical Philosophy, and the Great Rebellion 325
STANTON J. LINDEN Smatterings of the Philo opher's Stone: Sir Thomas Browne and Alchemy 339
Part Five: New Directions
PENNY BAYER From Kitchen Hearth to Learned Paracelsianism: Women and Alchemy in the Renaissance 365
LAURINDA S. DIXON The Cure of Folly by Hieronymus Bosch: Alchemy, Medicine, and Morality 387
GYORGY E. SzONYI Representations of Renaissance Hermetisrn in T wentieth-Cen- tury Postmodem Fiction 405
Contributors 425 Index 429 7 Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602-1702 Thomas Willard
When alchemy went to press in the sixteenth century, and alchemical manu- cripts were printed and published, the activity of alchemy wa made in r a ingly public. The quest for the Philosophers' Stone and for the Gr at Elixir r Pana ea was Less strictly secret. The alchemist's workplace was till a priv te pace but no longer a secret one. The work done there was increa ingly op n t pu lie crutiny. The process continued in the eventeenth century, a imp rtant t x were collected in Large anthologies and more recent text wer anth I gized alongside the classics. Most scholars agree that of the great anthol gi of alch my in th arly modern period, the Largest and be t organized were the Theatrum Chemicum, he Mu.saeum Hermeticum, and the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa. 1 The titl can b translated as the "Chemical Theater," the "Hermetic Mu eum," and th '' uri- ous Chemical Library"-curious in the sense of elaborat . The m taphor in these titles suggest that alchemy was moving still farther ut f privat pace in the period when the anthologies first appeared, the peri d from 1602 t 1702. The English words "theater," "museum," and "Library" were ev lving, al ng with their Latin counterparts, and were being applied to more public space · "Theater" still had its etymological sense of a "conspectus" r "view," along with the more common dramatic sense, but was coming t be u ed as the "operating theater" where surgery or anatomy might be performed. "Mus um" still referred to a private rudy or collection, like the "Wunderkammer" r "chamber of curiosities," but was associated increasingly with public pace like the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (1683) and the Museo Kircherian in Rome (before 1678). Finally, "Library" was still used most often for a per anal collecti n of books, or for the room or shelf where it was housed, but was appli d t institutions like the Bodleian Library (1620).2 Those who introduced the n w anthologies, whether as printers or editors, were aware of these po sibilities and played on them in remarks to their patrons and readers. In the next three sections, I shall discuss each anthology in terms of both its original plac of publication and its metaphorical space.
For a buyer in search of alchemical texts in the year 1600--at least for a buyer at the annual Frankfurt Book Fair-the book of choice was Artis Auriferae ("Of the Art of Alchemy"). Printed in Basel by Konrad Waldkirch, this anthology
215 216
o ntain e d thirty-four separate work in two octavo volume .3 W aldkir h had r prinrcd an anthology offered by Pet r Perna of Ba el in 1572 and ba d n earlier antho logics hy Perna and hi peers, including the p rinters yri ac Jac b f Frankfurt and Johann P tr i f Nurnberg.4 W ald kirch wo uld add an th r volume in 1610, when he reprinted the fir t two in a new editio n, bringing th total number of t xts to forty -five, bu t by this time his anthology had b n r eplac cd by a much larger one. Tl Thcatrum hemicum wa the creation of Lazaru Zetzner and wa kept urr n t hy rwo generations of hi heir . First printed in four volume in 1602, ir was ·xpand d fi ve v lume in 1622 and to ix in 1662. The first f ur volumes, whi h t g th r in lu led 143 separate text , were reprinted by Z tzn r in 16 14 , an d th fiv -volum edition wa reprinted in 1659 and 1660. 5 T hi fin al v ers i n in lu ded 20 1 text in six octavo volumes with m rc than v n thou sand pag s.6 Fo r hcer size, thi anthology is unrivale d in th li t ratur of al h my. Laza rus Zetzncr wa sborn in trasbourg in 1551 and pent mo t of hi life th ere . H pro bably appre nticcd to th Strasb urg printer B rnhardt J bin, wh busin ss he tc k v r in 1594. He b an to publi h book und r hi own n m in 15 5 and b am o ne f the city'· most prolific printer , averaging n fo liosheet (tw fo lio pages) every day f the year.7 He adapted hi m tt , cientia immuwbili ("immutabl kn wledge"), fro m J bin's sapientia constans ("c n tan wisdom"), and hpe rinted a imilar lin f b oks, intended primarily fo r th a ademi mark et ( se Fi g. L) . J bin printed bo k of musical tablatur f r th lu te, an d Zetzner printed a Tablarurbuch f organ mu ic. Jobin catered to the mark t in me li al tex , including the alternative medicine of Paracel u . Zet- zrn , meanwhile, printed th fir t encyclopedia of gynecology and a large r- man pharm a p ia, but he al o reprinted key text of Parae lsian medi in e li tcd by Johann Huse r. 9 B th printed a variety f classical and humani ti t xts. Ze tzn r was part way through a four-volume set of Andreas Alciat' c m- ple tc wo rk at th time of hi death , in 1616.10 His las t publication wa perhap his b e t kn wn: J h ann Valentin And reae's Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosen- creutz (" hemic l W dd ing of hri tian Rosenkreutz" ), printed in 1616, tw yea r after the first Ro icruc ian manife to. Zetzner had already printed a th logi- cal b k by Andrea , and hi he ir later issued his reassessment of Rosicrucian- i m in a bo k " n the T ow r of Babel" (Turris Babel). 