Very Excellent Paper of the True Natural Philosophy of Metals
Listen Audio BookVERY EXCELLENT PAPER OF THE TRUE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF METALS
DENIS ZECAIRE
1560
To the good-natured reader
Salvation in Jesus Christ
How much more than all those who have written in this divine work precisely and rightly called natural philosophy, having expressly defended the profanation and disclosure of it, if it is this friend reader, who having read and reread by various and continual readings the books of natural philosophers, and ordinarily thought about the interpretation of the contradictions, figures, comparisons, equivocation and various enigmas which appear in infinite number in their books, I only wanted to seal and hide the resolution that I had little to do after having spent a long time worked on the sophistications and cursed recipes, or to speak more properly of this, which I was for a time more confined and enveloped than ever Daedalus was in his labyrinth. But finally, by continual reading of good authors and approved in Science, I said with Geber in his Summa, returning within ourselves and considering the true way and manner in which nature uses underground in the procreation of metals, we have known the true and perfect matter which nature has prepared to perfect them on earth as well as the experience, thanks to the Lord God who has given me so much favor and grace through his dear son and our redeemer Jesus Christ, then later certified me as I will say more fully in the first part of my present pamphlet, where I will declare the manner by which I arrived at the true knowledge of this divine work.
Because in the second I will show which authors I used in my study, writing down their authorities in good order and true method, in order to better know the property and explanation of the terms of Science. And in the third and last part, I will declare the practice in such a way that it will be hidden from the ignorant and pointed out to the true children of Science, for whom I have taken great pains to put and write everything in better order. which was possible for me, not wanting to imitate in this many who preceded us, who were so envious of the public good and lovers of particularity, that they only wanted to declare their subject under various and variable allegories, not only show their books, as I knew one in my time who held so dear and hide papers which he had covered with a Venetian gentleman whom he himself dared to half look at, making himself believe that our great work had to one day get out of there without worrying about it any more than keeping it in a tightly closed trunk. But such people must know that this divine work is not given to us by chance, as the philosophers say when they reprimand those who work on credit as almost all operators do today.
Which I have no doubt that will be bitterly reprinted and taxed for having published my present pamphlet, saying that I am doing great folly to thus publish my work even in vulgar language, given that there is no science that is so hated today by the common people as this. But to answer them I first want them to know, if they have not yet known it, that this divine philosophy is not in the power of men. Less cannot be known through their books if our good God does not inspire it in our hearts by his Holy Spirit or by the organ of some living man, as I will prove very amply in the second part of my pamphlet; I am so far from publishing it with this little treatise of mine. And as for what I put it in vulgar language, let them know that I did nothing new in this, but rather imitated our ancient authors, who all wrote in their language, however much they have since been translated into other languages, such as Hamec Hebrew philosopher in Hebrew language, Thebot, Haly Chaldean philosophers in their Chaldean language; Homer, Democritus, Theophrastus and many other Greek philosophers in their Greek language; Abu Haly, Geber, Avicenna, Arab philosophers in their Arabic language; Rasis, Morienus, Raimondus and several other Latin philosophers in the Latin language so that their successors would know this divine science having been given to the people of their nation. If therefore I have imitated all these authors and several others in their writings, it is no wonder if I follow them in their way of writing; so that those who are alive today and who will follow us later, know that our blessed God wanted by his holy and divine mercy to gratify in this our good country of Guyenne, as he has done other times the other nations , at the same time that everything was disturbed here by the mutiny and revolt of the Bordelais who had killed their king's lieutenant, together with the great plague which occurred soon after that.
And as for what they say that our Science is hidden from the common people, that's not it. For the truth being first known was always loved. So, these are their deceptions and false sophistications, as I will state more fully in Part One. But, they will say, since I do not express very clearly all the things required for the composition of our divine work so that all those who see my present booklet can certainly work on it, what benefit will they bring from reading it? I owe great and double profit. Firstly, who is the man today who could express or declare the great good that we ordinarily depend on in France in the pursuit of its accursed sophistications? From which, if it is the good pleasure of God that they be withdrawn, putting an end to so many crazy expenses by reading my pamphlet, would it not bring a great profit? Without counting the second, that good and faithful readers will bring back by arranging their study according to the true method that I described in the second part.
And if God gives them so much grace that they can make such a resolution as I will say below, the third will not be useless for them to have entry and great access to this divine practice. I say divine because it is such that the understanding of men cannot understand it by itself, even if they were the greatest philosophers who ever knew, as Geber clearly suggests when he taxes those who want to work in considering only natural causes and the only operation of nature: In this, he says, today's operators tailor themselves to what they think follows from nature, which our art cannot imitate at all. So cease, from now on, such and similar slanderers, whom I want to warn that they do not take pains when reading my present pamphlet. Because it is not for them that I composed it, but for the volunteer children, docile and lovers of our Science; which I very humbly beg that before starting to work, they have resolved in their understanding all and each of the operations necessary for the composition of our divine work, and those adapted so much to the sentences, contradictions, enigmas and equivocation that we find in the books of philosophers that they neither find any contradiction nor any variety, Because it is the true means to know the truth and mainly in this divine philosophy, as too better wrote Rasis, saying he who is lazy to read our books will not be never quick to prepare materials.
For the one book declares the other, and what is lacking in one is added in the other; for what we must never expect (and this by divine judgment) to find the whole accomplishment of our divine work written and declared by order, as Aristotle very well wrote to King Alexander, answering his prayer: He It is not lawful, he says, to ask for something which cannot be granted. How then do you think that I write in full on paper what the hearts of men could not bear if it were written down, giving enough to understand by the refusal he made to the king his master, that he is forbidden? by the divine order to publish our Science in terms such that they will be understood by the common people. Why do I hereby adjure all those who by means of my present pamphlet, will arrive at the true knowledge of this divine work, that they handle it so that the poor are nourished, the oppressed relieved of their affairs, the bored relieved, for the love of our good God who will have communicated to them such great good, of which I once again ask them to recognize everything and as coming from him, to use it according to his holy commandments. In doing so, he will make them prosper in their affairs; as on the contrary, he will allow everyone to know to their confusion. I beg you therefore, faithful friend, that in reading our books, you always have this good God in your understanding, for the fact that all good comes from him, and without whose help there is nothing perfect in this low world. We are so far from being able to arrive at the knowledge of this great and admirable good if his Holy Spirit is not given to us as our guide. It really will be if avarice does not lead you, and you know that you are a true zealot of Jesus Christ. Who knows praise and glory for ever and ever. So he knows.
THE FIRST PART.
In which the author declares the manner by which he arrived at the knowledge of this divine work. Hermes rightly calls Trismegistus who is commonly interpreted three times great, author and first prophet of the natural philosophers, after having seen by experience the certainty and truth of this divine philosophy, very well and rightly left by, writing that had not was the fear he had of the universal judgment, which the sovereign God must make of all reasonable creatures in the last days at the consummation of the world, that he would never have left anything in writing of this divine science, so much so that he esteemed (and rightly occasion) great and admirable. In this opinion were all the principal authors who followed him. Which is the cause that they all wrote their books in such a way, as Geber says in his Summa, that they always conclude in two parts, in order to make the ignorant fail and declare underneath this variety of opinions, their main intention to the children of Science. Which it is appropriate to err from the beginning so, they say, that having acquired it with great difficulty and work of body and understanding, they hold it dearer and more secret. What is true is a great opportunity not to publish it, for it requires an indescribable effort to acquire it, not to mention the costs and expenses which are very great before being able to achieve a perfect knowledge of this divine work. ; I am talking about those who have no other master than books, awaiting the inspiration of our good God, as I was for ten years.
For firstly to count the true order of time and the manner in which I arrived at it, being twenty years old or thereabouts, having been instructed by the solicitude and diligence of my parents, in the principles of grammar in our house, I was sent by these Bordeaux, to hear the arts at the college, for there were usually very learned masters. Where I spent three years almost always studying philosophy. In which I profited so much, by the grace of God and the solicitude of a particular master of mine that my parents had given me, that it seemed good to all my friends and relatives, for what during this time I had lost my father and mother who abandoned me alone, that I was sent to Toulouse, under the care of my said master, to study the laws. But I did not leave Bordeaux until I only became acquainted with other schoolchildren who had various recipe books collected from several, which seemed familiar to me because my master was involved in working on them.
I was not so lazy as to leave a single sheet to be lined with all the books I could cover. So that before going to Toulouse, I had a very large book about the thickness of three fingers, where I had written more projections one pitch in ten, another in twenty, in thirty, with force tiersetz and medicines for the red, one at eighteen carats, the other at twenty, the other at gold crowns, the other at gold ducats, another to make it of higher color that never was. Some had to support the fonts, others the touch, others all judgments, and other infinite kinds, the same for the white, so that one had to come at ten denarii, the other at a quarter, the another with teston silver, the other with fire white, the other with the fingerboard. So that it seemed to me, if I once had the means to practice the slightest of the said recipes, that I would be the happiest man in the world. And mainly with dyes that I had covered, some bore the title of being the work of the Queen of Navarre, others of the late Cardinal de Loraine, others of Cardinal de Tournon and other infinite names, in order, as I have since known that it was added more times, as in reality I did at that time. Because as soon as I was in Toulouse, I began to prepare petit fours, being admitted to the whole thing by my master.
Then from the small ones I became the big ones, so much so that I had a room surrounded by them, some for distilling, others for sublimating, others for calcining, others for dissolving in the bain-marie, others to melt. So that for my entrance, I depended in one year on two hundred crowns that had been given to us to support us for two years of study, both in setting up ovens and in buying coal, various and infinite drugs, various glass vessels of which I bought for six crowns at a time, without counting the two ounces of gold which were lost in practicing one of the recipes, two and three marks of gold in the other. Or if it was perfectly covered with it, which few know, it was sour and blackened so much from the mixtures that the said recipes ordered to put in it, that it was almost completely useless. So much so that at the end of the year, my two hundred crowns went up in smoke. And my master died of a continuous quartan fever which deprived him of the strength to breathe and drink hot in the summer, so that he hardly left the room due to the great boredom he had of doing anything good. , where it was hardly less hot than in the arsenal of Venice when the artillery was cast.
The death of which was very annoying to me, because my next parents refused to give me more money than I needed to support my studies; and I wanted nothing other than to have the means to continue. Which forced me to go to my house to get out of the charge of my curators, in order to have the handling of all my paternal property, which I stopped for three years at four hundred crowns to have the means to put on a revenue among other things, that an Italian had talked to me in Toulouse and claimed to have seen the experience. Which I kept with me to see the end of its recipe for which to practice I had to buy two marks of gold and one mark of silver, which being melted together we dissolved with strong water, then calcined them by evaporation, we tried to dissolve them with other various distillations so many times that two months passed before our powder was ready to project them; which we used as instructed by the said recipe, but it was in vain. For all the increase that I received was in the manner of the diminishing pound. Because of all the gold and silver that I had put into it, I only recovered a mark and a half without counting the other costs which were not small; so much so that my four hundred crowns amounted to two hundred and thirty, of which I gave my Italian twenty, to go and find the author of the said recipe, who he said was in Milan, in order to get us back on track.
So I was in Toulouse all winter, waiting for his return. But I would still be there if I had wanted to wait, because I haven't seen him since. However, summer came accompanied by a great pestilence which made us abandon Toulouse. And not to leave companions that I knew, I went to Cahors where I stayed for six months, during which I did not forget to continue my business. And accompanied me by a good old man who was commonly called the philosopher, to whom I showed my fogs, asking him for advice and advice to see which recipes seemed to be the most obvious to him, even he who had handled so many simple ones in his life; who marked me ten or twelve which were in his opinion the best. Which I began to practice immediately upon returning to Toulouse near the feast of All Saints, after the danger of the plague had passed and ceased. So much so that the whole winter passed while I practiced the said recipes, from which I brought back such and similar fruit as the first ones, so that near the head of Saint John I found my four hundred crowns increased and became a hundred seventy, not that for that I cease to continue my enterprise.
