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Ambix

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Agricola, Paracelsus, and Chymia

A. J. Rocke

To cite this article: A. J. Rocke (1985) Agricola, Paracelsus, and Chymia, Ambix, 32:1, 38-45,
DOI: 10.1179/amb.1985.32.1.38

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AGRICOLA, PARACELSUS, AND "CHYMIA"

By A. J. RocKE*

DURING the course of the sixteenth century the medieval alchemical tradition was partially
opposed and partially assimilated and pre-empted by a number of technological and
medical activities-such as metallurgy and iatrochemistry-that eventually were charac-
terized as "chemical".1 In the last years o(the century Andreas Libavius published what is
usually and fairly described as the first textbook of chemistry, containing a fervent argument
for the indepedence of the new discipline from alchemy, technology, and medicine. But the
title of Libavius' work, Alchemia suggests that his sharp conceptual distinction was plagued
by semantic ambiguity.2
When, indeed, did "alchymia" beget "chymia"? For as much ink as has been expended
on the still controverted question of the origin of the word "chemeia" or "chymia" in Greek
antiquity,3 no one seems to have examined the final stage in the etymology: the dropping of
the Arabic definite article to form the root of "chemistry" in all Indo-European languages.
The Oxford English Dictionary records "chymiste" as early as 1562 and notes-accurately but
vaguely-that the Arabic article was dropped "after [the Latin word 'alchimista'J began to
be analysed".4 But it is a reasonable conjecture that the English coinage simply mimicked an
alteration that had already occurred in the corresponding Latin word, some time prior to
1562. In 1561 Robert du Vallee explained to his readers why the Arabic article did not
belong in "chemia". But he did not clarify the chronology or circumstances of this mutation,
nor did he explore the semantic implications.5
It is sometimes asserted that it was Theophrastus von Hohenheim Paracelsus
(1493/94-1541) who introduced the Latin word "chymia", as well as "iatrochymia".6 As an
iconoclast and an imaginative neologist Paracelsus would seem a likely candidate; however,
the claim does not appear to be sustainable. For one thing, Paracelsus' knowledge of Latin,
while by no means nonexistent as his critics have asserted, was probably not very good.
Konrad Gesner, a near contemporary, thought he habitually lectured in German because
his Latin was so weak; 7 W. Pagel, a connoisseur and admirer of Parace1sus' works, says he
"knew" Latin but had a "preference" for his vernacular German dialect.8 The indefatigable
Paracelsus bibliographer Karl Sudhoff argued that Parace1sus must have known Latin, but
his writings have done little to weaken the suspicion that the entire Latin Paracelsian corpus
was produced by editors, mostly in the late sixteenth century.9 Such a weak Latinist as
Paracelsus is unlikely to have been concerned to purify the etymology of the Arabo-Greco-
La tin word "alchemia".
More to the point, Paracelsus seems never to have used any expression for the art other
than "alchimia" or "alchimey", the practitioners being "Alchimisten". Perusal of the
earliest definitive collected Paracelsus Opera, that ofJohann Huser, reveals no other uses or
spellings in the numerous chemical and alchemical discussions found in such Paracelsian
The research for this article was done partially during a Studienaufenthalt of the Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdienst in the summer of 1984. Most of the books cited were examined at the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and the Bibliothek des Deutschen Museums, Munich;
Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Widener, Houghton, and Countway Libraries of
Harvard University. I am grateful to the staffs of all of these institutions for their kind assistance.
~ Professor Alan]. Rocke, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, 44106.
AGRICOLA, PARACELSUS, AND "CHYMIA" 39

writings as Thesaurus alchimistarum and Paragranum. German works in the Paracelsian corpus
were often given Latin titles, such as Labyrinthus medicorum (Chapter 5 of which is
characteristically entitled "Wie ohn [die Alchimey] der Artzt kein Artzt seyn mag."). 10A
specific claim has been made for the first occurrence of "chymia" in Paracelsus' Grossenn
Wundartzney (1536), a work that justly established his literary reputation as a physician.
Latin editions of 1573 and later do indeed have the pronouncement: "Verum quia
Iatrochymista sum: utrumque enim scio & Medicinam & chemiam ... "11 But compare the
German of the original:

Darumb lob ich Gottl so ich ein Artzney durch in erfundenn habel inn was wege
mich die selbige angelanget hettl yedoch das ich der Alchimist und der artzet bini
bin auch der der sie baide waist ... 12

Use of "chymia" can, however, be documented from I 530 in the works of an exact
contemporary of Paracelsus, Georg Agricola (1494-1555).13 Paracelsus and Agricola had
much more than age in common. Both were descended from south German stock, Swabian
and Saxon respectively. Both became physicians after receiving their medical educations in
Italy, possibly both at Ferrara. Both resided in principally Protestant regions but remained
somewhat heterodox Catholics. Each wrote a treatise on the plague. Paracelsus wrote the
first medical treatise on mining diseases; Agricola concentrated his practice on the same
specialty, though he is not known to have written on the subject. Both departed from medical
orthodoxy by emphasizing the value of mineral remedies, and by pioneering a more
empirical methodology. During his return to Germany from Italy in 1526 Agricola is known
to have visited Villach, a town where Paracelsus' father was still practicing as an eminent
physician and where Paracelsus himself lived for several years (ca. 1502-7 and 1524). Their
professional careers overlapped by fifteen years, until Paracelsus' death in 1541. Finally, by
1527 both had been befriended by two men with Europe-wide reputations, the Basel printer
Johannes Froben and the "Prince of Humanists", Desiderius Erasmus. 14Curiously, not only
is there no record of any direct contact between Agricola and Paracelsus, but neither appears
to have even mentioned the other in writing. However, in light of the commonalities cited, as
well as the eminence that both men were to attain in the I 530s, it is scarcely conceivable that
either remained ignorant of the other's existence.
The absence of contact between Agricola and Paracelsus is far from mysterious,
considering their adherence to sharply divergent Renaissance traditions. Paracelsus' ideas
were moulded in an atmosphere of gnosticism, neoplatonism, and cabbalism; he was a
Hermetic medical magus. His neologisms have often beenjudged barbarous-certainly they
are nonclassical-and Partington cannot be faulted for believing they reflected "the
intention of puzzling and irritating the conventional physicians and making his writings
[appear] impressive" .15His coarse language was often filled with invective, and he despised
both scholastic and humanistic conventions. He probably knew no Greek, lectured and
wrote in Schwyzerdeutsch, and may never have actually received a medical degree.
By contrast, Agricola was the very model of a humanist physician-philosopher. 16After
receiving a traditional classical education at the University of Leipzig, he taught the classics
at the Zwickau Stadtschule-for three years as Rektor ordinarius of the new Schola
Graeca-and wrote both Latin and Greek grammars for the use of his students.
Subsequently he studied medicine i~ Venice, Padua, Bologna, and Ferrara. He won the
respect, friendship and active patronage of Erasmus after a briefstop in Basel in the autumn
40 A. J. ROCKE