11 There are mysterie urr unding the place of Zetzner' busine . The min r my tery is that most of his books are said to be printed in Argentoratum, the R man nam f tra bourg, a city on the west bank of the Rhine in the old kingdom of Burgundy and modern day France. His G erman language book ar aid to be printed in "Straβburg," which indicates the same city on the Rhin and n t the town of that name in Pomerania. The greater my tery is that sev ral of hi books are sa id to be printed in Frankfurt o r other place , even at time wh n he wa pro lucing books in tra bourg. The reasons are more likely eco- nomi c than political or religio u . Mo t of these books are works of humani tic cholar hip: commentarie on Aristotle said to be printed in C ologne or Frank- furt, where the Alciat b oks were also printed. However, the first four volum Alchemy in the Theater, Mus eum, and Library, 1602- 1702 2L7
THEATRUM CHEMJCUM, PRÆCIPUOS SELECTORUM AUCTO- RUM TRACTATUS DE CHE- MIÆ ET LAPlDIS PHILOSOPHICI Anriquitate, vetitate, jure, præstantia, & ope- rationibu.s, continens: In grattam Veræ Chemiæ, & medicinæ Che- micæstudiosorum (ut qui uberrimam inde optimorum re- mediorum messem facere poterunt) congestum, & in Sex partes seu volumisna digestum; SINGU LIS VOLUMINIBUS, SUO A UCTORUM ET LIBRORUM Catalogo prim is pagellis : rerum vero & verbo- rum Indice postremis annexo. VOLUMEN PRIMUM.
ARGENTORATI, Sumptibus HERE DUM EBERH. ZETZNERI M. Dc. L 1 X. .M
Fig. 1. Title page of Theatrum C hemicum with [ rinter' device.
f the 1602 Th eatrum purport to be printed in Ur el., a town n rth f Frankfur , where Zetzn r seems to have printed nothing else. Perhap he put w rk ut on commis ion to other printers, having t o many other pr jeers for hi tra bourg hop. More likely, though, he anticipated str ng demand and wanted a pre run larger than the 2,000 copies permitted under trasb urg city tatute . He reprinted individual tracts from the Theatrum in Stra bourg, 12 and reprinted all fo ur volumes there in 1614. Zetzner dedicated the first four volume of the Theatrum to the duk f Wi.irttemberg and elector of Saxony. Knowing that Duke Frederick the Firs twa
.______---- 218 MYSTIC AL METAL OF GOLD a 1 ve r and patron of theater, Zetzner said he had chosen the texts at great co t and labor and had et them out as in a theater ("quasi Theatrum") so that they could be p1leasurably contemplated and judged like performances in the mo t beautiful th ater (" veulti pulcerrimo ... theatro"). Knowing that Frederick was a lover of formal ga rdens, Zetzner invited him to browse through the texts in the Theatrum as he would enter a marvelous garden, well cultivated and artfully arrang d, where all kinds of healthy herbs could be plucked along with vari us fl ower an d fruit , ach with its own u e and pleasure.' These statements upp rted the title page promise that the Theatrum wa intende d - pecially for stud nt of chemical medicine, having been "collected by the gra ce f students of True Chemistry and Chemical Medicine, in order that th y can reap a pi ntiful harve t f honest remedies from it." With the empha i on Vera Chemia and its students, Zetzner conceded that there was a false coun.rerpart, the alchemy professed by deceivers and self-deceivers. A good Lutheran, he proceeded on the a sumption that his readers would want the true alchemy. In the fourth v lume, as he addres eel the candid reader who had p r evercd thr ugh the first three, he hoped the reader had derived some benefit and tru ted, perhap di singenuously, that the reader could now pr duce ophistic gold. But he warned the reader not to overlook the universal work of salvation, c mpared t which all else i labor and sorr w. 14 In 1622, Zetzner's heirs, led by Eberhardt Zetzner, produc d a fifth volume. They ackn wledged the as i ranee of Isaac Habrecht, M.D., in gathering manu- sc ripts, perhap unaware that Habrecht took many items from the Artis Auriferae. ln a preface t the reader, the heirs continued the theatrical metaphor as they asked the read r t tolerate a few rogues among the adepts:
A in theatrical actions the characters are introduced, not only of the king, magnate, and prince, but often of rustics and servants and not eldom of beggars, lepers, and fools, so in this spectacle of chemical authors we introduce for levity not only the fops but armed soldiers, in order that spectators may bring light and show discrimination even as they are in tructed.''