And to be able to continue it better, I joined forces with an abbot near Toulouse who said he had double the recipe for our great work, which a friend of his who followed Cardinal d'Armagnac had sent him from Rome, which he held completely assured. But it took two hundred crowns to make it, of which I provided the hundred and he the other half, and began to set up the new furnaces, all in different ways, to work on them. And for what it took to have a very sovereign brandy to dissolve a mark of gold, we bought to make it well a very good piece of Gaillac wine, from which we drew our water with a very large pelican , so that in a month we ourselves passed water at various times, more than we needed; then we had to have various glass vessels to purify it and steal more. From which we put four marks into two large, very thick glass retorts, where was the mark of the gold that we had first calcined in a month, with great force of flame. And we set up these two retorts one inside the other, which having been well fought ourselves on two round and large ovens, and bought for thirty crowns of coal all at once to maintain the fire below the said retorts for a whole year, during which we always tried some small recipe, from which we brought as much profit as from the great work, which we would have kept until now if we had wanted to wait until it had frozen in the middle of the neck of the retorts, as the recipe promised, and not without cause because all freezing is preceded by dissolution.
And we did not work in the proper matter, because it is not the water which dissolves our gold, as experience really shows us. Because we found all the gold powder as we had put it, although it was somewhat looser. Which we projected onto heated quicksilver, following its recipe, but it was in vain. If we're sorry about it, I'll leave it to you to think, even Mr. Abbot who had already published to his monks (very good public secretaries) that it only remained to melt a beautiful fountain of lead that they had in their cloister to convert it into gold, immediately that our task would be done and completed. But it was for another time that he melted it to have the means to put to work, in vain, a German who visited his abbey when I was in Paris. As much as for this he never stopped wanting to continue his enterprise, and advised me that I should put myself to duty to recover three or four hundred crowns and that he would provide the same for me to go and live in Paris (a city today the most frequented by various operators in this science that other who knows in all of Europe) and there meet me with;. so many ways of people, to work with them that I come across something good to divide it between the two of us as faithful brothers. And so we stopped it, so that I stopped again all my property and went to Paris with eight hundred crowns in the purse, deliberate not to leave until all this I had depended on or until I had not would have found something good.
But it was not without incurring the bad grace of all my relatives and friends who only tried to make me councilor of our city because they believed that I was a great lawyer. If notwithstanding their prayer (after having made them believe that I was going to the court to buy a state I left my house the day after Christmas and arrived in Paris three days after the Rais, where I was for a month almost unknown to everyone. But after I had begun to associate with artisans like goldsmiths, foundries, glaziers, furnace makers and various others, I became so familiar with several that not a month passed that I did not had knowledge of more than a hundred operators. Some worked on the dyeing of metals by projection, others by cementing, others by dissolution, others by conjunction of the essence (as they called) of the emery, others by long decoctions, the others worked on the extraction of mercury from the metals, the others on the fixation of them. So that even the days of Tests and Sundays were not spent, until we assembled or at someone's house and strong often at mine, or at Notre Dame la Grand, which is the most frequented church in Paris for discussing tasks that had happened in previous days. Some said: if we had the means to start again we would do something good; the others: if our ship had held, we would have been in it; the others: if we had had our copper vessel very round and well closed, we would have fixed Mercury with the moon. So much so that there was not one who did anything good and who was not accompanied by an apology. As much as for this I was in no hurry to present them money, already knowing and knowing very well the great expenses that I had previously made on credit and on the insurance of others. However, during the summer there came a Greek who was considered a very learned man, who addressed himself to a treasurer that I knew, promising to do some very good work.
Which knowledge was the cause that I began to rush like him to an-ester (as he said) the mercury of the cinnabar, And because he needed fine silver in filings, we bought three marcs and made them file; from which he made small sweets with an artificial paste and mixed them with pulverized cinnabar, then cooked them in a well-covered earthenware vessel for a certain time. And when they were very dry, he melted them or passed them through the dish, so much so that we found three marks and a little more fine silver which he said came out of the cinnabar; and that those we had invested in fine silver had gone up in smoke. If it had been profitable. God knows it, and so do I, who depended on more than thirty crowns there;
However, he always assured that there was a gain. So that before the following Christmas, it was so well known in Paris, that it was not the son of a good mother who was involved in working in science, that is to say in sophistication, who did not know or had heard of cinnabar nails, as another time later, copper apples were spoken of to fix mercury inside with the moon. While these youths were passing, a foreign gentleman arrived, greatly expert in sophistications, so much so that he usually profited from it and sold his work to the goldsmiths, with whom I accompanied myself as soon as possible, but this was not without dependence, so that he did not think I was suffering. However, I remained in his company for almost a year before he wanted to tell me anything.
Finally, he showed me his secret which he considered very great, although in truth there was nothing of profit. However, I warned my abbot of everything I had to do, even sending him double the practice of the said gentleman. He wrote to me that it was not for lack of money that I did not stay another year in Paris, given that I had found such a start, which he considered very great against my opinion, for what I had resolved in me to never use matter which does not always remain as it appeared at the beginning, having already known very well that it is not necessary to work so hard to be wicked and enrich oneself to the damage of others. Why, still continuing my business, I remained there for a year, frequenting one then the other where it was believed that they had something good; and two years that I had lived there before, out of three years. Now, I had depended on the greatest part of the money that I had, when I received the news from my abbot, who informed me that immediately after seeing his letter, I would go and find him. What I did, because I didn't want to change anything as we had sworn and promised together. When I arrived, I found letters that the King of Navarre (who was greatly curious in all things of good spirit) had written to him, which he made so that, if he had ever deliberated on doing anything for him, that I went to Pau in Béarn to teach him the secret that I had learned from the said gentleman and others that had been reported to him that I knew, because he would treat me very well and reward me with three or four thousand crowns.
This word of four thousand crowns tickled the abbot's ears so much that, making himself believe that he already had them in his purse, he never stopped until I left to go to Pau, where I arrived at month of May and remained without work for about six weeks, so we had to find the simple ones elsewhere. But when I had finished, I received such a reward as I expected. Because even though the king was kind enough to make me say well, I reflected on the good treatment that I received in his country, if I reflected on the good and great friendship that I experienced from some of the nice men of his court in my place, but very few in number, if being diverted by the greatest of his court, even those who had been the cause of my coming here, he sent me back with a big thank you. And let me know, if there was anything in his lands that was in his power to give to me as confiscation or something similar, that he would give it to me willingly. This answer was so annoying to me that without expecting his beautiful promises having been fed them other times at my expense, I returned to the abbot. But because I had heard of a religious doctor who was esteemed and rightly very learned in natural philosophy, I went to see him on my way back.
Which greatly diverted me from all these sophistications and bitterness that he knew that I had studied in philosophy and performed the acts of master in it in Bordeaux as I told him, he told me with great zeal that he complained greatly about the fact that I had not found good books from ancient philosophers that one can ordinarily find, before having depended so much time and so much money on credit in its accursed and unfortunate sophistications. I spoke to him about the work I had done, but he was able to tell me very well what it was and which was not supported by many attempts. If I so turned away from all these sophistications to occupy myself with reading the books of ancient and learned philosophers, in order to be able to know their true matter in which alone lies all the perfection of science, that I went to find my abbot to give him an account of the eight hundred crowns that we had put together, and to communicate to him half of the reward that I had received from the King of Navarre. So when I came to him I counted it all to him, at which he was very sorry. And even more because I did not want to continue the business started with him, because he thought I was a good operator. However, these prayers were not enough for me to prevent me from following the advice of the good doctor, for the great and apparent reasons that he had given when I spoke to him. And having given him an account of all the expenses I had incurred, we each had ninety crowns left.
And the next day after, we left. I went to my house with the intention of going to Paris, and did not move there until I had made some resolution by reading various books of natural philosophers to work on our great work, having given leave to all these sophistications. For what, after I had recovered more money from my entire years, I went to Paris where I arrived the day after All Saints' Day in the year 1546. And there I bought ten crowns worth of books in the philosophy of both the ancients and the moderns. Some of which were printed and the others handwritten like the Peat of the Philosophers. Le Bon Trévisan, La Complainte de Nature and other various treatises which have never been printed. And having rented a small room in the false villages of Saint Martial, I was there for a year, with a little boy who served me, without meeting anyone, studying day and night in these authors. So much so that after a month I made a resolution, then another, then increased it, then changed it almost entirely, while waiting for me to make one where there was no variety or contradiction in the sentences. books of philosophers. However, I spent the whole year and part of the other without being able to gain this from my study, that I could make any complete and perfect resolution. Being in this perplexity, I turned to associate with those I knew who were working on this divine work. Because I no longer haunted all the other operators I had known before, working at these damned sophistications.
But if I had been upset in my understanding, leaving the study it was increased by considering the various and variable ways in which they worked. Because if one worked with gold alone, the other with gold and mercury together, the other mixed lead which he called ringing for what had passed through the retort with silver lively, the other converted any metals into bright silver with a variety of simple sublimations, the other worked with an artificial black atrament which he said was the real material which Raymond Lulle used for the composition of this great work. If one worked in an alembic, the other worked in several others and various vessels of glass, the other of brass, the other of copper, the other of lead, the other of silver, and the others in a golden vessel. Then one made his decoction over a fire made of large coals, another with boys, another with grapes, another with the heat of the sun and others in a bain-marie. So that their variety of operations with the contradictions that I saw in the books almost caused me despair. When inspired by God by his Holy Spirit, I began to review with great diligence the works of Raymond Lulle and mainly his Testament and Codicil, which I adapted so much with an epistle that he wrote in his time to King Robert and to a fog that I had recovered from the said doctor, to whom it was useless, that I made a resolution completely contrary to all the operations that I had seen before, but such that I read nothing in all the books that did not adapt very well to my opinion; even the resolution that Arnault de Villeneuve made to the fund of his great Rosary, which was master of Raymond Lulle in this science.
So much so that I remained about a year later without doing anything other than reading and thinking day and night about my resolution, waiting until the end of the loss I had made of my property had passed before I went to work at home. , where I arrived at the beginning of Lent, determined to practice my said resolution, during which I stocked up with everything I needed and set up an oven to work in. So much so that the day after Passover, I began, but it was not without having various obstacles, including (I know the main ones), my next neighbors, relatives and friends. One said to me: What did you want to do? Have you not depended enough on these follies? The other assured me that if I continued to buy so much coal, they would suspect me of making counterfeit money, as they had already heard. Another came from Puys, telling me that everyone, even the greatest in our town, found it very strange that I did not profess to wear a long dress, given that I was a layman, to achieve some honorable status in the said city. The others who were closer to me usually scolded me, saying why I was not putting an end to this crazy spending and that it would be better for me to save the money to pay my creditors or to buy some office, threatening me that they would would bring justice to my house to break the cost.
Furthermore, they said, if you don't want to do anything for us, take care of yourself; consider that being young at thirty years or so, you looked like you were fifty, as your beard begins to tangle which presents you all aged by the pain which you endured in the pursuit of your young follies; and a thousand other similar warnings with which they usually bothered me. If these remarks were boring to me I will let you think so, given that I always see my work continuing better and better; to the conduct of which I was always attentive, notwithstanding such and similar impediments which ordinarily occurred to me and mainly the dangers of the plague which was so great in the summer that there was no market nor practice which was not broken. So that not a day passed that I did not watch with great diligence the appearance of the three colors that the philosophers wrote must appear before the true perfection of our divine work. Which thanks to the Lord God I live one after the other. So much so that on Easter itself I had the true and perfect experience on quick silver heated in a crucible, which converted it into fine gold before my eyes in less than an hour by means of a little of this divine powder.
If I was very happy about it, God knows, if I didn't boast of it for that. But after giving thanks to God, our good God who had given me so much good, favor and grace through his holy son and our redeemer Jesus Christ, and having prayed to him as I usually do that he enlightened me by his Holy Spirit to be able to use it to his honor and praise, I went the next day to find the abbot at his abbey, to satisfy both and the promise that we had made together. But I found that he had died six months previously, to which I was greatly saddened. If I was indeed aware of the death of the good doctor who was informed while passing near his convent. Why did I go to Geneva to wait there for a friend and relative of mine, and we had stopped together at my parliament. Which I had left at my house with express charge and charge to sell each and every one of my paternal property that I had. Of which he paid my creditors and the rest distributed secretly to those who needed it, so that my parents and others could feel some fruit of the great good that God had given me, without anyone noticing. But on the contrary, they thought that I, as desperate and ashamed of the expenses I had made, sold my property to retire elsewhere, as this friend of mine told me, who came to find me in Geneva on the first day of the month of July. And from there we went to Lausanne, having planned to travel and spend the rest of my days in the most famous cities of Germany by very small train. And for the reason that I was named by a name other than my own, I even made digressions in this first part of my pamphlet, which will be discovered in the future, so that it would not be known by those who see and read it. , during my life, in our country of France. Which I wanted to gratify, not for being the author of so many crazy expenses that are usually made in pursuit of this science that is commonly considered sophistical because we see nothing in it other than sophistication, of as few people work towards true and divine perfection, but rather to entertain them and put them back on the true path as much as possible. to satisfy both and promise we had made together.