of 1524, and was one of ~everal editors of the first complete Greek editions of Hippocrates
and Galen, issued by the Aldine press in 1524 and 1526. From about 1530 he settled in
Chemnitz, a principle centre of the German mining industry. 17In addition to the classical
languages, Agricola is said to have been fluent in French, English, Italian and Hebrew, and
to have known some Arabic and Old Church Slavonic as well. His Latin style was much
praised, Erasmus for example characterizing the diction as exhibiting exceptional clarity
and an "almost Attic simplicity". His works on geology, mineralogy, mining, metrology and
medicine are filled with references to classical authors. Where Latin expressions
corresponding to vernacular technical terms did not exist, or existed only in corrupt
medieval or Arabic forms, Agricola never hesitated to introduce felicitous neologisms. He
was an enthusiastic and sophisticated etymologist, carefully tracing the roots of both
vernacular and classical technical expressions in many of his writings.
But Agricola transcended humanistic traditions in his attentiveness to technological
manuals and empirical practices of all sorts. He may well have studied with Ulrich Riilein in
Leipzig and may have met Vannoccio Biringuccio in Siena, but in any case he studied the
Bergbuchleyn and Pirotechnia upon their appearances,18 Agricola's reading also included
distillation and assaying manuals, books of secrets, and whatever alchemical literature he
could locate. His close friend Georg Fabricius stated that Agricola suffered from
conjunctivitis caused by "untiring study and insatiable reading", and his indefatigable
scholarship is also attested to by the range of obscure manuscripts cited in his published
works. He also assiduously collected empirical information from miners, assayers, and other
practical workers. 19
Agricola began using the words '.'chymia", "chymista", and "chymicus" early in his
career, two decades before the appearance of such expressions in the works of the next
earliest authors I have located. References to "the chemists" are well scattered throughout
all of Agricola's books on mining and metallurgy, from Bermannus (1530) to De re metallica
(1556).20 The meaning attached to these words, as indicated by the context in which they
appear, is usually more alchemical than what we today would think of as chemical. Some
modern translators have erred in rendering, for instance, Agricola's "ars chymiae" as "the
chemical art"; usually it means something much closer to what we would call "alchemical
techniques" .21 Contemporaries of Agricola did not hesitate to translate his "chymia" as
"alchemy",22just as Paracelsus' Latin editors of the 1560s freely used "chymistae" to render
his word "Alchimisten".
Agricola's attitude toward alchemy was complex.23 Unlike Paracelsus, he was in no
sense an Adept, and apparently did not believe that transmutation was possible. As a
scholar with thoroughly humanistic instincts, he relied heavily, occasionally credulously but
not uncritically, on classical authors. By comparison to these sources, and to his own
observations, the total volume of references to alchemy in his writings is very small.
Moreover, he often spoke slightingly or even contemptuously of the alchemists for what
seemed to him as odd notions, and for their neglect of classical sources.24 On the other hand,
Agricola collected, used, and cited factual matter from the alchemists, and the majority of
his citations are neutral empirical or practical pieces of information. Mercury, he stated in
De natura jossilium, "offers many uses to the alchemist" ("multum etiam usum praebet
chymistis"), and he proceeded to enumerate pharmaceutical preparations and poisons, as
well as to describe the amalgamation process for purifying gold and the preparation of
mercury sublimate.25 Such examples could be multiplied.26
AGRICOLA, PARACELSUS, AND "CHYMIA"