The ca t of characters is traight out of T erence and Plautus, complete with alazon and miles gloriosus-characters also found in student plays like those of Johannes Reuchlin, the famed cabbalist. 16 Indeed, several tracts in the first four volumes are in the form of dialogues. 17 One was turned into a masque for the Jacobean stage.18 In 1661, the heirs of Eberhardt Zetzner released the sixth and fin al volume of the Theat;um. It con isted of alchemical tracts written in German or French and translated into Latin by Johann Jacob Heilmann, M.D. , of Zweibruck and Johann Frederic Beza, M.D., of Strasbourg. Heilmann dedicated the volume to his benefactor, Frederick, count of the Palatine, the son of the ill-fated king of Bohemia and a relative of Frederick of Wi.irttemberg, to whom the first four volumes had been dedicated. Like Lazarus Zetzner nearly sixty years earlier, he a ked his patron to tolerate the range of speakers in the volume, including "all Alchemy in the Th eater, Museum, and Library, 1602-1702 219
type of foes, mockers, ridicul ers, and sophists till immer eel in the hadow f ignorance." 19 However, he wrote a a researcher, not as a book ell er, and showed no sign of wanting a larger public. lndeed, he adele I a econd dedicati n "t an anonymous disciple of C hortolasseus and the s n of Sendivogiu , the most celebrated Hermetic Philosopher of our ag ."20 Chortolasseus was a p eud nym used by Johann Grasshoff, a fo ll ower of Michael Sencl iv gi us and the Paracels ian d ctrines e p used by Senclivogiu s; he probably organized an esoteric group, to whom he addres eel the cabala chemica in a tract that Heilmann tran lat d. 21 As if t how his esoteric colors, Heilmann igncd himse lf a "lo v r f th phy and philosophy" in the econd dedication, at a time when the new term "theoso- phy" was as ociated large ly with Paracelsians and Ro icrucians.22 In add ition t the dedications, Heilmann wrote a pr face t the reader "wherein the truth of the Philosopher ' Stone is d m n trated from criptur sacred and pr phane and thr ugh a c nspectus f th experiment f men of trasbourg and Base l in our century."2 He t uted the accompli hments of hi countrymen and placed them in a literat context. His opening nten e qu tes Horace on the dangers of placing trust in any one pers n, cites Ovid's "fabulous tale" of Jason and the Golden Fie ce, and refer t the emp ror i cletian' ban f alchemy books-which Edward Gibb n wou ld call "the first authentic event in the hi tory of alchymy." 24 Heilmann recogniz d that there we re fu rth r unpublished works of alchemy, in everal vernacular t ngues, an I hoped that his example of translation in the plain styl ("plano stylo") w uld en ouragc other to bring these works to pre .25
In 1625, three years after Zetzner's heirs added the fifth volume, the Frankfun printer Lucas )ennis published a very different kind of alch mical anthol gy. Whereas the Theatrum Chemicum and it predecessor, Artis Auriferae, c ncen- trated on the cia sic texts of alchemy, Jenni 's Musaeum Hermeticum ffered recent tracts by German alchemists, translated into Latin and illu trated with remarkable copperplate engravings. The original anthology included only ten tracts, but nevertheless offered a comprehensive account of alchemy. The ec- ond, definitive edition, issued more than fifty year later, brought th t tal to twenty-two. 26 Raised in Frankfurt, where his mother married into a prominent family f engravers, the De Brys, )ennis published so me of the most beautiful book in the entire history of alchemy. His first important publications were the book of Michael Maier, a student of mythology as well as alchemy and a leading apologist for the new intellectual movement known as Ro icrucian. ]ennis pub- lished at Least six works by Maier, including the encyclopedic Symbola Aureae Mensae,27 as well as the alchemical emblem bo ks of Daniel Cramer, Daniel Mylius, and Daniel Stoltz ius, all with striking engravings by the gifted Matthau Merian, who had married into his family. )ennis bega n to publi h imilar books in German, first by Paracelsus and his fo llowers, then by other alchemist .2 ln 1625, he published a small anthology of G erman alchemical texts, which he expanded somewhat later in the year. Recognizing that there would be a large r market for a Latin anthology, he commiss ioned translations by the poet Daniel 220 MYSTlCAL METAL OF GOLD
Meisner, who had translated alchemical works for him before. He also commis, i ned c pperplate illustrations from Merian, who had taken over the De Bry firm of engraver .29 His Musaeum Hermeticum of 1625 included ten full texts, everal of which would become classics of alchemical poetry and art. The volume began with "The Golden Tractate of Hermes," quite possibly the work of Ora shoff; it ended with "The Book ofLambspringk," a series of emblems and ep, igrams. The choice of title may indicate ]ennis's realization that the striking cop- p rplate illustrations would prove the book's stongest selling point. The engraved title page and the frontispiece both feature Apollo and the nine muses. Reused in the "corrected and expanded" edition of 1677,30 both showed Apollo playing
ERANCOFUR TI, Apud Hermannuma Sande.
