Penn Library's Library's LJS 500 - Liber mirabilium. (Video Orientation)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1S988pq3Ho

Paleographical Approaches to Determining the Authenticity of Medieval Alchemical Manuscripts

Meagen Allen

"Medieval alchemical manuscripts can present numerous problems for the researcher. One of the most pressing is the authenticity of a given manuscript. In this talk, I will present a case study – the questionable authenticity of a work often attributed to Roger Bacon – the Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae et de nullitate magiae. This work, which consists of 11 chapters, supposedly details Bacon’s thoughts on the ability of art to perfect nature in many forms, including the creation of machines, the prolongation of human life, and, of course, the creation of the philosophers’ egg and the ability of man to transmute metals. Numerous arguments have been provided for its provenance. I will describe the paleographical approaches that I have taken in examining the manuscripts to argue that there is no overwhelming reason to discount its authenticity, and that for the present, it should continue to remain a part of Bacon’s oeuvre."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AtmMdwze8g

"How can we account, in a rigorous way, for alchemy's ubiquity? We think of alchemy as the transformation of a base material (usually lead) into gold, but "alchemy" is a word in wide circulation in everyday life, often called upon to fulfill a metaphoric duty as the magical transformation of materials. Almost every culture and time has had some form of alchemy. This book looks at alchemy, not at any one particular instance along the historical timeline, not as a practice or theory, not as a mode of redemption, but as a theoretical problem, linked to real gold and real production in the world."

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=16330


   

Useful summary to put on your wall.


   

The Antiphona, in An Alchemical Miscellany at the Beinecke:


https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2037172

This Seven-part Series of Lectures on ALCHEMY, VISIONS & ART begins with four presentations on ALCHEMY, followed by one presentation on alchemical themes in VISIONARY ART, and finally a two-part presentation on the Alchemy of Traditional ARTISTS' MATERIALS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPBa8-_w3Jw

Throughout his controversial life, the alchemist, physician, and social-religious radical known as Paracelsus combined traditions that were magical and empirical, scholarly and folk, learned and artisanal. He read ancient texts and then burned “the best” of them. He endorsed both Catholic and Reformation beliefs, but he also believed devoutly in a female deity. He traveled constantly, learning and teaching a new form of medicine based on the experience of miners, bathers, alchemists, midwives, and barber-surgeons. He argued for changes in the way the body was understood, how disease was defined, and how treatments were created, but he was also moved by mystical speculations, an alchemical view of nature, and an intriguing concept of creation.

Bringing to light the ideas, diverse works, and major texts of this important Renaissance figure, Bruce T. Moran tells the story of how alchemy refashioned medical practice, showing how Paracelsus’s tenacity and endurance changed the medical world for the better and brought new perspectives to the study of nature in his book titled 'Paracelsus: an Alchemical Life'.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oG8ep8256s

“Alchemical symbolism is a lovely metaphysics, a gracious and beautiful approach to one of the great problems of daily existence. Every individual in his own personal life can be an alchemist, a worker with the divine chemistries of living… Alchemy is actually a dedicated effort to find out where we come from, why we are here, and where we are going. It is a way of applying all that we know to all the problems that we must solve. Step by step, we become more knowing, more useful, and more helpful, becoming better citizens here and, whether we realize it or not, better citizens of Eternity."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD6KKh0AQ5g

Some rights-free articles on Alchemy:

https://archive.org/details/jstor_ejc?query=alchemy

https://archive.org/details/jstor_ejc?query=alchemical

https://archive.org/details/jstor_ejc?query=alchemist

https://archive.org/details/jstor_ejc?query=alchemists

The AlchemEast project is devoted to the study of alchemical theory and practice as it appeared and developed in distinct, albeit contiguous (both chronologically and geographically) areas: Graeco-Roman Egypt, Byzantium, and the Near East, from ancient Babylonian times to the early Islamic period. This project combines innovative textual investigations with experimental replications of ancient alchemical procedures. It uses sets of historically and philologically informed laboratory replications in order to reconstruct the actual practice of ancient alchemists, and it studies the texts and literary forms in which this practice was conceptualized and transmitted. It proposes new models for textual criticism in order to capture the fluidity of the transmission of ancient alchemical writings.

https://alchemeast.eu/