One scholar has argued that in such neutral passages Agricola is using "chymista" in a
modern sense, so that the word must be translated as "chemist" .27But it seems clear that
Agricola was simply referring in such places to a more empirical and practical, and less
chrysopoeic, branch of alchemy that existed in his day. Ifhe had consciously coined the word
to have new-i.e., modern-connotations, the word would also have appeared whenever
Agricola discussed a wide variety of "chemical" topics in mineralogy, assaying, and geology.
It can well be argued that such a morpheme was a desideratum for the sixteenth century, but
Agricola does not seem to have concerned himself with this linguistic lacuna. Rather, he
wanted to purify the spelling and clarify the etymology of the classical root of the corrupted
Arabo-Greco-Latin word "alchimia". As such, his approach was that of an archetypical
sixteen th -cen tury h umanis t.
The next author after Agricola to use the new word appears to have been the Italian
natural philosopher Girolamo Cardano (1501-76). Cardano began to use Latin forms of the
word, in senses similar to Agricola's, in his De subtilitate of I 550, and continued to do so in his
De rerum varietate of 1557. Cardano is known to have studied and used the works of Agricola.28
However, the new coinage seems to have become widespread only from its advocacy by
the famous Swiss naturalist Konrad Gesner (1516-65). Gesner had a reputation as a gifted
classical philologist from the late 1530Sand as a bibliographer from the 1540s. He wrote on
mineralogy and crystallography as well as zoology and botany. From 1545 until his death he
frequently cited the works of Agricola, and is known to have owned a copy of the Bermannus.29
He admired Agricola's De animantibus subterraneis (1549), an occasionally credulous
description of subterranean creatures; his correction of a few errors for the second edition
(1556) is a positive indication of correspondence between the two scholars during the
interval between the editions.
The word "Chymistae" appears as a cross-reference to the entry "Alchymistae" in
Gesner's Dictionarium linguae latinae, published in 1551.30 In the following year Gesner
published pseudonymously a work entitled De remediis secretis: liber physicus, medicus et partim
etiam chymicus (Zurich: A. Gesner), describing the distillation of a variety of vegetable and
mineral extracts and their pharmaceutical uses. This work proved immensely popular,
requiring new editions every year from 1554 to 1559.31 French translations from 1555
onward provide the first appearance of such words as "chimique" and "chymistique" I have
seen, Italian translations from 1556 the first appearance of "chimico", and English
translations from 1559 the first examples of such words as "chymiste", "chimist", and
"chymisticall" .32Curiously, German translators failed to follow this pattern; they rendered
Gesner's Latin word 'chymistae" as "Alchimisten" .33Although it would be difficult to prove
that it was Gesner's popular work which propagated the new coinage from Latin to the
major modern languages, the German case provides circumstantial evidence for this
supposition. Only the Germans failed to drop the Arabic definite article in their translations
of Gesner, and only in German is it difficult to find examples of the apheretic form before the
turn of the century. 34
Perhaps partially due to the popularity of Gesner's book, in the 1550S there began a
sudden vogue for the publication of alchemical tracts, swelling to enormous proportions
from 1562 onward.35 The word "chymia" often appears in this new literature;36 the
(surprisingly few) printed alchemical works from the century before 1550 use "alchimia"
exclusively. The Latin Paracelsian corpus derives especially from the 1560s, 1570S and
1580s, produced by such writers and editors as Adam von Bodenstein and Gerard Dorn.37
42 A. J. ROCKE