Fig. 2. Engraved title page of Musaeum Hermeticum. the lyre in a central position. On the title page (Fig. 2), Apollo is shown with the muses and their instruments-lute, harp, viol, and horns-at the top center of the page. They are flanked by Athena and Hermes and, beyond them, by the phoenix and pelican. Below the birds are representatives of the four elements, each with a symbolic animal: eagle and squirrel on the left, salamander and sea serpent on the right. Below these are the king and queen with their emblems, Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602- 1702 221 the sun and moon. And at the bottom center is the Goddess Nature holding the Light of Nature: a six-pointed star in a radiant circle. She is followed by a benighted philosopher with lantern and spectacles and another behind him. 1 The words are in the center, between Apollo and Nature, surrounded by ym- bolic designs. One implication is that Apollo ing th song of Nature and th lements, but is guarded by Athena and Mercury, that i , by wisdom and secrecy. Like the novels of Stendhal, the museum of Jenni i intended forth happy few. The message i reinfo reed by the frontispiece which face the print d title page (Fig. 3 ). Here Apollo sits underground with three mu e on each ide.
Fig. 3. Frontispiece in Musaeum Hermeticum. Directly above him there is another muse who holds the same Light of Nature, and on either side there is a muse representing one component of Solomon's seal: the upward pointing triangle that signifies fire or the downward pointing triangle that signifies water. The four elements are represented in vignettes in the four corners, while the day and night skies are shown in the circle above and below Apollo and the muses. Each arc of the circle shows seven bodie : the sun, the moon, and the five known planets. They correspond to each other, above and below the earth, and this suggests they also correspond to Apollo and the six muses, who then represent gold and the other six metals, thought 222 MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD to grow underground in the arne way that trees grow above ground. At their feet is a well with a pulley that could pull a bucketful of prima materia from which the physical creation is said to have been formed. The epigram explains the illu tration above it and the book to which it is attached:
What is above is here below; What heaven shows is also found on earth. Fire and water are contraries. Be happy if you can join them. Enough said.
The epigram is that of Daniel Meisner of Commotatu in Bohemia (modern day Ch mut v in the Czech Republic), who translated the tracts in the book. It echoes the sentiment f th Emerald Tablet: that there are hidden correspon- denc between heaven and earth and that the person who understands them will b fortunate. ]ennis's museum is not quite open to the public, then. It is a place of musing, but only a few are to be admitted. Hence the "Pansophic d orman" (Janitor Pansophus) who presides over the expanded version. In a series f four folding plates, on folio-sized pages, the doorman exhibits the "Mosaical Hermetic Science" ("Scientia Mosaico-Hermetica") that one has to understand in rd r t enter the museum and make sense of its contents.32 Jenni was approximately thirty-five when the Musaeum first appeared, but he died within the next five years. Some of the famous plates from his alchemical books were reprinted during the next generation. Then, in 1678, Hermann van Sande printed an expanded edition of the Musaeum Hermeticum, which added another dozen tracts from Latin texts that ]ennis had printed and the copperplate commissioned to go with them. The son of a Frankfurt printer, van Sande may have inherited or otherwi e acquired the business of ]ennis, whose line was similar to his own. In what may have been his first printed book, he published in 1664 the new chemical ideas of Johann Joachim Becher, the self-styled "Chemical Oedipus."33 Five years later, he reissued one of ]ennis's last books, a natural history of coral.34 He ventured into rhetoric and politics, but concen- trated on science books, especially fine reprints. When he undertook his most famous work, toward the end of his career, he was able to use the original cop- perplates. 35 The unsigned preface, presumably van Sande's, gives the rationale for the expanded Musaeum:
This art is set forth in a series of treatises by different authors, which appeared several years ago and, like the present volume, was entitled "A Museum of Hermes." But many writers having discussed this subject, and treated it from various points of view (so that one writes more clearly than another, and each casts light on the other's meaning), some of my friends, who are adepts in this Art, urged me to add to the former collection certain treatises supplementary of those already given. For though that former collection contained the most select writings on the subject, yet it was not as complete as it might have been, nor was it Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602-1702 223
calculated to furnish to the reader in full measure the eagerly expected fruit of this study. To this wish of my friends I have all the more readily submitted, because its fulfilment must redound to the advantage of the student. 6
