The Philosophers’ Paradise 10 items

1. Ars brevis. ca. 1450. from Miscellany : [containing 42 scientific and other texts, most notably by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln].

Curatorial Notes:
Authentic works of Ramon Lull circulated widely in medieval Europe, including in England. This 15th-century miscellany of quadrivium texts, either from Oxford or Cambridge, includes an extract from Llull’s Ars brevis. In this simplified version of Llull’s complex logical art, principles are represented by letters of the alphabet and plotted onto wheel diagrams. The manuscript was later owned by Sir Henry Percy (1564-1632), Ninth Earl of Northumberland, patron of the mathematician and alchemist Thomas Harriot.
Credit Line:
Gift of Robert Garrett, 1942, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Publisher:
[Engand] : [producer not identifiedi], [between 1425 and 1475]
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99113279633506421

2. Chronique universelle, 1440s–50s

Curatorial Notes:
This roll chronicle is based on the Chronique universelle d’Orléans, which traces human history from the Garden of Eden to the 15th century. Above, Adam and Eve are tempted by a serpent with a woman’s face, a scene echoed in the Ripley Scroll. Below, historiated roundels link to create a genealogical tree. While later versions show the descent of the English and French royal houses, this roll ends with the death of Christ. The Ripley Scroll designer was probably familiar with illustrated rolls of this kind. In the Ripley Scroll, roundels serve a different function, depicting consecutive steps in the alchemical work.
Credit Line:
Cotsen Children’s Library, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Publisher:
[Northern France or Belgium (Picardy, Artois, or French Flanders). undated, ca. 1440-. ; 1450.
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9951821593506421

3. Libelli aliquot chemici , 1572

Curatorial Notes:
This pseudo-Lullian alchemical collection was edited by the Strasbourg physician Michael Toxites. Here, the “Tree of the Working” sets out the main operations and ingredients used to prepare alchemical medicines from red and white wine. As in authentic Lullian writings, the first cause is God (Deus, represented by the letter A), followed by wine (vinum, B). By presenting Llull’s medicinal alchemy as a natural precursor to Paracelsian chemical medicine, Toxites also bolstered the authority of the Swiss medical reformer Paracelsus.
Credit Line:
Rare Books Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Creator:
Llull, Ramon, 1232?-1316
Publisher:
Basileae : Apud Petrum Pernam, 1572.
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9924807783506421

4. Raymundi Lullii Opera, 1598

Curatorial Notes:
The intricate diagrams found in Lullian manuscripts were often translated into print in a simplified form. An owner of this printed edition of the Ars brevis has annotated the text and used color coding to clarify parts of the diagram. Although this book is not alchemical, its printer, Lazarus Zetzner (1551-1616), later became famous as a publisher of alchemical material. His multi-volume compendium, the Theatrum chemicum, exploited early modern interest in medieval alchemy.
Credit Line:
Rare Books Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Creator:
Llull, Ramon, 1232?-1316
Publisher:
Argentinae [Strasbourg] : Sumptibus Lazari Zetzneri, M D XCIIX [1598]
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99101535463506421

5. Philosophia reformata, continent libros binos, 1622

Curatorial Notes:
The physician Johann Daniel Mylius illustrated his edition of the 15th-century Scala philosophorum (Ladder of the Philosophers) with twelve alchemical engravings, including the Chemical Wedding. The sequence shown here was originally designed for a later work, the Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, which describes a different chemical approach, based on antimony. Mylius has retrofitted the sequence by adding titles that correspond to the first four steps of the Scala: Calcination, Dissolution, Separation, and Conjunction.
Credit Line:
Rare Books Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Creator:
Mylius, Johann Daniel, 1585 or 1586-
Publisher:
Francofurti : Apud Lucam Iennis, 1622.
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9961456623506421

6. Secretioris naturae secretorum scrutinium chymicum per oculis et intelectui, 1687

Curatorial Notes:
German alchemist Michael Maier published a series of fifty alchemical emblems in his Atalanta fugiens (1617), here in a later edition. Maier recycled designs from earlier sources, including his depiction of the Chemical Wedding, adapted from a famous 14th-century Bildegedicht (“picture-poem”). The Moon warns her husband in the accompanying motto that “The Sun needs the Moon, as the cock needs the hen.” Two parents — or chemical substances — are required to generate the philosophical child.
Credit Line:
Rare Books Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Creator:
Maier, Michael, 1568?-1622
Publisher:
Francofurti : Impensis Georgii Heinrici Oehrlingii, bibliopolae : Typo Johannis Philippi Andreae, 1687.
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9923581113506421

7. عجايب المخلوقات وغرايب الموجودات / ʻAjāʼib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʼib al-mawjūdāt

Curatorial Notes:
Human personifications of the planets were common across disciplines. This illustrated encyclopedia, the Wonder of Creation, written by the astronomer al-Qazwīnī, was widely read in the Islamic world. Here, the planets are represented as human figures: Mercury (on the right) writes in a book, while Venus (on the left) plays a musical instrument. Although al-Qazwīnī wrote about alchemy, he seems to have rejected alchemists’ claims to transmute base metals into gold.
Credit Line:
Gift of Robert Garrett, 1942, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Creator:
Qazwīnī, Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad, approximately 1203-1283 and قزويني، زكريا بن محمد
Publisher:
[India?, 17--?]
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9955765013506421

8. Alchemical Treatises, 1590s

Curatorial Notes:
After George Ripley, the leading popularizer of pseudo-Lull was the late 15th-century Italian alchemist Cristoforo Parigino. Although written in Italian, his works were soon translated into Latin and French. The Alfabeto apertoriale, here in a French translation,is heavily influenced by the pseudo-Lullian Book of the Secrets of Nature. This copy begins on the right-hand page with A (God), followed by a detailed account of B (Lunaria), the wine-based solvent central to pseudo-Lullian alchemical medicine — here illustrated by marginal drawings of vessels.
Credit Line:
Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
Creator:
Parigino, Cristoforo, ca. 1466-1478
View in catalog:
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99101888073506421

9. Gold coin

Curatorial Notes:
In medieval alchemical theory, quicksilver often provided the basic ingredient for the stone. Small quantities of the precious metals, gold and silver, were necessary to complete the work, through a process known as fermentation. In alchemical imagery, this process is commonly depicted as the wedding of Sun and Moon, mediated by Mercury.
Credit Line:
Modern sample courtesy of Lawrence M. Principe

10. Silver Ingot

Curatorial Notes:
In medieval alchemical theory, quicksilver often provided the basic ingredient for the stone. Small quantities of the precious metals, gold and silver, were necessary to complete the work, through a process known as fermentation. In alchemical imagery, this process is commonly depicted as the wedding of Sun and Moon, mediated by Mercury.
Credit Line:
Modern Sample Courtesy of Lawrence M. Principe