But I found that he had died six months previously, to which I was greatly saddened. If I was indeed aware of the death of the good doctor who was informed while passing near his convent. Why did I go to Geneva to wait there for a friend and relative of mine, and we had stopped together at my parliament. Which I had left at my house with express charge and charge to sell each and every one of my paternal property that I had. Of which he paid my creditors and the rest distributed secretly to those who needed it, so that my parents and others could feel some fruit of the great good that God had given me, without anyone noticing. But on the contrary, they thought that I, as desperate and ashamed of the expenses I had made, sold my property to retire elsewhere, as this friend of mine told me, who came to find me in Geneva on the first day of the month of July. And from there we went to Lausanne, having planned to travel and spend the rest of my days in the most famous cities of Germany by very small train. And for the reason that I was named by a name other than my own, I even made digressions in this first part of my pamphlet, which will be discovered in the future, so that it would not be known by those who see and read it. , during my life, in our country of France.
Which I wanted to gratify, not for being the author of so many crazy expenses that are usually made in pursuit of this science that is commonly considered sophistical because we see nothing in it other than sophistication, of as few people work towards true and divine perfection, but rather to entertain them and put them back on the true path as much as possible. to satisfy both and promise we had made together. But I found that he had died six months previously, to which I was greatly saddened. If I was indeed aware of the death of the good doctor who was informed while passing near his convent. Why did I go to Geneva to wait there for a friend and relative of mine, and we had stopped together at my parliament. Which I had left at my house with express charge and charge to sell each and every one of my paternal property that I had. Of which he paid my creditors and the rest distributed secretly to those who needed it, so that my parents and others felt some fruit of the great good that God had given me, without anyone noticing. But on the contrary, they thought that I, as desperate and ashamed of the expenses I had made, sold my property to retire elsewhere, as this friend of mine told me, who came to find me in Geneva on the first day of the month of July.
And from there we went to Lausanne, having planned to travel and spend the rest of my days in the most famous cities of Germany by very small train. And for the reason that I was named by a name other than my own, I even made digressions in this first part of my pamphlet, which will be discovered in the future, so that it would not be known by those who see and read it. , during my life, in our country of France. Which I wanted to gratify, not for being the author of so many crazy expenses that are usually made in pursuit of this science that is commonly considered sophistical because we see nothing in it other than sophistication, of as few people work towards true and divine perfection, but rather to entertain them and put them back on the true path as much as possible. And for the reason that I was named by a name other than my own, I even made digressions in this first part of my pamphlet, which will be discovered in the future, so that it would not be known by those who see and read it. , during my life, in our country of France. Which I wanted to gratify, not for being the author of so many crazy expenses that are usually made in pursuit of this science that is commonly considered sophistical because we see nothing in it other than sophistication, of as few people work towards true and divine perfection, but rather to entertain them and put them back on the true path as much as possible. And for the reason that I was named by a name other than my own, I even made digressions in this first part of my pamphlet, which will be discovered in the future, so that it would not be known by those who see and read it. , during my life, in our country of France. Which I wanted to gratify, not for being the author of so many crazy expenses that are usually made in pursuit of this science that is commonly considered sophistical because we see nothing in it other than sophistication, of as few people work towards true and divine perfection, but rather to entertain them and put them back on the true path as much as possible.
Why, as a conclusion to my first part, I very humbly beg all those who read my present pamphlet, that they remember what the good poet left us in writing, namely: Those who are made wise at the expense will be very happy and dangers to others. So that seeing the discourse how I arrived at the perfection of this divine work, they learn to stop depending on the confession of vain and sophistical recipes, thinking to achieve it through them. For as I have already warned them once in my introductory epistle, it is not by chance that we achieve this, but by long and continual study of good authors, when it is the good pleasure of our Lord to assist us by his Holy Spirit; because those who knew him in this way never publish it with great difficulty; which I very humbly beg that it pleases him to give me the grace to use it well, as I also do to assist all the good faithful who will read my present pamphlet, so that they can bring back some benefit from it. use in his honor and to the praise of our redeemer Jesus Christ, to whom knows honor and glory for ever and ever.
End of the first part.
THE SECOND PART
Epistle that the author wrote to the MRD doctor of theology
Sir, because following your good advice that you were pleased to give me when I passed through your convent, I spent all my time reading the books of the sophists. Having been in Paris ever since, I returned here thinking of finding you there, but my fortune, which has been annoying to me until now, did not allow me to have the benefit of being able to confer with you the profit that I think I have made by the resolution that I have made from reading the works of philosophers. And because I couldn't tell you by mouth, I wanted to leave you the summary of it here. So that if God has given you the grace to have resolved something better, may you please correct it. On the assumption that if the good Lord does not do me so much favor and grace that I bring such benefit through the certain experience as I expect, that nothing will be denied you. My resolution is therefore such that our divine work is made of a single material that the philosophers have called animated quicksilver because it is frozen by its own coagula, which is perfected by our decoction in a single oven with a only vessel, to perfect all imperfect metals by the great and exuberant perfection that it has acquired through our art. I therefore beg you to let me know by writing to me the reasons why you think it is so. Because I decided to start practicing it on the first day at our house, where I hope to present it to you this summer with as good a heart, as I pray our good God to keep you in his grace, very humbly recommending me to yours . Written in your convent on Sunday before Lent, by your good and always friend MD Zecaire.
THE SECOND PART
In which the author demonstrates the true method for reading the books of natural philosophers Aristotle in the first book of his Physics taught us very well that we should not argue against those who deny the principles of science, but against those; who confess them. Who propose various arguments which they cannot resolve through their ignorance, and thus always remain in duplicate. It is therefore for them by following our good master that I work, and not for others. Because as the same author says, to argue with such a way of people is to argue about colors with those born blind, who because they do not have the means, namely sight, to judge, could not be persuaded that there was diversity of colors.
Why, so that the good faithful and good-natured children could derive some benefit from my pamphlet, finding in it relief and rest of mind, I grieved as much as it was possible for me and as much as the subject of our divine science allows it, to write this second part in true method, in order to avoid the great variety and confusion which ordinarily presents itself in the reading of philosophers. Which made me use the same order that I used in my study, proceeding by divisions as follows.
First, I will show with the help of God, by whom our science was invented, and from what authors we used in the compilation of my pamphlet, declaring the reason why they wrote so covertly; then we will prove the truth of it by various arguments, responding to the most obvious ones that we usually make to prove the opposite, for what the diligent reader will be able to collect from the other members of our division all and each solutions of all other arguments that we could do on the contrary. And even the third member and the fourth. Thirdly we will prove how our science is natural and how it is called divine by speaking of the main operations, where we will declare the error of today's operators. This fact, we will declare the way in which nature works underground in the procreation of metals, showing how art can follow nature in its operations. Then we will declare the true matter that is required to perfect the metals on earth. Declaring in the end, the main terms of our science, where we will grant the most necessary sentences of philosophers and which appease the most contrary by reading these books. So that true lovers of our science will sometimes be able to derive great benefit from it, and our ordinary envious people and detractors will report their great contusion as evidenced by my present pamphlet.
Which I wanted to confirm by the authorities of the most learned and ancient philosophers and good authors, so that they do not take as an excuse that it is a new author who has undertaken to shed light on their impiety and continual disappointments.
To properly declare those who were the first inventors of our science, we must recall the doctrine that the apostle Saint James left us in writing in his canon, that is, that every gift that is good and every good that is perfect is given to us from above, descending from the Father of lights who is the eternal God. This I do not want to take and adapt for our purpose in general terms and such that they can be adapted to all created things. But singularly, I say that our science is so divine and so super-natural, I mean in the second operation as it will be more fully declared to the third member of our division, that it is and has always been impossible and will be at the same time. It is possible for all men to know it and discover it for themselves, even if they were the greatest and expert philosophers that ever were in the world. For all natural reasons and experiences fail us in this. So that it was rightly written by ancient authors that it is the secret of secrets, which our good God has reserved and given to those who fear and honor him as our great prophet Hermes says: I do not hold this knowledge, other than by the inspiration of God; which Alphidius confirms, saying: know, my son, that the good Lord has reserved this science for Adam's posteriors, and mainly for the poor and reasonable.
Geber affirmed the same in his Summa, saying: our knowledge is in the power of God Who, to be just and good, has given it to those who please him. It is therefore far from being in the power of men insofar as it is super-natural, less invented by them, but as for what it is natural, that is to say in that in its first operations it follows nature, there are various opinions to see who was the first inventor, some say that it is Adam, others Scalpius, others say that Enoch knew it first; which some have wanted to say is Hermes Trismegistus, whom the Greeks praised so much, even attributed to him the invention of all their occult and secret sciences. For my part, I would willingly agree with the latter opinion, for it is quite well known that Hermes was a very great philosopher, as his works testify to us, and that to be such he diligently inquired into the causes of experiences of things. natural, by the knowledge of which he knew the true matter of which nature uses the concaves of the earth for the procreation of metals. What makes us believe this is that all those who followed him came by this means to the true knowledge of this divine work, such as Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Zeno, Haly, Senior, Rasis, Geber, Morienus, Bonus, Arnaldus de Villanova, Raymund Lulle and several others who would take a long time to tell. Of which, even the most principal, we have compiled and assembled our present booklet.
But it is with difficulty, their books could testify to this. For they wrote them in such a way, having the fear of God always before their eyes, that it is almost impossible to arrive at the knowledge of this divine work by reading their books. As Geber says in his Summa: it is not necessary, he says, for the son of science to despair and distrust the knowledge of this divine work, because by knowing and thinking ordinarily about the causes of natural compounds, he will achieve it. But whoever expects to find it through our books, it will be very late when he succeeds, for this, he says in another place, that they have written the true practice for themselves, mixing among the way of inquiring the causes to come to the perfect knowledge of it. Which made him “put” in his so-called Summa the main operations and things required for our divine work in various and variable chapters, for this, he said, that if he had put them by rank and distinct, they would be known in a day of all, even in an hour, so noble and admirable is it. This very thing said Alphidius, writing that the philosophers who preceded us hid their main intention on various enigmas and innumerable equivocations, so that by the publication of their doctrine, the world would not be ruined as it really would be.
Because all plowing and cultivation of the land, all trafficking, in short everything that is necessary for the preservation of human life would be lost, for what no one would want to interfere with, having in its power such a great good as that -there. Why Hermes, apologizing at the beginning of his book, says: my children, do not think that the philosophers have hidden this great secret out of envy that they bear to learned and well-instructed people, but to hide it from the ignorant and mischievous. Because as Rosins says, by this means the ignorant would be made equal to the learned and the mischievous and wicked would use it to their harm and the ruin of all the people. Geber made similar excuses in his Somme in the chapter on the administration of solar medicine, saying that children of doctrine should not be amazed if they spoke covertly in Hermes, because it is not for them, but to hide their secret from the ignorant under so many varieties and confusion of operation, and this while leading and leading through them the children of science to the knowledge of it for what, as he writes in another Instead, they did not write down the invented science except for themselves, but provided the means to know it.
This is therefore the reason why all the books of philosophers are full of great difficulties, I say great because they are almost innumerable. For it is not possible to see the world more difficult than to find such a great contradiction between so many renowned and learned authors, even in a single author to find contradiction in his doctrine; as the writings of Rasius clearly testify when he says in the Book of Enlightenment: I have sufficiently demonstrated in my books the true ferment which is required for the multiplications of the tinctures of metals. Which I have confirmed in another place is not the true leaven, leaving the true knowledge to him who will have the good and subtle judgment to know it. On the other hand if one writes that our true matter is vile material and nothingness, found by the dungeons as Zeno says in the Peat of the Philosophers, incontiriant in this same book Barseus says: what you are looking for is not little taken; the other will say that it is greatly precious and can only be found at great expense and damage.