The bookseller was in contact with real alchemists, "very well versed in this art" (in hac arte versatissimi). They urged him to expand the collection to include other works that just happened t have been printed by the same printer with illustrations by the same firm of engravers. This seems too convenient a request, but it may well contain a core of truth. For the opening tract in the collection, "The Golden Tract of the Philosophers Stone," is dedicated to the lover of the art or "technophile" (technophilius) and addre sed generally "to the brothers of the golden cross" (aureae cruces fratribus). 7 The anonymous author eems to be addressing members of a secret s ciety modeled on the legendary brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. He says he has studied alchemy for twenty-two years-both the theory and the practice, the symbolism and the laboratory work-and ha put it together in a single work with a parable over which the initiate may ponder. Indeed, two modern interpretation of the art-one of them spiritual, the other psychological-have used his tract as their point of departure.3 Given similarities to other printed books, it eems likely that the anony- mous author was Johann Grasshoff, whose known works, published by Ze tzner and ]ennis among others, date from 1587 to 1623.39 Indeed, it eem likely that the Musaeum Hermeticum originated as a series of German text collected by Grasshoff and his associates and published by ]ennis in 1625. 40 If the variou works in the original collection may be said to cast light on each other, how much more light can be shed by the further work in the expanded Musaeum? For that museum for hermetic adepts was only a metaphoric setting. The published Musaeum was a public space because it was available to any book buyer with the necessary means. One can imagine unbound prints of Merian's copperplates hung at van Sande's shop in Frankfurt or his stall at the Bucher- messe. Here the potential buyer can see all fifteen figures of Lambspringt and all twelve keys of Basil Valentine. Some may have been hand-colored by Merian's descendants, perhaps by his gifted granddaughter Maria Sybilla Merian, a natu- ralist in her own right. Some are imposing schemes like the large plates of the Pansophic Doorkeeper. Others preserve subtle details like the conversation of three famous alchemists in a laboratory, three monks who have written books of alchemy. The images are not unrelated. Each addresses the same broad question, identified on the title page a "by what means that true and great medicine of the Philosophers' Stone (by which everything suffering defect is restored) can be found and possessed." The viewer who can answer the question, who is by this point a buyer and reader, will feel at least a spiritual affiliation with the Brothers of the Golden Cross for whom the tracts are said to be intended.
Jean-Jacques Manger was born in Geneva in 1651, a full century after the birth of Lazarus Zetzner, with whom he is often linked. The son of a physician, he 224 MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD
tudied m dicine at the University of Valence in the Dauphine, where he gradu- ated in 1678 and later taught, becoming dean of the medical faculty in 1699. In addition to the "Curious Chemical Library" of 1702, he published "libraries" of anatomy, surgery, medical practice, medical chemistry, and general medicine over the cour e of his long Life. (He Lived to the age of ninety, perhaps because he never required medical care.) In all, his edited books number an amazing twenty folio v Lumes, each the size of the original King James Bible with Apocry- pha r the first folio of Shake peare's plays. 41 The frontispiece shows Dr. Manger writing an inventory of his editorial undertakings to date (Fig. 4). The preface to the reader begins beneath a design showing young cherubs, left to right, reading, writing, and measuring books. Manger begins by saying that he wanted to add an "Alchemical Library" (Biblio- theca Alchemica) to his output, knowing that the sons of medicine were often engaged in artificial preparations.42 Here is a true scholar who has done his research mericulou ly. Although the Bibliotheca's title page mentions the Artis Auriferae as the book's precursor rather than the Theatrum Chemicum, Manger ha tudied the latter carefully. He indeed quotes from Heilmann's preface to the final volume for the story of a transmutation that the Strasbourg goldmaker Philip Gi.istenhofer made for Rudolf II in 1603.4 He provides his own summary of the alchemical proce s, specifying amounts to be used and produced. He de cribes his efforts to collect material in great centers of learning, including Rome and Basel. He writes, not as a printer with work to sell but as a scholarly editor setting forth a subject with the aid of a research assistant, one Daniel Leclerc.44 Manger organizes the two volumes into three parts or books with various ections and subsections; the whole arrangement resembles that of a scholastic textbook. In the first book, he offers a current overview of the subject with all the latest i sues. In the second book, he gives a historical sequence of texts, from Hermes to Raymond Lull, that is, from antiquity to the High Middle Ages. In the third book, he continues the sequence from the Late Middle Ages through the Renaissance with authors ranging from Petrus Bonus in the early fourteenth century to Daniel Stolcius in the early seventeenth. At the end of the second book, which is also the end of the first volume, he provides an unpaginated interlude with a beautifully realized reproduction of the Mutus Liber, a picture book of 1677.45 He thus gives what the title page promises, "the true handling by all the most notable men who have sweated over the Great Elixir, and by everyone who has written about gold-making from Hermes Trismegistus up to our own time ... in orderly arrangement with their own commentaries."46 Anticipating objections that the library is not entirely complete or perfectly arranged, he can only plead that the pages were set almost as soon as he received them, and that the book was released as soon as it was announced. This suggests that he has met a public demand. Beyond that he excuses himself from fur- ther explanation:
Truly, it were not enough for all curious inquirers if a book containing all special writings on the Great Work was presented in a volume, unless Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602-1702 225
Fig. 4. Jean-Jacques Manget from frontispiece in Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa. 226 MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD
something was first offered about the history of alchemy, the true stone, and the end of the art, the whole first book of our library would have to be arranged in order for the curious to follow the argument. In respect to the truth about the arrangement of this work, our library was easily filled, and bound with ivory, and therefore we now abstain from fur- ther explanations.47
Becau e Manget did provid the necessary background in book one, the subse- quent books could be more casually organized; and even then, the subsections with the headings are carefully listed. Manget demonstrates the genius of the conference organizer today. Indeed, one can easily imagine the various authors in bo k one a speakers at plenary sessions on the first day of a conference and the authors in books two and three as subjects of papers read at concurrent sessions over the next two days. Looking over the table of contents to book one a though it were a conference program, one can see how much care went into the choice and arrangement of topics. After a welcome from Manget, as conference organizer, the first plenary session offers a history of alchemy and an assessment of its claims. Olaf Barch, reg ius profe sor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen, delivers an address (dissertatio) "On the Origin and Progress of Chemistry." Barch makes generous reference to the recent work of Athanasius Kircher on possible parallels between the proce ses occurring underground and in the laboratory. Father Kircher ap- pears next to ummarize his newest book, On the Subterranean World, where he carefully reviews the claims of various alchemists but finally rejects them. This pre entation demands an answer, and Manger has brought in two respondents: the chemist Solomon Blauenstein and the physician Gabriel Claudero, both of whom attempt to disprove points that Kircher has made. The second plenary session, which follows a brief break for coffee and hot chocolate, features an equally prominent advocate for the truth of the alchemists' claims. After a general oration "On the Transmutation of Metals" by Daniel Morhof, professor of rhetoric at the University of Cologne, and a talk "On Chemical Gold" by Phillip Sachs, city physician of Breslau, John Frederick Helvetius comes to the podium to give an eyewitness account of transmutation, complete with illustrations. A wealthy Swiss physician, living in the Hague, Helvetius (who is Schweitzer to the German speakers in the audience) has only one explanation for the reticence of alchemists like the one whose work he witnessed. The fact remains that alchemists are subject to prosecution in most jurisdictions. Helve- tius thus prepares for the morning's final speaker, Johann Faniano, professor of law at the University of Basel, who discusses "The Legality of the Art of Al- chemy." After lunch, the third plenary session takes up the question of terminology. To begin, Pierre Jean Fabre, a physician from Montpelier, presents a paper "Explaining the Obscurities of the Alchemists." Then Johann Joachim Becher, the well-known precursor of the phlogiston theory,48 reads "The Chemical Oedi- pus: Solving the Mysteries of Terms and Principles." An independent scholar from Zeeland, Theobald Hoghelande, speaks "On the Difficulties of Alchemy." Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602-1702 227
Finally, Johann Ludwig Hannemann, professor of natural sciences at the Univer- sity ofKiel, delivers "The Chemical Cato: Delineating the Sophistries of Pseudo- Chemists and the Characteristics of the Masters." As the session draws to a close, Dr. Manget rises to inform anyone interested in the vexed matter of terminology that a new translation and printing of William Johnson's Chemical Lexicon is available in the publishers' display area. Having said this, he can retire to the terrace for beer and schnapps, confident that the doctors seeking continuing education credit on the shores of Lake Geneva will not be di ap- pointed. They have heard three controversial figures: Kircher, Helvetius, and Becher. They have heard orations and debate, charges and countercharges. But they have also heard it stated, and Manget himself believes, that there are scrupulous practitioners of the art of alchemy along with the unscrupulous, that there are legitimate concepts along with the bombast, and that reason can tell the difference.