By this time the works of Agricola were very widely distributed; Michaelis and Prescher
estimate nearly four thousand copies of Bermannus, De ortu et eausis subterraneorum, De natura
jossilium, and De re metalliea in print by 1562, all of which used the new coinage "chymia" .38
But to the uninitiated this word was still an unfamiliar one in the last third of the century.39
The sense of "chymia" in the second half of the century,just as it was for Agricola, seems
to have been strongly oriented toward what we today would call "alchemy". However,
sixteenth-century alchemy comprehended a number of diverse traditions. "Esoteric"
alchemy had primarily moral, religious, and philosophical concerns; "exoteric" alchemy
was concerned with transmutations and the preparation of elixirs; a semi-empirical medical
alchemy deriving especially from the work of John of Rupescissa and emphasizing aqueous
or alcoholic distilled herbal remedies, was represented even before Paracelsus;40 and there
was a craft metallurgical tradition, distinct from chrysopoeia, that was normally regarded as
a part of alchemy.41 Very few sixteenth-century writers distinguished explicitly between
these various Renaissance alchemical traditions; many seemed even to fail to perceive that
they were distinct. Certainly "chymia" and "alchymia" were defined and used in exactly the
same sense, at least in the first two-thirds of the century; in 1561, for instance, Vallee
explicitly asserted the semantic equivalence of the two words.42
But there was a certain tension between these traditions, which seemed to intensify
through the century. Biringuccio plainly had no sympathy for exoteric or esoteric alchemy,
and the anonymous author of 1531 wanted to be clear that he was describing the
"Reehter"-that is, craft-metallurgical-"Gebrauch d' Alchimei". Although Gesner certainly
knew of the other traditions, in the opening passages of his popular work he seemed
implicitly to equate "chymia" with the pharmacology of distilled remedies, an identification
which was made explicit by at least one translator.43
Cardano's treatment is more ambiguous-and interesting. "Chymia" is usually treated
as an art, i.e., a technology, and in one passage it appears in a list together with architecture
and engineering. But in other contexts Cardano refers to its quasi-divine character and
concedes that it deals with many things that are profitless and more that are questionable.
Still, most of what Cardano says is flattering to the discipline and emphasizes its practical
utility. A clue to Cardano's attitude is the fact that magic appears in the same list of "arts"
with chemistry and engineering. Cardano placed great stress on natural magic as an applied
discipline subject to rational analysis, and this seems to have also been his approach with
"chymia".44
At the turn of the century "chymia" and "alchymia" were still regarded as synonyms,
though following the Paracelsian revival "chymia" became the usual denotation for
iatrochemistry.45 In the course of the early seventeenth century "alchymia" was increasingly
restricted to the esoteric and exoteric arts, and "chymia" inherited most of the empirical
(technological and pharmaceutical) connotations. The chemical textbook tradition
originated by Libavius, and continued by Jean Beguin and Nicolas Lemery, solidly
established the distinctness of these new meanings. By the time of Robert Boyle and Isaac
Newton the words had nearly their modern connotations.