If one has learned to prepare our material in various vessels and by various operations, as Geber did in his Somme, there is another who will ensure that we only need one vessel to perfect our divine work, as says Rasis, Lilium, Alphidius and several others. Then, when we have read in one book that we must remain nine months for the procreation and faction of our divine work as Rasis wrote, we will find in another that it takes a year, as said Rosinus and Plato. And then we find all the books of these people so variable and barbarous, I mean in appearance, and poorly declared that it is impossible for men, as Raymond Lulle says, to discover the truth among so many diverse opinions, if the good Lord does not inspire us through his Holy Spirit or reveal it to us through some living person. Which is the cause that we never see anyone who has made it nor know anything about it until after their death, for the fact that having acquired it with such great difficulty, I firmly believe that they would seal it to themselves if it were possible for them, they would be far from communicating it to another. Why, following the reasons given above, should never find it strange with the common people, if we do not see anyone who has done this divine work.
So, sooner marvel with the scholars as there are none who have reached the true knowledge of it. found by the dungeons as Zeno says in the Peat of the Philosophers, incontiriantly in this same book Barseus says: what you are looking for is not of small prize; the other will say that it is greatly precious and can only be found at great expense and damage. If one has learned to prepare our material in various vessels and by various operations, as Geber did in his Somme, there is another who will ensure that we only need one vessel to perfect our divine work, as says Rasis, Lilium, Alphidius and several others. Then, when we have read in one book that we must remain nine months for the procreation and faction of our divine work as Rasis wrote, we will find in another that it takes a year, as said Rosinus and Plato. And then we find all the books of these people so variable and barbarous, I mean in appearance, and poorly declared that it is impossible for men, as Raymond Lulle says, to discover the truth among so many diverse opinions, if the good Lord does not inspire us through his Holy Spirit or reveal it to us through some living person. Which is the cause that we never see anyone who has made it nor know anything about it until after their death, for the fact that having acquired it with such great difficulty, I firmly believe that they would seal it to themselves if it were possible for them, they would be far from communicating it to another.
Why, following the reasons given above, should never find it strange with the common people, if we do not see anyone who has done this divine work. So, sooner marvel with the scholars as there are none who have reached the true knowledge of it. found by the dungeons as Zeno says in the Peat of the Philosophers, incontiriantly in this same book Barseus says: what you are looking for is not of small prize; the other will say that it is greatly precious and can only be found at great expense and damage. If one has learned to prepare our material in various vessels and by various operations, as Geber did in his Somme, there is another who will ensure that we only need one vessel to perfect our divine work, as says Rasis, Lilium, Alphidius and several others. Then, when we have read in one book that we must remain nine months for the procreation and faction of our divine work as Rasis wrote, we will find in another that it takes a year, as said Rosinus and Plato. And then we find all the books of these people so variable and barbarous, I mean in appearance, and poorly declared that it is impossible for men, as Raymond Lulle says, to discover the truth among so many diverse opinions, if the good Lord does not inspire us through his Holy Spirit or reveal it to us through some living person. Which is the cause that we never see anyone who has made it nor know anything about it until after their death, for the fact that having acquired it with such great difficulty, I firmly believe that they would seal it to themselves if it were possible for them, they would be far from communicating it to another.
Why, following the reasons given above, should never find it strange with the common people, if we do not see anyone who has done this divine work. So, sooner marvel with the scholars as there are none who have reached the true knowledge of it. Which is the cause that we never see anyone who has made it nor know anything about it until after their death, for the fact that having acquired it with such great difficulty, I firmly believe that they would seal it to themselves if it were possible for them, they would be far from communicating it to another. Why, following the reasons given above, should never find it strange with the common people, if we do not see anyone who has done this divine work. So, sooner marvel with the scholars as there are none who have reached the true knowledge of it. Which is the cause that we never see anyone who has made it nor know anything about it until after their death, for the fact that having acquired it with such great difficulty, I firmly believe that they would seal it to themselves if it were possible for them, they would be far from communicating it to another. Why, following the reasons given above, should never find it strange with the common people, if we do not see anyone who has done this divine work. So, sooner marvel with the scholars as there are none who have reached the true knowledge of it.
But continuing our commended order, we must declare the second member of our division, namely that our science is certain and true. However, before beginning, I must satisfy the delicate ears of the slanderers, who, being accustomed to reproaching the labors of others because their own do not know the light, will say that I have misremembered the doctrine of 'Aristotle, who writes in the 7th of his Physics that the definition is the true form of the defined subject. And so, since I undertook to treat the declaration and true method of this science commonly called alchemy, I had to start with the definition to better declare the property of the terms of it. But I will gladly refer such slanderers to the authors who have preceded us, who having undertaken the duty of giving a certain definition, were forced to confess that it is impossible to give it, as the writings of Morienus, Lilium and of several others. Why they assigned in their books, various and variable descriptions by which they show the effects of our science, because it had no familiar principles like all the other sciences. For my part, I will say what I think.
It is therefore a part of natural philosophy, which demonstrates the way of perfecting metals on earth, imitating nature in its operations as closely as possible. Which science we say is certain for many reasons. First, it is settled among all philosophers that there is nothing more certain than the truth, as Aristotle says, appears where there is no contradiction. Now it is thus that all the philosophers who have written in this divine philosophy one after the other, some writing in Hebrew and others in Greek, others in Latin and other various languages, have so agreed and agreed together, even though they wrote under various equivocations and figures for the reasons given above, we would rightly judge that they wrote their books in the same language by the same mouth and at the same time, although they some wrote a hundred years, others two hundred or even a thousand years after the others. As Senior says, the philosophers; he said, it seems that they have written various things under various names and similarities, although in truth they all mean only the same thing. Rasis, in the Book of Enlightenment, affirms the same, saying that under various sentences which seem contrary to us from the beginning, philosophers have never heard more than one thing. Of which we have another very evident testimony, because the same people who have written very learned and approving books on the other sciences have written about it, affirming it to be very true.
And if we had no other proof than the sentence of the Philosopher who says to the second of the Ethics that what is done well is done by a means, this would be sufficient enough to assure us of the truth of our science. For all those who have written about it agree that there is only one way to perfect our divine work, as Geber says in his Summa: our science, he says, is not perfect. by various things but by only one, in which we neither add nor diminish any thing except the superfluous things which we separate from it in this operation. This very fact testifies to Lilium, when he writes that all our mastery is perfected by a single thing, by a single regime and by a single means. As many other philosophers have written, although they appear diverse in their sentences. Furthermore, we hold our science to be more than certain to be very true by the very certain experience that we have seen, which is the main assurance for us, as Rasius and Senior say. But to demonstrate it as closely as it will be possible for us to those who can justly double it, we must agree with all the philosophers that our science is understood under the part of natural philosophy, which they quite properly called operative, combining it in this with medicine. But it is thus that medicine can only show us the truth and certainty of its doctrine by experience. It is true that when we read in his books that all anger is evacuated by rhubarb, we cannot believe anything more certain than what experience shows us. Which assures us that the said anger is cured by the application of the said simple.
Thus we will say about ourselves, speaking by similarities because our divine work cannot receive any true comparison, that if experience shows us that lead smoke or the smoke of attraments freezes quicksilver, this can assure us , I intend to induce us to believe, that it is feasible to prepare a greatly perfect medicine and similar to the nature and qualities of metals, by which we can stop quick silver and perfect other imperfect metals by its projection, even considering that Imperfect mineral compounds freeze quick silver and reduce it to their natural state; therefore, those perfected by our art and duly prepared with the help of it, freeze it and reduce all other imperfect metals like them. its great and exuberant concoction which they acquired through the administration of our art. And to further satisfy curious people today, we will add a few other arguments to better induce them to believe the truth of our science. Now is it certain that everything that the same operation of a compound does is at all similar to it, as Aristotle says in the 4th book of Meteora, when he declares that everything that is done by the operation of an eye is eye .
Since therefore our gold, that is to say that which we make to show our divine work, is at all similar to mineral gold, and that the whole double is today in this to see if the gold which we let's do is perfect, it seems to me to have shown enough, by following the authority of the philosophers, that our science is very certain. But they will say it is true that it is sufficiently proven for those who have experience of it, and not for others, for whom, so that they have no duplicate, I will give the following reasons. Aristotle in the 4th book of Meteora in the chapter of digestions, says that all things which are ordered to be perfect, which through lack of digestion have remained such, can be perfected by continual digestion. It is thus that all imperfect metals have remained such through lack of digestion. For they were made to be ultimately converted into gold, and thus to be perfect as experience testifies to us, as we will hereafter declare in declaring the quarter member of our division. They can therefore be perfected by continual decoction, 'which nature makes to the concaves of the earth and our art perfects them on earth by the projection of our divine work, as we will declare further, to the penultimate member of our division. Moreover, if the four elements which are contrary in no qualities are converted one into the other as Aristotle says in the 2nd book of Generations, for a fortiori the metals which are all of the same material and thus not contrary in qualities, will convert one into the other.
Which is the reason why Hermes called their operation circular, but a little incorrectly as he himself testifies, because metals are not procreate by nature pure and perfect to return imperfect, and that gold was made lead and tin silver and so the others, but to be made perfect by order and by continual decoction, until they are perfect and therefore made gold, as experience obviously shows us. And thus, their generation is not at all arid, although it may be partly so. These and other similar reasons that I leave for the present, because my little pamphlet could not include all the discourse that could be made on this subject, would be sufficient to demonstrate the truth and certainty of our science, were it not for the arguments which we are accustomed to doing on the contrary, which so disturb the understandings of good children of doctrine, that they are always in double, believing now in one then the other, so much so that they never rest in their minds. But so that from now on they can believe our science to be very true, I want to teach them the true solution of the most violent and most apparent arguments that we are accustomed to making on the contrary, by which they will know that their argument and all others like it are not have only one appearance of truth. They are all accustomed to making an argument which they base on the authority of the Philosopher in the 4th Meteora, which was first of Avicenna, as Albert the Great says: in vain, he says, the operators of today work hui to perfect the metals. Because they will never achieve this if they do not first reduce them to their first material. Now it is so that we do not reduce them to it, therefore we do nothing but sophistication, as the same Albert writes, saying: all those who color metals by various simple ways in various colors are truly deceptive and deceptive people if they do not reduce them to their first material.
For my part, I know well that many learned people have undertaken the solution of this argument, for what is most apparent that we face, so that some say that even though in the projection of our divine work on imperfect metals we do not reduce them to their first matter, if - in its composition we have reduced it to sulfur and quicksilver, which are the true matter of metals, as we will declare to the fourth member of our division. And that for the great perfection that it acquired in its decoction, it is sufficient to perfect all imperfect metals into gold by its projection, without particularly reducing them to their first material. This was the opinion of Arnault de Villeneuve in his Grand Rosaire, which Raymond Lulle followed in his Testament. But, apart from the honor and reverence of these two learned characters, it seems to me that this is speaking against the entire opinion of philosophers. For, since they agree that metals must be reduced to their first matter, which is done by movements and corruption, as Aristotle says, they want to make it understood that by the sole melting and projection of our divine work on metals, they are corrupt, and half of their first form, which is a thing unworthy of all philosophers. Others have provided various and variable solutions, as can be seen in their books. As for me, I will say what I think. It is too true that if we wanted to make metals again, or if we wanted to make these earths, stones or other things totally different from metals, they would have to be reduced to their first material by the means stated above.
But since our whole intention is none other than to perfect the imperfect metals into gold without transmuting them into new matter different from their own nature, but rather to purge them and cleanse them by the projection of our divine work so that they are perfect by the great and exuberant perfection of it, there is no need to reduce them to their first material. For it is too well known that perfecting the imperfect and doing it again are two very different things. Otherwise it would follow that we would have to return all half-cooked things to their original form to finish cooking them, a thing unworthy of all philosophers. As for other arguments that are customary to make, I am silent for the present so that we find the solution to them in the books of good authors, and then the diligent and student reader will be able to invent them. the greatest part, both by what we have said and by what we will declare below, even since he seems to me to have declared the most difficult and difficult to resolve that we are accustomed to doing. However, I do not want to forget in this the authority of Avicenna, who speaking of the contradiction which Aristotle made in his youth to the opinion of all the ancient philosophers, says: I have no legitimate excuse for knowing the intention of those who deny our science and those who affirm it to be true; the first, like Aristotle and several others, use reasons which have some appearance but are not true; the others have made others but greatly removed from those that we are accustomed to seeing in other sciences, meaning by this that our science cannot be proven by certain demonstrations like all the others, for what it comes from another way, quite contrary to the others, by sealing and hiding the ownership of its terms instead of others trying to declare them.
