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
“this water is a certain middle substance, clear as fine silver, which ought to receive the tinctures of sol and luna, so as they may be congealed, and changed into a white and living earth. For this water needs the perfect bodies, that with them after the dissolution, it may be congealed, fixed, and coagulated into a white earth. But if this solution is also their coagulation, for they have one and the same operation, because one is not dissolved, but the other is congealed, nor is there any other water which can dissolve the bodies, but that which abideth with them in the matter and the form. It cannot be permanent unless it be of the nature of other bodies, that they may be made one. When therefore you see the water coagulate itself with the bodies that be dissolved therein; be assured that thy knowledge, way of working, and the work itself are true and philosophic, and that you have done rightly according to art.”
Artephius
The Secret Book of Artephius
Alchemical Books
Audio Books
Total visits