We are left with three images of the alchemical anthology-the theater, mu- seum, and library. In the Theatrum Chemicum, readers are invited to hear out the alchemical authors and their texts much as they would hear actors on a stage, choosing what is best and rejecting what is worst. In the Musaeum Hermet- icum, they are asked to view the copperplate illustrations alongside the texts and to see how one work sheds light on anoth r, and they are con tantly re- minded that they belong to a select group. Finally, in the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, they are told to consider the arrang ment of works as though browsing through a library and are advised to learn the classification sy tern o that they can see how one book connects to another. Chemistry had further steps to take before it could be called modern in any meaningful way. The next important steps were taken "between the library and the laboratory" in the eighteenth century, as scientists like Lavoisier succeeded in identifying the properties of oxygen, the element that so puzzled Becher and others.49 For when alchemy went to press, the laboratory fell into neglect. The old manuscripts were no longer secret, but they did not provide the necessary evidence. For England's skeptical chemist, Robert Boyle, the printing of old manu- scripts was a mixed blessing. The new trade in chemical books made it possible for writers to "Leaue off that Indefinite Way of Vouching the Chymists say this" and to "name the Author or Authors, upon whose credit they relate it. "50 But citations were useless to Boyle if not supported by further experimentation:
I must complain, that euen Eminent Writers, both Physitians and Philos- ophers, whom I can easily name if it be requir'd, haue of late suffer'd themselves to be so far impos'd upon, as to Publish and Build upon Chymical Experiments, which questionle s they neuer try'd; for if they had, they would, as well as I, haue found them not to be true.
Boyle's insistence on returning to the laboratory made his testimony especially valuable. Manger devotes a paragraph of his general introduction to "the most 228 MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD illustrious Boyle" and gives special weight to Boyle's test of gold produced by an anonymous alchemist.51 Nevertheless, th new book culture created a new kind of reader: the armchair alchemi t who is unlikely to try out a process or pass on a secret. Van Sande recognizes that people will buy the Musaeum Hermeticum for different reasons, but reminds the candid reader that the philosopher "delights in knowl- edge for its own ake. "52 Van Sande is removed by sixty years from Michael Maier, translating alchemical texts in an effort to "assuage the feud between the adherents of Dogmatic and of Hermetic Medicine."53 The armchair readers, working in the laboratory of the imagination, would keep up the demand for alchemical anthologies in the century of Lavoisier and Stahl, which also saw the Deutsches Theatrum Chemicum and the Bibliotheque de s philosophes chimiques.54 Echoing the tides of the older anthologies, and preserving the metaphors of the theater and library as space wher alchemical ideas could be contemplated, the vernac ular anthologies of Roth-Scholtz and Maguin continued the process by which the secret science was made public.
Notes
1. ee, e.g., John Read, Prelude to Chemistry : An Outline of Alchemy, Its Literature and Rela tionships (N w York: Macmillan, 193 7), 116, 166. 2. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., "library" sb. la, 2a ; "mu eum" sb. lb; "theatre" sb. 7. 3. John F rguson, Bibliotheca Chemica : A Catalogue of the Alchemical, Chemical and Phannaceutical Books in the Collection of the Late }ames Young, 2 vols. (Gla gow: Macleho e, 1906), 1: 51 - 52. Ferguson's bibliography remains the best single guide to the vast literature anthologized in the works studied here. Several facs imiles are ava ilable, including a recent one from Martino Fine Book of Man fi eld Centre, CT. 4. Fergu on, 1: 18-19, 341-42. 5. C unt of the numbers of tex ts in these anthologies vary. I have followed Adam Mclean, "Alchemical Compendia," The Alchemy Web Site