Why in continuing the order of my division, I will declare the third member of it, showing what operations are necessary for the faction of our divine work, declaring first how our science is natural and why it is called divine. How we will know the great and serious mistakes of today's operators.
To understand well how our science is natural, we need to know what Aristotle taught about the operations of nature, who showed very well that it works underground in the procreation of metals, of four qualities or, to commonly speak of the four elements called fire, air, water and earth; of which the two contain the other two, namely, earth contains fire and water contains air. And because our matter is made of water and earth, as we will say more fully in the penultimate member of our division, it is called natural precisely because in its composition the four elements enter. But both are hidden from the bodily eyes, namely fire and air, which must be understood from the eyes of the understanding as Raymond Lulle says in his Codicil: “consider” well, he says, in yourself, nature and property of the oil which the sophisticators have called air for what they say that it abounds more in its own quality, for your eye will not show you the difference and property of it, showing sufficiently by this that all four elements are not evident in our divine work as many have falsely estimated, as we will say when declaring the terms of our science. Furthermore, it is called natural because in its first operation it imitates nature as closely as possible. Because it could not imitate it at all, as Geber says in his Summa; that it is true, the operations of the natural philosophers who preceded us assure us.
Which, after having diligently known, as Raimond Lulle says in his Epistle to King Robert and Albert the Great in his Treatise on Simple Minerals, that the way in which nature works underground in the procreation of metals is none other than by continual decoction of the true matter of ice, which decoction separates the world from the filthy, the pure from the impure or imperfect, by continual evaporations which are the causes of the heat of the mineral earth heated in part by the heat of the sun. Because it does not make the entire and perfect decoction all by itself, as the Good Trevisan has very well declared, as even experience usually shows us the mines where there is a diversity of metals and materials, some coarse, others subtle. and pure which are willingly raised to the highest. our science therefore, imitating nature in this, proceeds from the beginning in its first operation by sublimations, to purify our matter very well for what it is impossible for us to prepare it otherwise, as Geber says in his Summa and Rasis in the Book of Enlightenment, when he says: the beginning of our work is to sublimate, why it is rightly natural. Which made those who preceded us write that our divine work is not artificial. Because what we do, it is to administer by art to nature the matter due for its composition. Which nature has not been able to combine for the perfection of our divine work.
Because these actions are continuous, as Geber says in his Summa, and because of this admirable conjunction of elements, our science is called divine. Which conjunction the philosophers have called the second operation and others call it dissolution, saying very properly that it is the secret of secrets, as Pithagoras says in the Philosophers' Peat, it is the great secret that God wanted to hide to men. And Rasis in the Book of Enlightenment says: if you ignore the true dissolution of our body, do not begin to work. Because if this is ignored, everything else is useless to us. Which it is impossible to know at all by books, less by the knowledge of natural causes, which is the reason why our science is called divine. As Alexander says, our body which is our hidden stone cannot be known or seen by us if the good God does not inspire us with his Holy Spirit or learn from some living man, without whose body our knowledge is lost. And it is the stone of which Hermes spoke in I his fourth treatise, when he said: we must know this divine and precious stone, which cries incessantly: defend me and I will help you, give me back my rights and I will help you. will help.
Of this same hidden body, he speaks in his first treatise when he says: the falcon is always at the end of the mountains, crying: I am the white of black and the red of citrine. Now the reason why our science is useless to us without the said conjunction is that at the birth and projection of our divine work, the volatile part brings it in itself to fix it, and thus we cannot make it be fixed and permanent to fire, if we did not make an admirable, even super-natural conjunction that the fixed retains the volatile, so that then what all philosophers command is done, namely the fixed volatile and the volatile fixed. Which conjunction must be made at the very hour of its birth, as Haly says in the book of his Secrets, whoever does not find our stone at the hour of its birth, must not wait for another in its place . For he who has undertaken our divine work without knowing the determined time of his birth will only bring back pain and torment. This same conjunction, Rasis very properly calls in the Book of Recipes, the weights and regimes of the philosophers, advising us that if we do not know them very well not to undertake to work on our divine work, saying that the philosophers have not nothing so hidden as that, as the truth they demonstrate sufficiently in their writings. For if one says that this divine conjunction must be made on the 7th day, the other says on the 40th, the other on the hundredth, the other at the end of 7 months, the other at nine like Rasis, the other at the end of the year like Rosinus.
So that no two agree, how much truth is only a single term or even a single day or a single hour at which we must make our conjunction by its own decoction. But for the desire they have to keep it secret, they have deliberately written the terms to differ from each other, although they understand between them that there is only one term, knowing very well that this one is known, the rest is only the work of women and children's play, as Socrates says: I have shown you the true disposition of bleached lead, that is to say the true preparation of our material, which appears black at the beginning like lead, which is made white by our continual decoction. And if you have known her very well, the rest is only the work of women and children's play; meaning by this, that there is no task easier than ours after the said conjunction, as it really is. For since it is only necessary to cook the two materials already assembled and that during this decoction one is at rest, it is too certain that there is great pleasure, as the Philosopher says in the 7th of the Ethics, that We get more pleasure from resting than from working.
And let it be true that our last decoction is faced in rest and without torment. Rasis in his Book of the Three Words, says that all the dissolutions, sublimations, dealbations, rubifications and all other operations that the philosophers have written to be necessary to perfect our divine work are done in the fire without moving them. Pithagoras in the Peat of the Philosophers wrote the same, saying that all the regimes required for the perfection of our divine work are perfected by the decoction alone. Barseus in the same book says that it is necessary to cook, dye and calcine our divine work, but all these operations, he says, are done by the decoction alone. However, so that our slanderers do not say that all their operations are only concoctions, I am willing to add to them other sentences of ancient philosophers to remove all excuses from them and show them as if to the eye their error and ignorance. Alphidius in his book testifies to us that we only need in the composition of our divine work a single material which he quite properly calls water and a single action, that is the decoction. Which is done in a single vessel without ever touching it. King Solomon testifies the same when he says that to the faction of our divine work which he calls our sulfur, we have only one means. Lilium wrote the same saying that our divine work is done in a single vessel, by a single means and by a single decoction. Mahometh declares quite similar, saying that we have only one means, namely the decoction, and one vessel to carry out our divine work, both the white and the red.
And Avicenna was of the same opinion that he speaks more cleanly than anyone else, saying that all these arrangements, that is to say all the operations required for the composition of our divine work, are done in a single double vessel. If therefore our divine work is done in a single double vessel and by a single decoction, as it really is, it is necessary that the majority of today's operators confess their great fault and error, as far as I know. having seen none that did not have three or four stoves. Some had ten and twelve, one for distilling, the other for calcining, the other for dissolving, the other for sublimating, accompanied by an infinity of vessels to perfect their work. But they would still be there and always will be there if they do not correct their faults before they reach the faction of our divine work. I am silent about a bunch of separations that they make, what they say, of the four elements, for what this does more for me when I declare the nature of the four elements, by declaring the terms of our science . It is enough for me for the present to have shown the way and true means to know as by eye those who are far from the truth of our science, or those who are on the true path. Because as we have said and demonstrated quite clearly above, and will show again below, there is only one means, only one way of doing things, and this within a single vessel that Raimond Lulle calls hymen, and in a single stove, which the good Trevisan calls a soft, humid, vaporous, continuous and digesting fire, without ever touching it until our decoction is perfect. Far from it requiring so much rubbish and so much crazy spending that we are accustomed to making there.
I am not unaware that there is someone among them who read the books, although they are very clear about the truth, because they almost all work on credit, who would say to me: why do you tax us like this? seeing that Geber in his Summa teaches us various preparations of both sulfur and quicksilver, together of the body and the spirit. And Rasis in the Book of the Perfect Magisterium testifies that bodies and minds are prepared by various means, and learns from them in many ways. But I don't have to put much effort into answering them, having already answered them with what I said before. For such and similar sentences have been written to hide the true operation of our divine work, as we said to the first member of our division; what Geber himself testifies in his Summa in the chapter of the differences of medicines: there is, he says, a single perfect way, which relieves us and relieves us from the trouble of all other preparations. Why, continuing our division, I will declare the way in which nature works in the concaves of the earth, in the mines in the procreation of metals. In what way we will know in what operations art can follow it. And consequently what is the real material required to perfect them on earth. But because it is the main point of our science, as Geber says at the beginning of his Summa and Avicenna who forbids interfering with the practice of it if one has not first known the true foundations of matters of mines, I will follow the declaration of the main authors and more experiment in the practice of mines as their writings testify.
If it is considered all resolved and more than certain among all philosophers that all simple ones which are frozen by the cold abound in its first matter in aquatic humidity, as Aristotle wrote in the 4th of Meteora. Why, since the metals being melted are frozen by the cold, it must be said that they abound in their first matter in aquatic humidity. However, Albert the Great, who investigated the causes of the procreation of metals more closely than any other, shows very well that this aquatic humidity is not humidity like that which we see in water and in other simple substances. Because experience shows us that it is reduced and converted into smoke by the violence of the fire. Is it so that the metals being melted are not converted into smoke? It must therefore be said that their humidity is mixed with other matter which retains them on the fire and prevents them from being converted into smoke by the violence of it. Now there is no matter that resists fire as much as viscous humidity when mixed with the terrestrial and subtle part, as the Italian philosopher Bonus testifies, and also as experience certifies us. Why then, it must be said that the humidity which is in metals is such.
But for what we see that there is moisture in those which are consumed by fire without therefore being consumed as experience shows us in their purgation, we must necessarily confess with the principal authors of our science , that in the composition of metals there are two forms of viscous humidity, one on the outside which they call extrinsic, the other on the inside which they call intrinsic, for what the first is gross and does not is not well and perfectly mixed with terrestrial and subtle matter, it is easily arsed and consumed by fire. But the second is very subtle and so mixed with its terrestrial part that both together are only a simple matter, which cannot be partly consumed by fire unless it is completely consumed at all, and of which it is made and procreated the quicksilver that we commonly see, what its effects show us by experience, as Arnault de Villeneuve very well said, who assures us that the two above-mentioned materials are perfectly joined in themselves.
For either the terrestrial retains the humidity with itself, or the humidity carries it away, as says Albert the Great, who in seeking the causes of metallic compounds knew very well that the cause why quick silver is always moving, this is why humidity dominates the terrestrial part, as for the same reason, namely by their indescribable and unequivocal urination, the terrestrial dominant over humidity is the cause that quick silver does not wet what it touches nor the wood on which it is placed. Why is that, he shows us quite obviously that the sentence of Albert the Great is very "true", when he says in his Book of Simple Metallics that the first material of metals is incombustible and greatly subtle viscous humidity, mixed by strong urination and admirable with the terrestrial and subtle part in the caves of mineral lands. This in no way contradicts what Geber wrote in his Summa, saying that quicksilver is the true material of metals. Because nature which is never idle has procreated quick silver from this matter, which is the cause that Bonus said very well that it is the closest matter to metals, but that the first and principal is the so-called viscous humidity with its earthly and subtle part, as Albert says.
Geber very well declared the same when he said in the definition that there is quick silver in his Sum: it is, he says, a viscous humidity which has been thickened by the help of the terrestrial part which enters. in its composition. Now, we must consider very subtly the way in which nature proceeds to the procreation of all things, in which it has mixed its own matter which philosophers call agent, because it, as Aristotle says, does not produce itself. -themselves, that is to say, do not show its effects. Why does nature in the procreation of metals, after having created their matter, namely quick silver, she who is all learned added her own agent to it, namely a type of mineral earth which is like the root and fat of it, decapitated and thickened by the heat which is in the caverns of the mines by long decoction. Which earth we commonly called sulfur, which is in the same degree by comparing it to quicksilver like curds by comparing it to milk, man by comparing it to woman and the agent by comparing it to matter subject, which the philosophers have said to be of two kinds, one is easy to melt from its own nature and the other is so much only frozen and not meltable. Why, in order for nature to show the power and strength of the agent, namely sulfur, in the matter to which it is conjoined, she made by an admirable composition that the metals were frozen by the action of the fusible sulfur, so that they were melting, as she composed the other simple metals by the action of non-fusible sulfur, so that they were not melting, like magnesia, marcasites and others similar.
