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Tag: Early Alchemy

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  • Image of alchemical furnaces

    Kitchen alchemy in the 16th century

    01/11/2017

    Since late antiquity, alchemical texts have had a reputation for being difficult to read. Besides often being written in Latin, which automatically limited the readership, these treatises employed a hermetic language, following the tradition of the secrecy of esoteric knowledge.… Continue reading

  • Image from alchemical manuscript.

    Alchemical images revisited

    16/12/2016

    Does monumental Truth lurk behind the colourful alchemical imagery of manuscripts held at the Wellcome Library? Images of this kind have fascinated scholars and artists for centuries, their rich symbolism being drawn on by Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Goethe, Hugo,… Continue reading