THE EARLY LATIN ALCHEMY OF THE WEST
Western alchemy developed from Arabic sources. As
Islamic scholars had
sought alchemical texts in the
eighth century, so their Latin counterparts
sought sim-
ilar works four centuries later. The
earliest dated Latin
translation of this genre is the story of Prince
Khalid
and Morienos. This was completed by Robert of
Chester on the
eleventh of February, 1144, a year after
he had translated the Koran and a
year prior to the
completion of his translation of the Algebra
of al-
Khwarizmi. The De
compositione alchemiae of
Morienos proved to be only the
first of many such
translations made during the following century.
There are frequent references to alchemy in the
work of Thomas Aquinas and
from the commentaries
on Aristotle written by Albertus Magnus it is clear
that
the subject was of great interest to thirteenth-century
scholars.
Albertus knew the work of Avicenna and he
commented on the fact that this
Islamic scholar had
both accepted and denied the possibility of transmuta-
tion in different works ascribed
to him. Although
Albertus believed in the truth of transmutation
himself,
he remained skeptical of the “transmuted”
metals he
had seen, since the artificial product had not been able
to
withstand the heat of the fire. With Albertus we
also have early evidence
of the application of the
sulphur-mercury theory in the West. In his
De miner-
alibus he referred to the ancient concept of the ex-
halations, but he went on to discuss a new
theory that
attributed the origin of metals to sulphur and mercury.
Some of the most interesting medieval alchemical
treatises date from the
late thirteenth and the early
fourteenth centuries. The Pretiosa Margarita Novella
of Petrus Bonus of Ferrara (ca.
1330) reflects the influ-
ence of
scholasticism in its tripartite structure. Argu-
ments in favor of transmutation follow the initial
refutations,
and these in turn are followed by positive
answers to the objections. Peter
accepted transmuta-
tion himself, and he
further stated that the true process
might easily be learned in an hour. At
the same time
he was honest enough to admit that he did not know
how
to produce gold himself. No less influential was
the Summa perfectionis which was ascribed to Jabir
(Latinized as
Geber, late thirteenth century). As in the
Precious Pearl
the sulphur-mercury theory forms the
theoretical basis for an
understanding of the metals,
and the alchemist is informed that he must
arrange
these substances (understood as ideal substances resem-
bling most in nature common sulphur and
mercury)
in perfect proportions for the consummation of the
Great
Work. Geber described in considerable detail the
laboratory processes and
equipment of the alchemist.
This text reflects an important change in
distillation
techniques that seems to have originated among
twelfth-
and thirteenth-century chemists. The intro-
duction of condensation at this time made possible the
collection of low boiling fractions for the first time.
As a result we find
in the literature of the mid-twelfth
century the first reference to
alcohol. Geber confirms
this change in equipment and procedure. He
described
condensation apparatus in detail, and in addition he
was the
first to give a method for the preparation of
a mineral acid—our
nitric acid. These substances plus
the mixtures of other mineral acids
placed powerful
new reagents in the hands of alchemists who were to
use them
regularly after this period.
The alchemy of the late fourteenth and the fifteenth
centuries indicates an
increasing interest in allegorical
and mystical themes. Thomas Norton's
Ordinall of
Alchimy (1477) is little
concerned with clear-cut de-
scriptions of
chemical processes or laboratory equip-
ment.
Rather, we meet here with a lengthy poetical
account of the difficult
nature of the work, the need
of virtue for its successful conclusion, and
veiled de-
scriptions of the true process.
These and similar texts
were accompanied by a widespread reaction
against
alchemy. The unsavory characterization of the alche-
mist in medieval literature knows no better example
than Chaucer's “Canon's Yeoman's Tale” (ca. 1390)
while on an official level there were the decrees and
statutes of Pope John
XXII (1317) and Henry IV of
England (1404) directed against those who
attempted
to multiply gold.
Closely connected with the widespread medieval
interest in transmutation was
a parallel trend toward
medical chemistry. By the fourteenth century distilla-
tion and other chemical processes
were in use among
Italian physicians as a means of identifying the dis-
solved substances in the much frequented
mineral
water spas. A century later Michael Savonarola ordered
these
tests into a procedural form that became the basis
of the later methods of
aqueous analyses composed by
Gabriel Fallopius and Robert Boyle in the
sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries.
No less important was the medieval physicians' de-
pendence on alchemy as a source for new medicines.
The Eastern
interest in the prolongation of life is
evident here. This may be seen as
early as the mid-
thirteenth century in
the work of Roger Bacon. Bacon
fully accepted the truth of metallic
transmutation and
he suggested that this might be utilized to
alleviate
the poverty of mankind. For Bacon alchemy was a
major field
of experimental science and he explicitly
stated that one of its goals was
the search for a length-
ened life span. In
the Opus tertium (1267) he com-
mented that although many physicians used chemical
processes to prepare their medicines, very few of them
knew how to make
metals and fewer still knew how
to perform those works which led to the
prolongation
of life.
The same theme occurs in the work of Bacon's
younger contemporary, Arnold of
Villanova, who
argued that alchemy must play an important role in
the
much needed reform of medicine. In this way new
remedies and the elixir of
life might be found. The
alchemist John of Rupescissa (mid-fourteenth
century)
insisted that the only real purpose of alchemy was to
benefit
mankind. His works abound with medicinal
preparations derived from metals
and minerals and he
emphasized distillation processes which seemingly
separated
pure quintessences from the gross matter of
the natural substances. It was
this medieval tradition
of medical chemistry that bore fruit in the
Renaissance
“distillation books” of Hieronymus
Brunschwig, Con-
rad Gesner, and others who
looked on alchemy and
chemical operations as a basic tool for the
preparation
of medicines rather than the search for gold.