NOTES

I. An overview of sixteenth-century alchemy, iatrochemistry, and the empirical chemical arts is provided by Lynn
Thorndike, "Alchemy During the First Half of the Sixteenth Century", Ambix 2 (1938), 26-37; idem, A History of
Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923-58),5, esp. 438-42, 532-49,
AGRICOLA, PARACE.LSUS, AND "CHYMIA" 43

and 617-35;J. R. Partington, History of Chemistry, 4 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1962-70),2, esp. C)-177; R. P.
Multhauf, The Origins of Chemistry (London: Oldbourne, 1966), pp. 197-320; and Berend Strahlmann,
"Chymisten in der Renaissance", in E. Schmauderer, ed., Der Chemiker im Wandel der Zeiten (Weinheim: Verlag
Chemie, 1973), pp. 42-99.
2. A. Libavius, Alchemia (Frankfurt, 1597); 2nd ed., Alchymia (Frankfurt, 1606). See Owen Hannaway, The
Chemists and the Word (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).
3. The fullest recent discussion isJack Lindsay, Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt (London: Muller, 1970),
pp. 68-89. Lindsay reasonably conjectures that the original root was "chymia" or "chymeia", having both
metallurgical and pharmaceutical connotations, but that "chemeia" also arose by around 300 A.D., by
folk-etymological analogy with Coptic "Khem", meaning the black land (Egypt), and possibly also the black
art or the art of blackening. Apparently the orthographic and etymological ambiguity was also puzzled over in
the sixteenth century; here I follow Agricola in spelling the Greco-Latin word as "chymia".
4. Oxford English Dictionary, 2 (1889),319, s.v. "chemist". The 1562 citation is from William Bullein's Bulwarke of
Defence (London: Kyngston). I have seen one earlier instance: [K. Gesner], trans. Peter Morwyng, The Treasure
of Euonymus (London: John Daie, 1559, ff. Ai r, Aii v, Aiii v.
5. R. Vallensis [du Vallee], De veritate & antiquitate artis chemica (Montbeliard:J. Foillet, 1601), p. 3 (first ed. 1561).
6. E.g., Partington, History, 2, 135 and fn.; Henry M. Pachter, Paracelsus (New York: Schuman, 1951), p. 113.
7. K. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis (Zurich: Froschauer, 1545), cited by Thorndike, History, 5, 438.
8. W. Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (Basel: Karger, 1958),
P9
9 Karl Sud hoff, Paracelsus: Ein deutsches Lebensbild aus den Tagen der Renaissance (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut,
1936), pp. 13-14, 46, 59; idem, Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriflen (Berlin: Reimer,
1894-99); Pt. I, Bibliographia Paracelsica, pp. 46-47, 7 I, 82, 156, and 245; Pt. 2, Paracelsus-Handschriflen, pp.
55-56. On this question see also Paracelsus, Selected Writings, ed.J.Jacobi (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1951), p. 31: Thorndike, citing G. Dorn, in History, 5, 441; and Oporinus' comments in his letter to]. Weyrer, in
S. Domandl, ed., Paracelsus: Werk und Wirking: FestgabejUr Kurt Goldammer zum 60. Geburtstag (Vienna: Verb and
der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft Osterreichs Verlag, 1975), pp. 54-56, 391-92.
10. J. Huser, ed., Opera: Bucher und Schrifften, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Strasbourg: Zetzner, 1616; a rpt. of the first ed. of
158g--90), I, 21g--25, 271-72,934-36. No form of "Alchimia" appears in the well-known Archidoxis, ibid., pp.
786-824.
I I. Paracelsus, Chirurgia magna, tr. G. Dorn (first Latin ed., Strasbourg [Basel: Perna], 1573), p. 2 I, and Chirurgia
magna, in Opera omnia medico-chemico-chirurgica, 3 vols. (Geneva: Antonius & De Tournes, 1658),3, 1-2 I 2, on lOa.
Other occurrences of "chemia", "chymia", or "chymistae" are in Opera omnia, 3, 18b, 23a, 65b-67b, 43a, 47a,
50b, 73b-74a, and 155b.
12. Paracelsus, Der grossenn Wundartzney (Augsburg: Steyner, 1537), f. XIIr. Other occurrences of "alchimey" or
"alchimist" are on ff. VIIlv, Xlv, XlIIr, XXIv, XXXIIv, XXXVv, XXXVIIlv, and XLVIIv. This second
edition is a reprint of the first (Augsburg: Steyner, 1536).
13 Paracelsus was born either in the last third of 1493 or in the first half of 1494; Agricola's birth date is 24 March
1494. On Agricola see Hans Prescher, ed., Georgius Agricola Ausgewiihlte Werke, 10 vols. (Berlin: Deutscher
Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1955-74 and cont.; hereafter cited Werke), and esp. vol. I (1956) of the series:
Helmut Wilsdorf, Georg Agricola und seine Zeit; and H. Prescher, "Zur Agricola-Forschung in der DDR", Z. geol.
Wiss., 5 (1977), 515-26. A monumental primary and secondary bibliography comprises vol. 10 (1971) of
Agricola's Werke: R. Michaelis and H. Prescher, eds. Agricola-Bibliographie 1520-1963.
14. Agricola, De peste libri tres (Basel: H. Froben, 1554); Paracelsus' De peste (Strasbourg: Wyriot) and Von der
Bergsucht oder Bergkranckheiten (Dilingen: Mayer), both written about the mid-1530s, were first published after
Agricola's death, in 1576 and 1567 respectively. For other biographical details mentioned, see Wilsdorf,
Agricola, pp. 125-35 and 15D-52; Prescher, "Agricola-Forschung", p. 517; and Reinhold Hofmann's Dr. Georg
Agricola: Ein Gelehrtenleben aus dem Zeitalterder Reformation (Gotha: Perthes, 1905), pp. 20n., 32-33, whose work in
some respects has never been superseded.
15. Partington, History, 2, 127.
16. For biographical details mentioned in the following paragraph, see Wilsdorf, Agricola, pp. I 13, 12g--30, 144-45;
Hofmann, Agricola, pp. 66--67, 76; and Prescher, "Agricola-Forschung", p. 516. See also Agricola, Bermannus,
sive de re metallica (Basel: H. Froben, 1530), pp. 3-4 (Erasmus to Andreas and Christoph von Konneritz, 12
March 1529, regarding Bermannus).
44 A.J. ROCKE