But for the fact that the agent cannot be in any way a material part of the compound as Aristotle says, nature by working underground on the procreation of metals after having mixed the said sulfur with quick silver by an indescribable composition, in perfecting and procreating the main metal, namely gold, by separating from it by a perfect decoction its agent, namely sulfur, which is the cause why gold is more perfect than all other metals, because it is the principal and final intention of nature in their procreation, as experience certifies us when it does not transmute it for the better. And this is the reason why quicksilver mixes better and more easily with gold than with any other metal, because it is nothing but quicksilver deducted by its own sulfur and from the whole separated from it. this one by said decoction. Likewise, just as the separation of sulfur is the cause of the perfection of gold, just as it remains with other metals, so are they called imperfect. And this is the reason why silver is more imperfect than gold and copper more than silver, namely due to lack of decoction; because by it only their agent, namely sulfur is separated from it, In which is declared the greatest and principal secret of our science. For since it must follow nature in its operations, it is necessary that before perfecting our work we separate its agent, namely sulfur. What all philosophers have hidden in their writings, referring us to the operations of nature, which seem to us to have declared enough.
But in order that we may know perfectly how our science can follow the operations of nature, it is appropriate for us to declare the principal and most customary way in which it uses the perfection of metals. We have already said that the perfection and imperfection of metals is caused by the deprivation or mixture of its agent, namely sulfur, and have shown the first way in which nature uses by composing the principal and most perfect of all which is gold . But it uses another, which seems to be different from the first, how true they are all one if we consider the end and true intention of nature, which is none other than to purge and cleanse the metals of their sulfur. For what it does in the first way with a perfect decoction, it does in the second by a continual and long digestion, digesting and purifying the imperfect metals little by little as long as they are made and reduced into gold. It is true, experience shows us that in the silver mines we usually find lead and in none of them do we find the two mixed together so much that those who are experts in the facts of the mines say after having discovered silver which appears almost imperfect due to lack of digestion that it is necessary to leave them like this and close the mine so that nothing of the subtle matter vaporizes in thirty or forty years, and that by this means the whole is perfect as Albert recites the Great having been made in his time in the Kingdom of Esclavonye. And I heard the same assured by a master who was a great expert in mining.
It is therefore in this second way that nature holds to perfect metals, that our art works in its operations, namely by perfecting imperfect metals by the deprivation of its sulfur, which is separated from them by the projection that we make of this divine work on those when they are melted, which purifies them of their sulfur and perfects them in fine gold by its perfect and exuberant concoction which it acquired through the administration of our art. And just as the various ways in which nature uses to purify metals does not mean that we find various ways of gold, I mean in perfection, also the various ways in which we use to perfect them on earth, which is completely different and different from the operations of nature, does not mean that our gold and the mineral are in any way different given that we use the same material that it uses underground in the mines. This is confirmed by Aristotle in the 9th of his Metaphysics, saying when the agent and the matter are similar, the operations are always similar, even though the means to carry them out are diverse. Because the means and the material are two things, for . that if matter is one and all similar, all the operations which at the beginning seem contrary are in the end the same effect, as the said philosopher testifies; and it is true that our matter which we use to perfect metals on earth is at all similar to that which nature uses underground for the procreation of metals. Geber in his Summa says that our science follows nature as closely as possible. The same say Hermes, Pythagoras, Senior and several others.
Since it then follows nature, we must necessarily confess that it uses similar matter, which can only be one even in our science, just as we have enough monster above that there are none only one in kind. Which matter we have called quicksilver, not as it is alone, but as it is mixed with its own agent which is its true sulfur. This same material therefore, which the philosophers have called animated quicksilver, will be the true material of our science to perfect our divine work, seeing that this same without other is the true material of which nature uses the concaves of the earth in the mines in the procreation of metals as we have enough monster above. Now the reason why they called it animated quicksilver is to show the difference between it and common quicksilver which remained such because nature did not add its own agent to it. So far from common quicksilver nor common sulfur being the true material of metals as many have falsely estimated. It is true, experience tells us, that we have never found common quicksilver nor common sulfur mixed together in mines. How then would they be the true matter of the concave metals of the earth and consequently of our science, as Geber testifies in his Summa, when he speaks of the principles of it.
Which in another place says very well that our quicksilver is nothing other than sticky water thickened by the action of its metallic sulfur. And it is our true matter, which nature has prepared for our art as Valerandus Silvensis says, and has reduced it to a certain species, known to true philosophers, without transmuting it further of itself. Avicenna testified the same when he said nature has prepared for us a single material, which our art cannot perfect or compose of itself. So far from all the materials that we could mix together, whether metallic or not, being the true material of our science, given that nature has already prepared it for us. So that we only have two things left: purify the said material and perfect it and combine it with its own decoction. And it is of this own matter that Rasis wrote in the Book of Precepts: our mercury, he says, is the true foundation of our science, from which alone we draw and extract the true tinctures of metals. Alphidius declared the same when he said: look closely, my child, because all the books of learned philosophers consist of quicksilver alone.
Which is the reason why Hermes orders us to keep very well this mercury, which he calls coagulated and hidden in the golden cabinets. Geber spoke of the same mercury when he said: praised be the most high God who created this living silver and gave it such power that there is no other like it, to perfect the true magisterium of our science. In short, there is no learned author who has written who is not of this opinion. But I know very well that today's operators will tax me, saying how do I dare to repeat so many learned people who preceded us. Who have left us in writing, not only the theory of our science, but the practice of it, in which they learn to sublimate the quicksilver which they call mercury with vitriol and common salt and then show how it should be revive it with hot water in order to mix it with gold which they call soil, and by this means dissolve it, then fix it in order to be able to perfect by this means our divine work, as Arnault de Villeneuve wrote in his Grant Rosaire and Raymond Lulle in his Grand Testament. But in order for me to satisfy them, declaring to them their ignorance, I only want to follow the same authors that they allege, the minds of whom testify to us that all these various operations, distillations, separations, reductions and other similar ones were not written by them only to hide and wrap underneath the true practice of our science.
Let it be true, after Arnault de Villeneuve had; taken all these various operations in his said Rosary, he says at the end of his recapitulation: we have demonstrated the true practice and true means to perfect our divine work, but in very short words, which are quite verbose for those who will hear them. . So far from it that in speaking of so many diverse and long operations, we have always heard of the true preparation and practice of our divine work. And the same one testifies to us the end of the Codicil of Raymond Lulle, when he responds to those who would ask why he wrote the art since he testified a little before that we should not expect to arrive at true knowledge of him by the reading of his books, for this, he says, that the faithful reader is introduced and empowered to the true knowledge of our divine work, the preparation of which we have never declared to be true. So far from it that the great and diverse preparations that he placed in his books are the one and only practice which is required to perfect our divine work. There will be others who will be more learned and will gladly rebuke me, saying why did I write that our divine work is made of a single material, namely only animated living silver, seeing that Geber in his Summa in the chapter of coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the same when he says: God preferred to all things that are our true sulfur under heaven.
Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together. Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver. But to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the agent proper to quicksilver. in the mines. Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it. which are quite verbose for those who will hear them. So far from it that in speaking of so many diverse and long operations, we have always heard of the true preparation and practice of our divine work. And the same one testifies to us the end of the Codicil of Raymond Lulle, when he responds to those who would ask why he wrote the art since he testified a little before that we should not expect to arrive at true knowledge of him by the reading of his books, for this, he says, that the faithful reader is introduced and empowered to the true knowledge of our divine work, the preparation of which we have never declared to be true.
So far from it that the great and diverse preparations that he placed in his books are the one and only practice which is required to perfect our divine work. There will be others who will be more learned and will gladly rebuke me, saying why did I write that our divine work is made of a single material, namely only animated living silver, seeing that Geber in his Summa in the chapter of coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the same when he says: God preferred to all things that are our true sulfur under heaven. Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together. Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver. But to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the agent proper to quicksilver. in the mines.
Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it. which are quite verbose for those who will hear them. So far from it that in speaking of so many diverse and long operations, we have always heard of the true preparation and practice of our divine work. And the same one testifies to us the end of the Codicil of Raymond Lulle, when he responds to those who would ask why he wrote the art since he testified a little before that we should not expect to arrive at true knowledge of him by the reading of his books, for this, he says, that the faithful reader is introduced and empowered to the true knowledge of our divine work, the preparation of which we have never declared to be true. So far from it that the great and diverse preparations that he placed in his books are the one and only practice which is required to perfect our divine work.
There will be others who will be more learned and will gladly rebuke me, saying why did I write that our divine work is made of a single material, namely only animated living silver, seeing that Geber in his Summa in the chapter of coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the same when he says: God preferred to all things that are our true sulfur under heaven. Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together. Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver. But to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the agent proper to quicksilver. in the mines. Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it.
when he responds to those who would like to ask why he wrote art since he testified a little previously that we should not expect to achieve the true knowledge of it by reading his books, for this, says he, that the faithful reader may be introduced and empowered to the true knowledge of our divine work, the preparation of which we have never declared to be true. So far from it that the great and diverse preparations that he placed in his books are the one and only practice which is required to perfect our divine work. There will be others who will be more learned and will gladly rebuke me, saying why did I write that our divine work is made of a single material, namely only animated living silver, seeing that Geber in his Summa in the chapter of coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the same when he says: God preferred to all things that are our true sulfur under heaven. Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together.
Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver. But in order to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the proper agent to quicksilver. in the mines. Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it. when he responds to those who would like to ask why he wrote art since he testified a little previously that we should not expect to achieve the true knowledge of it by reading his books, for this, says he, that the faithful reader may be introduced and empowered to the true knowledge of our divine work, the preparation of which we have never declared to be true.
So far from it that the great and diverse preparations that he placed in his books are the one and only practice which is required to perfect our divine work. There will be others who will be more learned and will gladly rebuke me, saying why did I write that our divine work is made of a single material, namely only animated living silver, seeing that Geber in his Summa in the chapter of coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the same when he says: God preferred to all things that are our true sulfur under heaven. Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together. Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver. But in order to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the proper agent to quicksilver. in the mines. Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it. seeing that Geber in his Somme in the chapter of the coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the even when he says: God has preferred our true sulfur to all things under heaven. Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together. Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver.
But in order to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the proper agent to quicksilver. in the mines. Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it. seeing that Geber in his Somme in the chapter of the coagulation of mercury says that it is extracted from metallic bodies prepared with their arsenic Rosins on the contrary says that it is the true incombustible sulfur from which our divine work is made Solomon son of David testifies the even when he says: God has preferred our true sulfur to all things under heaven. Pythagoras in the Philosophers' Peat wrote that our divine work is perfect when sulfur joins together. Therefore it is made of sulfur and not only animated quicksilver.
But in order to respond to them well and satisfy their minds which have strayed from the true path, we must remind them of what we have declared above, speaking of the matter of metals where we have shown how nature has added the proper agent to quicksilver. in the mines. Now, because our divine work has no proper name, some give it one name, others another, so much so that Lilium has very well written that our divine work has as many names among philosophers as there are of things in the world, meaning by this that it has infinite names. Because although it is always the same, made of a single material, nevertheless the philosophers who preceded us have given it various and variable names according to the diversity of colors which appear in the decoction of it. To properly declare what they mean by the four elements, we must know what all natural philosophers have declared concerning the first matter which they call chaos, in which they said that all the four elements were confused. , but that by their contrariety each by demonstrating his actions manifested himself to us, which is the reason why Alexander wrote in his Epistle that everything which demonstrated itself to our entians to be of hot quality, they called it fire; what was dry and coagulated, earth, and what was humid and labile water, what was cold and subtle windy, they called air.
Of which the two are enclosed in the others, as Rasis says in the Book of Precepts: all compose are made of four elements, the two hidden and the other two apparent, namely the air within the water and the fire within the earth, as we said above. However, because the two enclosures, namely air and fire cannot show these actions without the other two, they called them the two feeble elements. And the other two, the strong, which is the cause why they say that the compounds are perfect when humidity and dryness, namely water and earth are joined equally by the help of nature with cold and heat , it is with air and fire, which is done by the conversion of one into the other. Why does Alexander in the Book of Secrets say: if you convert the elements one into the other, you will find what you are looking for. Which sentence we must clearly declare, so that it, properly understood, shows us as if on the finger the true matter and perfect practice of our science. But to understand it well, we must speak a little more properly of the four elements and of the nature of them as they are necessary to the composition of our divine work. Hermes, when he speaks about it, says that all other elements are created from earth. On the contrary, Alphidius says that water is the principal element from which all the other elements required for the composition of our divine work are created.