11. J. V. Andreae, Chymische Hoch ze it : Christiani Rosencreutz Anno 1451 (Strasbourg: Zetzner, 1616); Vom Besten und Edelsten Beruff (Strasbourg: Zetzner, 1615); Turris Babel sive ludiciorum Roseae Crucis (Strasbourg: haeredum Lazari Zetzneri, 1617). 12. De Magni Lapidis, sive, Benedicti Compositione & Operatione, 2nd ed. (Strasbourg: Zetzner, 1613 ); compare TC, 3: 5-52. The University of Arizo na copy of this edition is sa id to be printed ex manuscriptis. 13. TC, 1: A2r-v. 14. TC, 4: AJr. 15 . TC, 5: A2v-A3r. 16. See Eckehart Catholy, Das deutsche LustsfJiel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969), and Frank Geerk, Die Geburt der Zukunft: Reuchlin , Erasmus und Paracelsus als wegweisende Humanisten (Karlsruhe: Loeper, 1996). 17. See, e.g., Thoma Mufett, Dialogus Apologeticus (TC, 1: 89-108); Aegedius de Vadi , Dialogue inter Naturam et Filium Philosophiae (2: 85-109); Tractatus D. Thomae de Aquino Datus Fratri Renaldo, in Arte Alchemia (3: 278-83). 18. Dialogue Mercurii Alchymistae et Naturae (TC, 4: 449-56); see Stant n J. Linden, Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 131-53. 19. TC, 6: *3v. 20. TC, 6: *4r. 21. See Johann Gra eu "alias Chorrolasseu ," Area Arcani, TC, 6: 294-380, e P· 344-80. 22. TC, 6: *Sr. 23. TC, 6: *Sv. 24. TC, 6: *Sv; see Horace, Epistles 1.1; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.1 - 165; Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 2, ch. 13. 25. TC, 6: *8v. 26. Musaeum Hermeticum (Frankfurt: van Sande, 1678); facs imile reprint with introd uc- tion by Karl R. H. Frick (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1970). Abbreviated hereafter MH. 27 . Michael Maier, Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum (Frankfurt: Jenni , 1617; facsimile reprint with introduction by Karl R. H. Frick, Graz: Akademi che Druck, 1972). 28. E.g., Gloria Mundi , Sons ten Paradeiβ Taffe! (Frankfurt: Jenni , 1620); a Latin ver ion appears in MH, 205-304. 29. Karl R. H. Frick, "Introduction," Musaeum Hermeticum, facsimile, viii-ix . Further reference to Frick are to thi e ay. 30. The printed title page has the date 1678, but thi pr bably indicate that the book was first offered for sa le at the Frankfurt Book Fair in the autumn of 1677; books sold at the fair were often postdated to the following year. 31. Compare emblem 42 in Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of Emblems, by H. M. E. de Jong (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 41 8, and commentary on 266-72. The philo opher is said here to be l d by rea on as well as Nature, who is shown holding a bouquet rather than a light. 32. MH, QQQ qqq 4v. For a careful exposition of the plate ee A. E. Waite, The Secret Tradition in Alchemy: Its Development and Records (1926; reprint, London: Stuart & Watkins, 1969), 403-06. 33. Johann Joachim Becher, lnstitutiones Chimicae Prodromae and Oedipus Chimicus (Frankfurt: Sande, 1664). 34. Johann Ludwig Gans, Corallorum Historia (Frankfurt: ]ennis, 1630; Frankfurt: Sande, 1669). 230 MYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD
35. Frick, xi. 36. MH, (4v-)5r, tran lated [by Julius Kohn?] in The Hermetic Museum, ed. A. E. Waite, 2 vol . (London: Elliott, 1893), l: xii. 37. MH, 3, 4. 38. M. A. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1918; reprint, New Yo rk: Arno, 1976); Herbert Silberer, Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism, trans. Smith Ely Jelliffe (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1917). 39. Frick, xii-xiii; Ferguson, 1: 338-41. 40. Dyas Chymica Tripartita , Das ist: Sechs Herrliche Teutsche PhilosoJ)hische Tractatlein (Frankfurt: Jenni , 1625); ee Frick, viii-x. 41. Fergu n, 2: 71. 42. BCC, l: 3r. 43. BCC, 1: 3v; ee TC, 6: *6v-7r; thi passage provides the account that R. J. W. Evans sought for Rudolf 11 and His World: A Study in InteLlectual History , 1576- 1612 ( 1973; corrected reprint, L ndon: Thame & Hudson, 1997), 209. 44. F rgu n, 2: 71. 45. Fergu n, I : 29-30. 46. "Tractatus omnes virorum Celebriorum qui in Magno sudarunt Elixyre, quique ab ipso Hermete, ut dicitur Trism egisw, ad nostra usque Tempora de Chrysopoea scripserunt, cum praecipuis suis commentariis , conciuno Ordine dispo iti exhibentur." 47 . BCC , BBr. 48. J. R. Partington, A Short History of Chemistry, 3rd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1957), 85-86, di cu e Stahl's exten ion of Becher' sulphuric earth (terra pinguis) into phlo- gi ton. 49. ee Wilda C. Anderson, Between the Library and the Laborawry: The Language of Chemistry in Eighteenth-Century Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer ity Pre s, 1984 ). 50. Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes, Touch- ing the Experiments Whereby Vulgar Spagirists Are wont to Endeavour to Evince their alt, Sulphur and Mercury to Be The True Principles of Things (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1680), A4v. 51. BCC, 1: t4r; Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemi- cal Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Pre ss, 1998), 104-05, identifies Manget' ource of information as Gilbert Burnet. 52. MH, ( 4v; translated in Hermetic Museum, 1: xi. 53. MH, 376; tran lated in Hermetic Museum, 1: 310. 54. Friedrich Roth-Scholtz, ed., Deutsches Theatrum Chemicum, 3 vols. (Nurnberg: Fels- seckern, 1728-32); Jean Maugin de Richenbourg, ed., Bibliotheque des philosophes chimiques, rev. ed. (Paris: Cailleau, 1740-54).
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