17. The place-name Chemnitz is cognate with Germanic and Slavic "kamin" and with English "chimney", not
with Greek "chemeia".
18. Wilsdorf, Agricola, pp. 124, 148-49. [Ulrich Riilein von Calw,] Ein nutzlich bergbuchleyn [Leipzig? 1505?). V.
Biringuccio, De la pirotechnia (Venice: Rossinello, 1540). Biringuccio cited Bermannus, and Agricola in De re
metallica cited Biringuccio.
19. H. C. and L. H. Hoover, eds. and trans., De re metallica (London: 1912), pp. vi, x, xii; Hofmann, Agricola, pp.
32-33, 72: Wilsdorf, Agricola, pp. 153-55.
20. E.g., in Bermannus (1530), pp. 56--57, 76--77, 101; in De ortu et causis subterraneorum (Basel: Froben, 1546), pp.
52-53, 64-67: in De naturaftssilium (1546, published in a single volume with the preceding title), pp. 336--37,
359; and in De re metallica (Basel: H. Froben, 1556), preface, p. [v].
21. Agricola, Werke, 2,103,120-21,141; 3,148,162,165-69. Agricola, De natura Fossilium, English trans. by M. C.
and]. A. Bandy (N ew York: Geological Society of America, 1955), pp. 175-76, 200. The Hoovers did not
commit this error, nor did C. Matschoss, in his modern German trans. Zwolj Bucher vom Berg- und Huttenwesen
(Dusseldorf: VDI-Verlag, 1928).
22. In the Italian translation of the 1546 collection headed by De ortu et causis subterraneorum: De la generatione de la cose
(Venice: Tramezzino, 1550), If. 53V, 66v, 69r-73r, 342v-343r, 437v, 445r-445v, 455r. There are no early
(pre-1750) German editions of Bermannus or of the collection De ortu, and no early French or English editions of
any of Agricola's works.
23. Hans Hartmann, Georg Agricola 1494-1555: Begrunder dreier Wissenschaften (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1953), pp. 3, 24-25, 112-23; Wilsdorf, Agricola, pp. 44-50, 172-77.
24. E.g., Bermannus, pp. 56--57, 76--77. See also Ernst Darmstaedter, Georg Agricola 1494-1555: Leben und Werk
(Munich: Verlag der Miinchner Drucke, 1926), p. 29.
25. De naturaftssilium (above, n. 20), p. 336; De Natura Fossilium (English trans.), p. 175, with "alchemist" here
substituted for the Bandys' "chemist".
26. De ortu et causis subterraneorum, pp. 64-67; De naturaftssilium, p. 337.
27. Agricola, Werke, 2 (ed. Wilsdorf), 182. Wilsdorf makes no claim that Agricola introduced the word "chymista".
28. G. Cardano, De subtilitate (Leiden, W. Rouillius, 1550), pp. 259, 529, 536; idem, De rerum varietate (Basel: H.
Petri, 1557), p. 705. Agricola is cited for example in the first of these works, on pp. 252 and 262.
29. For these details, as well as those in the next sentence, see Michaelis and Prescher, Agricola-Bibliographie, pp.
14-27 passim, 439, 593n., 726, and 730.
30. Cited in Strahlmann, op. cit. (n. I), p. 55. I have not been able to examine a copy of Gesner's dictionary.
31. Thorndike, History, 5, 621; National Union Catalogue Pre-1956 Imprints; Partington, History, 2, 81-82. For
discussions of Gesner's pseudonymous book of secrets see E. Hickel and W. Schneider, "Quellen zur
Geschichte der pharmazeutischen Chemie im 16. ]ahrhundert, 5. Mitteilung: Der 'Thesaurus Evonymi'
Conrad Gesners (Ueberblick)", Pharm. Ztg., III (1966),834-39; William C. Eamon treats the wider milieu in
"Books of Secrets and the Empirical Foundations of English Natural Philosophy", Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Kansas, 1977.
32. K. Gesner, trans. B. Aneau, Tresorde Evonime (Lyon, 1555, 1557), cited in E. Huguet,ed., Dictionnaire dela langue
franfaise du seizieme siecle, 7 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1925-66), 2, 238, 268, 285; idem, trans.]. Liebault, Quatre
livres des secrets demidecine, et de laphilosophie chimique (Paris: du Puys, 1573 [also 1579, 1590, 1593, 1600, 1628, and
1643 eds., and other French translations]); idem, trans. P. Lauro, Tesauro ... de rimedesecreti lib.fisico et medicinal
et in parte chimico (Venice: Sessa Fratelli, 1556 [also 1560 and 1588 eds.]); for the English of 1559 see n. 4 (also
idem, trans. G. Baker, Newe Iewell of Health (London: Denham, 1576, and other English translations).
33. K. Gesner, trans.]. Rudolph, Dererste [Ander} Theil des kostlichen unnd theuren Schatzes (Zurich:]' Gessner, 1582),
p. 10 (other eds. from 1555)' German translations of Cardano's De rerum varietate also fail to use the apheretic
form: Offenbarung der Natur (Basel: H. Petri, 1559), p. cccclix.
34. The only such sixteenth-century example I have seen is Bernhardi Graf von Tervis, Chymische Schrifften
(Nuremberg: Tauber, 1717, but with colophon dated 1593 and other editions from 1594).
35. Other influential treatises around mid-century that may have influenced the boom are: anon., Rosarium
philosophorum: Secunda pars alchimiae (Frankfurt:] acob, 1550), and the large collection by G. Gratarolo, Verae
alchimiae (Basel: Perna, 156 I), discussed by Thorndike, History, 5, 600- 16.
36. E.g.,]. Lacinius, Praeciosa ac nobilissima artis chymiae (Nuremberg: Hayn, 1554); Isagoge in ... Arnoldi de Villa Nova
rosarium chymieum (Basel: Ringysen, 1559); R. du Vallee, De veritate et antiquitate artis chymicae (above, n. 5);
Hermes et aI, Ars chymica (Strasbourg: Emmel, 1566); Senior, De ehemiaeSenioris [?Strasbourg: Emmel, 1560? or
1566?]; R. Lull, Testamentum ... universam artem chymicam (Cologne: Birckmann, 1566); Artis chemicae principes
AGRICOLA, PARACELSUS, AND "CHYMIA" 45