In which there is no contradiction as it seems, because at the beginning and procreation of our divine work, there appears nothing but water, which the philosophers have called mercurial water; and from it the earth is procreated, when it is thickened by the super-natural conjunction and decoction without which it is useless to us. Hermes, therefore, very well said that the other elements emerge from the earth, so that in the second operation it alone shows "its qualities, as water showed them" at the beginning, which was what Alphidius and Valerandus and others that she was the principal element in the composition of our divine work. And it is these two elements that the philosophers ordered to know before starting to work, as Rasis says in the Book of Enlightenment: before, he says, you begin, you must know the nature and quality of water and earth, because in these two are included all the four elements, otherwise the volatile will take away the fixed and thus our science will be useless to us. Which is the reason why we are commanded to convert the four elements, so that our divine work may be well qualified and finally made fixed to be able to resist the violence of fire, corruption of the air, rust of earth, spoilage and decay of the Water is no less than the mineral gold because of its great perfection. Which conversion of elements is nothing other, as Raymond Lulle says, than making the earth which is fixed, volatile, and the water which is humid and volatile, making it dry and fixed.
This is done by our continual decoction in our vessel without ever opening it for fear that our elements will be spoiled and go up in smoke. This very fact is testified by the writings of Rasis and other various philosophers, when they say that the true separation and conjunction of the four elements takes place in our vessel without touching it with hands or feet, for this, they say, that our stone is dissolves, coagulates, washes, purges, whitens and reddens itself without mixing anything strange. Arnault de Villeneuve is of this same opinion in his Grand Rosary when he says in a few words: we must only take pains to kill the water, that is to say to fix it, because if it dies, all the other elements are killed that is to say; fix. The false and sophistical separation that operators make today of the four elements, as they said, is far from being well founded on these writings, less on the sentences of all the philosophers who specifically forbid not spoiling the simple in their separation, for this, they say, that it is impossible for art to yield the first forms. Now it is completely resolved that the four elements could not be separated from a compound without destroying it. Why, there is no need to use this sophistry and false separation of elements for the composition of our divine work. And whether it is true that such a separation is false, it has been sufficiently proven above that the two elements are enclosed within the other two.
So far from knowing the perfect separation of these, less their true and due conjunction. And then experience shows us, as Valerandus very well wrote, that the elements which they say they have separated do not in any way participate in the matter of the true elements; witness their oil, which they call air, which wets everything it touches against the true nature of air. Why, it is enough for me to have demonstrated this of the nature and quality of the elements and the conversion of them which is required in our science,
Continuing therefore with our last division, we will break down what the philosophers understood by this term: leaven. Which they printed in two meanings. Using the first, when they compared our divine work to metals for the fact that everything as a little leaven sours and converts a lot of dough to its nature, so our divine work converts metals to its nature and for that she is gold, she converts them into gold. But because they hardly used it in this meaning, because there is no difficulty, we will speak of the second, in which lies all the difficulty of our science. For they understand by this term, leaven, the true body and true matter which perfects our divine work. Which is unknown to the eyes, but must be known by understanding. Because, at the beginning, our matter appears volatile as we have stated above. Which we must conjoin with our own body, so that by this means it retains the soul, which by this means of our conjunction made through the spirit, shows its divine operations in our divine work, as is written in the Peat of the philosophers: the body has greater strength than its two brothers which they call the spirit and the soul
Not that they understand it as declared by Aristotle and the other philosophers, which is greatly notable, but they call it a very simple body which can of its own nature support fire without any diminution, which they call otherwise fixed, and they call the very simple soul which is volatile in itself, having the power to carry away the body from above the fire, which they call in another wayvolatile, calling the spirit that which has the power to hold the body and the soul, and to join them so together that they cannot be separated, whether they are perfect or imperfect. How true in our divine work there is nothing new at the beginning, I mean after its first preparation, nor in the middle less at the end. But philosophers, according to various respects and various considerations, have called the same thing body, soul and spirit, as we have sufficiently declared above. Thus, as for the beginning our matter was volatile, they called it soul because it carried away the body itself. But when what was hidden was made manifest in our concoction, then the body demonstrated its forces by means of the spirit, that is to say, it retained the soul, and reduced it to its own nature which is 'being made gold, made it fixed by its power, being aided by our art. In which is declared the true interpretation of what Hermes wrote that no dyeing is made without the red stone because as Rosinus says, our true sun appears white and imperfect in our decoction, and is perfect in its red color. And it is the leaven of which Arnault de Villeneuve spoke in his Grand Rosaire, which manifests itself in its two colors without ever touching it or mixing anything in our matter as one might think from his writings.
Whether it is true, Anaxagoras says that the sun is red and fiery, which is conjoined with the moon which is white and of the nature of the soul by means of the spirit, although true the whole is only the living money(silver) of philosophers. This same declared Morienus, saying that it is not possible to reach the perfection of our science until the soul is united with the sun, without which our science is useless to us as Hermes and all the philosophers say. Thus, it appears how we must understand what Rasis says in the Book of Enlightenment: the red servant married the white woman at the end of the perfection of our divine work; together what Lilium says, that the true union of body and soul is made in the color white and red by the same means. This is done at a certain time with the help of our decoction, which must be governed so that our matter is not spoiled, for what is written in the Peat, the profit and the damage of our divine work comes from the fire administration.
Why I will advise with Rasis, that no one interferes with the practice in our science who does not first know each and every regime of fire for what they are greatly diverse, which are required for the composition of our divine work, otherwise the third term that they call venom will be applied to it, which happens in the second operation as we said above. Not that for this it is necessary to put any venomous thing in our matter, less theriacle nor other strange thing as some have thought, stopping at the appearance of the letter. But we must be careful and vigilant not to miss the proper hour of the birth of our mercurial water, in order to join to it its own body which we have here before called leaven, and now let us call it venom for two reasons, one as to us for the fact that the venom brings nothing but harm to the human body, so if we try to bring it together at its determined time it only brings you harm as we stated above. For the same or similar reason, it is said to be venom regarding our mercury which we called mercurial water, for what it kills and fixes it. In which is declared the true interpretation of what Hermes wrote, saying: when our matter has reached its end, it is joined with its deadly venom, together with what Rosinus says, that this venom is of very great price; Haly, Morienus and all the others testified the same.
And as for what they call it theriacle, it is the same. comparison (as the same Morienus says): what the theriacle does to the human body, our divine work does to the body of metals, although what they wrote can be adapted to the conjunction of the perfect leaven, when it is done on the hour determined so that through it our divine work is perfect. Such and similar authorities must therefore be understood according to the allegorical sense and not according to the appearance of the letter, as many have falsely estimated. Similar is the interpretation of the last term, which is the most useful of all and the most misunderstood. For most understand it of our divine work when it is perfect, saying that everything just as a little curd or coagulate freezes a lot of milk, so a little of our matter thrown on the quicksilver freezes it and reduces it to its own. nature. But this is a great departure from the truth, because they conclude from this that our matter could not be compared to metals for what they are already frozen. Why we must understand that when our mercury appears simple, it is labile, which the philosophers have called milk, calling its quail or coagulate what we have above called leaven, venom or theriacle, for what all; just as the curd is nothing different from milk than a little decoction, so our coagula is in no way different from our mercury than by the decoction it acquired before: which is the great and super- natural secret which caused the philosophers to “call” our science divine, because all human sense and human reasons fail there as we have declared above.
And it is this coagula that Hermes called the flower of gold, of which they hear when they say that in the coagulation of the spirits is made the true dissolution of the body, and on the contrary in the dissolution of the body is made the true coagulation of the spirits, because by its means the whole is perfect, as said Senior: When I saw that our water, that is to say our mercury, froze itself, I firmly believed that our science was true. For this same reason Alexander wrote that there is nothing created in our science except what is made of male and female, calling the male our coagulum for what it acts and that all philosophers have attributed the action to the male and passion to the woman, calling our mercury female, for what the said coagulate acts and shows its power on him, which is the reason why they wrote that the woman has wings for what our simple mercury is volatile, which is retained by its said coagula. Which made them write that we must place the female on the male and the male on the female, meaning the same when they say in the Peat of Philosophers that we must honor our king and the queen his wife, and We are careful not to burn them, that is to say, to hasten our decoction. Because as Arnault de Villeneuve says in his Great Rosary, the main fault in the practice of our divine work is the sudden decoction. Similar and variable terms wrote the ancient philosophers in their books. But for what these are the main ones, I will put an end to the declaration of these for what they are well understood, the true matter is known and thus all the books are declared and made easy to us, as says the good Trevisan. the main fault in the practice of our divine work is sudden decoction.
Similar and variable terms wrote the ancient philosophers in their books. But for what these are the main ones, I will put an end to the declaration of these for what they are well understood, the true matter is known and thus all the books are declared and made easy to us, as says the good Trevisan. the main fault in the practice of our divine work is sudden decoction. Similar and variable terms wrote the ancient philosophers in their books. But for what these are the main ones, I will put an end to the declaration of these for what they are well understood, the true matter is known and thus all the books are declared and made easy to us, as says the good Trevisan.
Why I will conclude with all the good authors, whose writings I have written in the best possible order, that there is only one material from which our divine work is made, which is composed of only simple mercury (which the philosophers have called in proper and unequivocal terms mercurial water and frozen by the action of its own sulfur which Hermes very properly called the flower of gold) having acquired by our long and continuous decoction a perfection so great and excellent that it can perfect all imperfect metallic bodies, being joined with them by its projection, the. converting it into fine gold such as the mineral, for various reasons which we have herein deduced, by which it is fairly stated why imperfect metals are perfect thereby. For inasmuch as there are no simple things in the world, different in all and contrary in qualities, which can be conjoined and mixed perfectly together, our divine work, being made of only animated living silver, cannot endure being mixed with the sulfur which remained in metals due to lack of digestion as we have monster above. But it, being all powerful and perfect in very great digestion, separates the said sulfur from the metals and perfects the quick silver which remains in them into fine gold. It is true that experience shows us when we project it onto common quicksilver, we find it almost entirely converted into gold. The opposite happens to metals, because not six ounces are covered with one piece of any of them. But as much more is deducted so much less diminishes for the same reason.
Why, continuing my little booklet, I will end the second part to begin the third and last. In which I will show the true and perfect practice of our science under various allegories, which our good God will manifest if he pleases to his true faithful and perfect lovers of it, who will be pained by reading my pamphlet, the true intelligence which he gives them by his Holy Spirit to use in the honor of our dear sir and true redeemer Jesus Christ. To whom be praise and glory for ever and ever. So be it.
End of the second part.
THE THIRD PARTY
Epistle of MRD Response to the author
Sir, having arrived from preaching after Easter in our convent, I found two of your letters. The first containing the resolution that you made in your study, which is greatly pleasing to me provided that your living silver which I call mercurial water is good and perfectly purified before animating it and conjoining it with its own and perfect coagulate, and that the time of their conjunction is very certain to you. I will not write to you further on this, but if your practice did not cost you much, I would feel more assured and for good reason. As for the second letter, it is impossible for me to satisfy it due to illness. If I do not stop, I will nevertheless thank you for so many honest presentations that you have made to me, and will always praise your advice when you have resolved in your design, even the inversion and change of your name; which design and enterprise I beg the Lord to favor as I firmly believe will be done, provided that you conduct your concoction very wisely, so that we may have the means to see each other for a few days together from there, if my old age can allow it. Finally, I ask you to diligently observe each and every thing that happens to you in your work and do not associate with anyone during it, because it is the only reason that prevented me from practicing, to be locked up here. Which even makes me find it strange that you did not put your resolution into practice in Paris, for many reasons, given that God gave you the means to do so. I think you hear the whole content of my letter. However, if it seems to you in any way different from yours, let me know, because I do not advise you to abandon your house, and you will be obeyed with as much heart as I pray the Creator to assist you by his holy honor and keep you always in his holy grace, humbly recommending me to yours. In our convent, the Sunday after Easter. Yours entirely MRD
THE THIRD PART
In which the author demonstrates, under various allegories, the true practice of working on the faction of the great work.
Philosophers and true cosmographers have left in writing that the earth which is habitable today, has gone and divided into three main parts: namely Asia, Africa and Europe, which they said was under four regions, on the East and West, on the South and North. Which regions are governed and governed by various emperors, kings, princes and great lords, each of whom has various and variable things in great recommendation, both for the rarity of them and for the sweetness and singularity that they found in them. Which did not have such great credit in their place as the first, as experience showed me when I was traveling through various countries. Because the part where the frequency of people of knowledge was very great, I saw to my great regret and advantage, the learned people poor and greatly retreated, while the ignorant were advanced in all kinds. But where the fault of the people of knowledge was great and ignorance reigned so much that the majority and almost all were only ignorant and poorly learned people, there I say, were learned people in very good opinion of all and favor of the greatest.
