First published in 1652, this compilation of English alchemical literature was collected and annotated by Elias Ashmole. The book made available many works that had previously existed only in privately held manuscripts, and features alchemical verse from Thomas Norton, George Ripley, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Dastin, Abraham Andrews, Thomas Charnock, William Bloomefield, Edward Kelley, John Dee, Thomas Robinson, William Backhouse, John Gower, John Lydgate, W. Redman, as well as several unknown authors. Individual plates from the volume are digitized here, with additional item-level description available for select plates.
Quote of the Day
“Let me advise you not to receive the gold and silver of the vulgar herd, for they are dead. Take our living metals. Place them in our fire, and there will result a dry liquid. First, earth will be resolved into water [for thus the Mercury of the Sages is called]. That water will solve gold and silver, and consume them until only the tenth part with one part is left. This will be the humid radical of the metals.”
Michael Sendivogius
The Golden Tract Concerning The Stone of the Philosophers
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