Lexicon Alchemiae Sive Dictionarium (2 results)

LeatherBound. Condition: New. LeatherBound edition. Condition: New. Reprinted from edition. Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden leaf printing on spine. Bound in genuine leather with Satin ribbon page markers and Spine with raised gilt bands. A perfect gift for your loved ones. NO changes have been made to the original text. This is NOT a retyped or an ocr'd reprint. Illustrations, Index, if any, are included in black and white. Each page is checked manually before printing. As this print on demand book is reprinted from a very old book, there could be some missing or flawed pages, but we always try to make the book as complete as possible. Fold-outs, if any, are not part of the book. If the original book was published in multiple volumes then this reprint is of only one volume, not the whole set. Sewing binding for longer life, where the book block is actually sewn (smythe sewn/section sewn) with thread before binding which results in a more durable type of binding. Pages: 507.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. [DICTIONARY OF ALCHEMY C17 ENGLISH PROVENANCE] FIRST EDITION. 4to. pp. (viii) 471 [i.e., 487] (i). Roman letter, occasional Italic or Gothic. Unusual woodcut device (triangle with alchemical symbols) to t-p, two small woodcuts of stones and gems, woodcut initials and ornaments. Paper of first gathering softened, occasional light browned (poor paper or poorly dried), t-p a bit dusty, a handful of lower or outer edges uncut. A very good copy in contemporary English polished calf, double blind ruled, raised bands, single blind ruled, joint just split at head and foot (lower repaired), spine a bit cracked, tiny worm hole at head. Modern ownership label inside front boards, occasional early underlinings. A very good copy of the first edition of this important alchemical dictionary very full, less mystical and more practical than some later [works] and useful in explaining early terminology (Bolton I, 1041). Martin Ruland the Elder (1569-1611) was a German physician at the court of Rudolf II and an alchemist. Concluded c.1607, his Lexicon alchemiae was only published posthumously, as a very detailed Latin-German dictionary of alchemical terms. Most important are the near synonymous definitions of alchemia , chemia , and, unusually differentiated, chymia ; Ruland was indeed one source of the linguistic error that facilitated their later [conceptual] separation (Newman & Prince, Alchemy , 47). The work provides a wide variety of words for chemical elements and stones, with all their subcategories, and other substances such as alcohol (of which Paracelsus gave his own interpretation as both a powder and a volatile substances). Other words identify alchemical procedures or phases, e.g., mensis philosophicus (the philosophical month), or the time for the completion of putrefaction, coinciding with a lunar cycle. Lexicon was known to C.G. Jung who mentioned it his Psychology and Alchemy to discuss Ruland s understanding of meditatio , an important part of alchemists work (Jung, Psychology , 274). He saw it as an invisible dialogue with one s inner voice , which may involve the invocation of God or one s guardian angel. A very influential alchemical work, of intriguing, though obscure, early English provenance. Chicago, Mass, Brown (Hay), Yale, Columbia, NYMA, NYPL, SHI, Delaware, Penn, NLM, LC, Oberlin, Miami, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Washington, Florida, Oklahoma and HRC copies recorded in the US. Ferguson II, 302-3; BL STC Ger. C17 R1211; Duveen 520; Wellcome I, 5638. Not in Durling or Graesse. W.R. Newman, L.M. Principe, Alchemy vs. Chemistry , Early Science and Medicine, 3 (1998), 32-65; C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (rpt. 1968).