Thus the fault of the riches and the mines from which gold is communicated to us together with all other metals, has caused that none of them has been and will be in the future in great esteem in the majority of the said regions, as the abundance from what he did to others that he was and will always be despised by the great lords of those countries, whereas they have in great esteem things of little or even nothingness which have nothing perfect beyond mere appearance. ; which has always dazzled their eyes, preventing them from knowing great and perfect things.
Which, getting angry at their way of doing things as learned people readily do when they see that the ignorant are preferred to them, retire elsewhere, deliberate to show their knowledge and power. Now they were as one of the parts of the world is today, governed by one who arranged and strengthened them in such a way and with such great diligence that he was made to believe that before he ceased, the rest of the world would be subject by the aid and favor of one of his companies and mainly the advice of his faithful Sustainer. But while he was in these deliberations, he accompanied himself with various and not foreign fables. Who desired to be better received and better rewarded by emperors, kings and other princes as do the spies of today, retiring towards them to discover to them what they had little to learn from the enterprise of this good Governor. Which they took no account of, making themselves believe that there was no earthly power that could resist theirs, far from being the good Governor's enterprise to be formidable to them. Why, when all they talked about in their courts and great palaces was laughing, singing and handling love, ordinarily attending feasts, undertaking mummeries, pilfering horses, setting up tournaments to fight for the colors and favors of the ladies, playing at the palm, go to the assembly, praise the flatterers, talkers and rapporteurs, mock the poor learned people, calling them by mockery philosophers, which is the title well suited to few people today but such as the great monarchs do not have not disdained it in the past, if they would not do with those of today if they were well advised.
Then, I say, this good, hoary prince, accompanied by his good companies and faithful Provider, fought in the fields and had already besieged one of the main cities of the Emperor, when the Emperor assembled his camp, accompanied by several kings and greats lords, who all together came to find him, and made him abandon the siege very soon after they arrived and not without cause, because his faithful Provider usually angered him, wanting him to withdraw some fort that was worthy of him , where he did not endure so much heat. And then, in addition to the help that those within the city gave them by continually making valiant sorties against the companions of this good prince, the Emperor was accompanied by fifty thousand footmen and six thousand horses, as they said, without count so many nobility and great lords who followed his cornet, being reinforced by a large number of artillerymen who did wonders to shoot well. Why did this good prince, after having assembled the council of all his companies, agreeing to the good advice of his faithful Provider, raised the siege of the said city, also it was defended by a fort which was partly of iron, removing the best he could with the best order that he was able to keep, for what he still felt weak, Which was the cause that he left behind on the tail, by the advice of his said Provider, of the the most valiant companies he had to always maintain the skirmish with the Emperor's people who followed him closely to guard and defend by this means his rear guard which was weak, had it not been for a stream which was favorable to him. Which companies did their duty so well that none of the others were slain, although they had many affairs, even there were some defeated ones who were relieved by prowess and valor others. But the skein did not unravel like this.
For the next day the Emperor followed the good prince so closely with his entire camp that he was forced, following the good advice of his faithful Purveyor, to reach a small fort which was always considered impregnable for what it was all about. round and seated on a hoop surrounded by walls where he received as much food and ammunition as he wanted from a strong tower which was all adjoining. Which was provided with everything he needed by means of a single man, namely the said Provider without anyone being aware of it, nor did Sultan Suleiman nor his people wish to make supplies that were made ordinarily at Neapoli in Romania, from under a rock, when he kept it besieged for twenty months or more. Now this good prince lodged in the vicinity of this tower, all his companies lodging in the body of the castle in a beautiful little room well surrounded and furnished with all the things required for the convenience of a room which was worthy of such a nobleman.
And among other things, it was enriched with a beautiful, greatly excellent cabinet, similar in part to those seen in the Duchy of Loraine, from which he did not move - as long as he remained in the said castle until the end of the seat, for the great and singular pleasure he received there and for the fact that he looked through four windows without moving from there, through which he sees all the countenance of his enemies. Which could not harm him in any way because his main door was so closed that there was no one who knew it or could open it, except his main and faithful Provider, who gave such an order that nothing should be done to them for a year. that the Emperor kept him besieged, who gave him various attacks from the beginning, with the help and favor of the great lords he had.
Which forced this good prince who had already been so harshly attacked, to leave all his companies in: five colonel ensigns, so that each one kept guard by rank and supported the assaults which would present themselves during their quarter, so that by this means he resisted ! to the force and trouble that the Emperor usually caused him, being advised by those who were near him. For they said to him: If we leave him like this, he will have just cause to make fun of us, he himself who was once in our power, seeing that he says he has withdrawn from it by the bad treatment that there is received ; which will cause him a fair opportunity for revenge on us and ours if he can ever get out of here. Such and similar remarks were the cause that the Emperor decided to have him by famine and this while ordinarily angering him by various assaults. But as winter approached, he withdrew with part of the army, leaving the rest in front of the castle under the charge of a great lord who had followed him on this journey. Who was not idle, so that they hardly passed days without coming to the assault until the hand combat.
Because when they went out, those inside did nothing for what their prince had forbidden. Who being informed by his faithful Prou voyeur of the order that the Emperor had made to his parliament that the siege of the front should not be lifted until a whole year had passed or he had not surrendered, ordered both for the preservation of her person and for the advancement of her reign that each of her colonel ensigns would bring her, during her quarter, an ensign that she would have conquered in the attacks on the enemies, otherwise she would incur her misfortune. But if it happened that by their diligence and boldness they fulfilled his commandments, he assured them that he himself, being helped by his faithful Provider, would win the colonel ensign of the enemies, even if he had to use his life, and would do such part for them of the spoils which they would carry its own and natural standard; if by this means they would be richer than not one of all those who had besieged it.
If this order was agreeable to these good companies, who desired nothing other than to see their prince great, in order to be able to increase his wealth, the experience which followed gave certain testimony to it. Because before their term had passed, they brought him the signs that he had requested, in return for the good order that his faithful Purveyor gave there by the duplication of the circle, that a great personage of France, even admirable for the reason of his namely, had learned a little before that he knew the good doctor who was the cause of his advancement and study DZ The first ensign was German pistolliers. The second was strewn with various colors of the friend, which the magnet had carried to the attack. The third was very similar in semblance to the cornet of King Francis. And the fourth was the same one, enriched with a beautiful, large croissant. The fifth was greatly similar to the Colonel's ensign of the Emperor, which so animated the heart of this good prince that he himself went into battle the next day. He was for a long time, always having near him his faithful headmaster who was very careful about matters, where he endured unspeakable pain and even great anger which made him very angry. But in the end he kept his promise to his companies and won the Emperor's own colonel ensign.
Why after having been well cleaned and refreshed by his said Purveyor who feasted him greatly with his first Lenten meats that he had from Lent since the beginning of the siege, he set off the whole camp on the outing, which he did the next day, accompanied of his good and loyal Provider and his good companies that all carried and had in their power the own natural color of their good leader So that there was and will be in the future pope, emperors, king, sultan, nor other princes or great lords whom they did not come to pay homage to him and his people, so much so that they still do it and will do so as long as they remain in this lower world, by the ordinance of the high and sovereign God, who distributes his great and admirable goods to those who fear and honor him, keeping his holy Commandments that his dear son and our only redeemer Jesus Christ declared to us in his Holy Gospel, to whom be praise and honor forever centuries. So be it.
The way to help ourselves from our great king and leader.
So that our booklet does not remain imperfect, it remains for me to declare, to end the third and final part, how we must project our great king onto his companies, together how we can use it on precious stones , finally declaring what benefit human bodies bring for health. The way to project our divine work onto metals .
To properly convert all imperfect metals to the nature of our great king, take an ounce of it after it is multiplied and refreshed, and throw it on four ounces of fine melted gold, and find all your frangible material; which you will pulverize and cook for three days in a clean and well-closed vessel, within the enclosed mountain, with the heat of the last assault, and of this powder you will throw an ounce on twenty-five marks of silver or copper , or on eighteen marks of lead or tin, or on fifteen marks of common quicksilver heated in a crucible, or frozen with lead. But they must first be well melted and heated, and soon after you will see all your material covered with a very thick foam, then when it has completed its operation, it will seem to you that the crucible has burst. Then, remelt your material and find it converted into fine gold. But if by chance you have not kept the above-mentioned pitch, you will not find your materials, as in no way changed from their first color, By which they would have to be passed through a large dish, without putting lead in it, and in three hours afterwards, the cup will have consumed everything that had not been perfect due to not having put enough of our divine work in it. And the rest will remain above all clean, which will pass through the royal cement during the space of six hours, and find all the gold that will have been converted by the help of our great king, as fine as gold mineral. And this is the means that Raymond Lulle learned in his Codicil, who learns the second in his Testament, as follows.
The way of using our divine work on pearls and rubies.
To make round pearls of such size as we wish, we would have to clean and refresh our great king, immediately after his good companies brought him this beautiful white ensign strewn with this large crescent, without waiting for the end of the siege. And when it has been refreshed only once, take two or three ounces. Because it is the mercury that Raymond Lulle calls exuberated, which you put on the ashes in a small, very clean and well-closed still, to distil it over a very small and slow fire, from the beginning. And when it no longer distils by this fire, change the container, which; well read, give it a good, strong fire as long as it no longer distils. Then take this second liquor and put it in a new still, to distill it very cleanly in a water bath three times one after the other, each time putting back what will have been distilled on the feces which will be viscous and will dissolve each time. times with said water in a short time. But at the third time, distil everything with ashes.
Then take what will be distilled and put it in a new still to distil it very cleanly by bathing four times, always putting the feces aside, as long as your water which will be distilled is very clear and gleaming white like oriental pearls, which you will use as follows: Put the pearls which are very clear, but as small as you want, at the bottom of a small cucurbit. And put your water on top, the thickness of a Cousteau's back, and cover it very well with its screed, and in three hours later, the pearls will melt into white paste. But above will come a clear liquor, which will be gently emptied by inclination, without disturbing anything or without metering the said paste into another still. Which being well covered and washed, put in the bath as if you wanted to sublimate it for three days then remove it. This done, have a hollow and round silver mold made, left in the middle and gilded inside, of the roundness and size that your pearls want, making a small hole in it in the middle of the space between two, so that a small golden thread like hair can pass through, and fill half of the mold with the said paste with a golden spatula then the other immediately, and put the said thread in the middle in the half from his hole. And close the mold very well by passing the wire back and forth through its hole so that they are well pierced. Then open it and put a pearl on a golden plate and cover it with a golden lid, without touching them with your hands, letting them dry in the shade without the sun touching them. And when you have done all your pearls in this way and they are well dried, thread them into the said gold thread without touching them with your hands. And put the said wire in a glass pipe made like a reed which has a small hole in one end and the other completely open.
In the same way, you can make rubies in any shape and size you want, using the same means with red mercury, after having cleaned and refreshed it only once.
The way of using our divine work on human bodies to cure them of diseases and always keep them healthy. To use our great king to recover health, it is necessary to take a heavy grain after its release and dissolve it in a vessel of silver and good white wine, which will turn into citrine color, then make the sick person drink it a little after midnight, and he will be cured in a day if the illness is only one month. And if it is a year, he will be cured in eleven days. And if he is ill for a very long time, he will be cured in a month, and by using each midnight as above. And to always remain in good health, it should be taken at the beginning of autumn and at the beginning of spring as a candied electuary. And by this means, man would always live joyfully and in perfect health until the end of his days which God has ordained for him, as the philosophers have written. Which admirable operations they attributed to our divine work for the great and exuberant perfection that our good God gave him through our decoction, so that by this means the poor and true members of our Lord Jesus Christ may be relieved and nourished. To whom be praise and glory for ever and ever.
So be it.
End of this pamphlet
1560
Everything above was written in the author's own hand in Basie where he stayed for a month, crossing the Germanys,
D. Zecaire
Warning
There must be a dozen leaves at the end of this book in white without having anything strong in mind; instead of the others there is First treaty, put in fairly large letters this word, meaning: Restituta.
And on the twelfth leaf instead of the middle of it put what follows in very large letter HEC DESIDERANTUR QUE MORS SOLA DECLARAVIT
Finis coronat opus