Avicenna atque Geber (Basel: Perna, 1572); Auriferae artis quam chemiam (Basel: Perna, 1572): etc. See Thorndike, 5,
620-25.
37. Paracelsus, De gradibus red. Bodenstein] (Mulhouse: Schmid, 1562); De causis red. Bodenstein] (Basel: Perna,
1563); Dorn, Clavis totius philosophiae chymisticae (Lyon: Juncta, 1567); idem, Chymisticum artijicium naturae,
theoricum et practicum, 2 pts. ([Frankfurt?] 1568-69); Paracelsi operum latine redditorum [Bodenstein, Dorn, et al.,
eds.] (Basel: Perna, 1575); etc.
38. Michaelis and Prescher, Agricola-Bibliographie, pp. 852-53.
39. One reader of De re metallica wrote "chymia!" in the margin of his copy, next to Agricola's use of "chymica" in
the Preface (p. [v]). The annotations in this copy (Rare Book Department, Memorial Library, University of
Wisconsin-Madison) are datable by context to after the year 1570.
40. E.g., Brunschwygk's distillation books, published in many editions in Latin, German, and English from 1500 to
1532. Thorndike (History, 5, 541-43) cites works by several authors from the 1520S and 1530S on distillation and
other "secret" recipes, who placed themselves more squarely in the alchemical tradition than Brunschwygk
did. Gesner's De remediis secretis followed in this tradition, and I detect no influence of Paracelsian works, very
few of which were in circulation in 1552. On this see also Partington, History, 2, 68-89. Multhauf, Origins, pp.
210-32, emphasizes the importance of John of Rupescissa for sixteenth-century medical alchemy.
41. See for example Ernst Darmstaedter's discussion offive "Kunstbuchlein", all published in the 1530s, all dealing
nearly exclusively with the craft chemical tradition, and all describing their subject as "Alchimei" or
"Alchimia"; Berg-, Probir- und Kunstbuchlein (Munich: Verlag cler Munchner Drucke, 1926), pp. 37-58. Note also
that Sebastian Munster, in Buch der Cosmography oder Weltbeschreibung (1544), mentions brass-making as an art of
the "Alchimisten"; cited by H. Wilsdorf, Praludien zu Agricola (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954), p. 109.
Strahlmann (op. cit., n. I, pp. 44-69) has a good discussion of the sixteenth century craft tradition embraced
within "alchymia".
42. Valee, op. cit. (n. 5), p. 3.
43. [K. Gesner,] De remediis secretis (Zurich: A. Gesner, 1552), p. 5; trans. Peter Morwyng (above, n. 4), f. Ai r: "The
Art of destillation (whiche they call Chymia ... "
44. Cardano, De subtilitate, pp. 529, 536. For a discussion of Carda no's treatment of magic see Thorndike, History, 5,
571-74.
45. See for example Libavius, Alchemia, where he uses "alchemia" as a generic term, and restricts "chymia" to
chemical substances prepared by the operator; and O. Croll, Basilica chymica, (Frankfurt: Marnius, 1609). For
more on the senses of "chymia" and "alchymia" around 1600, see Eberhard Schmauderer, "Chemiatriker,
Scheidekunstler und Chemisten der Barock- und der fruhen Aufklarungszeit", in Der Chemiker im Wandel der
Zeiten (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1973), pp. 101-205, on pp. 103-5. For the semantic situation a century later
see K. Hufbauer, Formation of the German Chemical Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp.
8-1 I, 14-17.
NOTICES

300 YEARS OF CHEMISTRY AT LOUVAIN-1685-lg85


On the occasion of the tercentennial of the foundation of the Royal Chair of Chemistry at the
University of Louvain, an international colloquium will be held in Louvain from 13 to 15
November Ig85 under the title: "Past and Present Teaching of Chemistry".
During the first two days the history of chemistry will be discussed, including the
historical development of the teaching of chemistry and of chemical research at the
University of Louvain. The third day will be devoted to actual problems in teaching of
chemistry. On the same occasion, an exhibition will be organized on the history of the chair
of chemistry at Louvain and on modern chemistry. For any further information please
contact Mrs. R. Lagrou, Secretariaat "300 J aar Chemie te Leuven", Department
Scheikunde, Katholieke U niversiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan, 200 F, B-3030 Leuven
(Belgium).
ANTIQV ARIAT ORIFLAMME
The first issue of this catalogue of early books on Mathematics, Science, Technology and
Medicine will shortly be published by Martin P. Steiner, Lachenstrasse 30, CH-4I04-
Oberwil.

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