Alchemy in Early Modern England

Abstract

The seventeenth-century technologist and colonist William White (ca. 1600–73) has been cited as an alchemical tutor to Gabriel Plattes and George Starkey, and hailed as an early modern "wizard of industrial efficiency." This study — the first that focuses on White individually — pays particular attention to White's extraordinary reputation for furnace design and manufacture. By examining the sources of knowledge and social connections that enabled White to acquire and disseminate his knowledge of metallurgy, the authors develop a genealogy of fornacic design that extends from the continent to the Atlantic world and back again, connecting White to better known figures such as Cornelis Drebbel and Robert Boyle. By foregrounding, through White, the technology of early modern alchemy, the authors also hope to emphasise the importance of practical craft in the development of the chemical arts.     

Establishing the Canon: George Ripley and his Alchemical Sources

Abstract

George Ripley, Canon of Bridlington (ca. 1415 to ca. 1490) was one of England's most famous alchemists, whose alchemical opera attracted study and commentary throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were printed and translated both in England and abroad. Yet Ripley's frequently baffling texts have proved resistant to scholarly interpretation. This paper attempts to unravel some of Ripley's alchemical theories and practice, firstly by identifying his major sources, and secondly by gauging his response to these texts. For instance, although Ripley's interest in the corpus of alchemical texts pseudonymously attributed to Ramon Lull is well documented, it transpires that his best known work, the Compound of Alchemy, or Twelve Gates, is actually based not on a Lullian work, but on a Latin treatise that Ripley attributed to the little-known alchemist, Guido de Montanor. Further clues to Ripley's alchemical thought can be obtained by considering his handling of a potential conflict between his two authorities, Lull and Guido. The resulting insights into Ripley's alchemy provide an instrument for assessing which of Ripley's pseudoepigraphic works can be truly called "canonical".     

Textual Alchemy: The Transformation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus's Semita Recta into the Mirror of Lights

Abstract

This article explores the strategies of and the reasons behind the reworking of pseudo-Albertus Magnus's Semita recta into the Mirror of Lights. I argue that the redactor sought to provide a more comprehensive defence of the legitimacy of alchemy than found in the Semita recta. In the process of doing so, he reshaped the original text so as to present three units that addressed different parts of the alchemical opus: first, theory and justification of alchemy; second, basic information on substances and procedures; and, third, practice. The redactor employed sophisticated textual tools identical to those seen in scholastic texts. These strategies, I argue, constitute part of the redactor's attempt to bring authority and credibility to his project and to alchemy in general. Certainly, much more attention needs to be paid to these experiments of textual alchemy in order to understand the practice of alchemy in the late medieval period.     

Revisiting Isaac Newton’s Index Chemicus: A Response to Richard S. Westfall

Previous attempts to date the five editions of Isaac Newton’s Index Chemicus found in Keynes MS 30 (King’s College Library, Cambridge University) have relied on an incomplete examination of the citations Newton provides for his references. This study shows that a full examination of all Newton’s citations provides a more accurate method of dating, and thus pushes the timeline of production for all versions forward several years from the early 1680s to the early 1690s. It also proves that authors previously thought to be unimportant to Newton’s late alchemical writings, such as Robert Boyle, played a larger role than once recognised. Finally, Newton’s use of a text received from Fatio de Duillier for the later versions of the Index Chemicus suggests that the final versions may have been the product of a collaboration between the two.     

Rice Husk Ash: A New,Cheap, Efficient,and Reusable Reagent for the Protection of Alcohols,Phenols, Amines,and Thiols

Abstract

A mild, efficient, and eco-friendly protocol for the protection of alcohols and phenols as trimethylsilyl ethers has been developed using rice husk ash as a reagent. This reagent is also able to catalyze the acetylation of alcohols, phenols, thiols, and amines with acetic anhydride. All reactions were performed under mild conditions in good to high yields.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Phosphorus, Sulfur, and Silicon and the Related Elements for the following free supplemental files: Additional text, tables, and figures.]     

Distilling Reliable Remedies: Hieronymus Brunschwig's Liber de arte distillandi (1500) Between Alchemical Learning and Craft Practice

Abstract

Hieronymus Brunschwig's Liber de arte distillandi, written in German and first published in Strasbourg in 1500, was the first printed manual on the distillation of medicinal waters. Although influential among early modern audiences and well known to modern scholars, its intriguing blend of intellectual and practical traditions has thus far received little attention. This paper identifies these strands in Brunschwig's technical instructions and shows how they intertwine in the production of reliable remedies. Exploring the intellectual dimension of Brunschwig's work, I argue that his concept of distillation is shaped by an alchemical understanding of matter, especially by the writings on ‘quintessence’ of the fourteenth-century alchemist John of Rupescissa. To realise this concept in the workshop, Brunschwig emphasises the central importance of the body and its senses to ensure true craftsmanship. Brunschwig's printed manual was as much a product of skilled artisanal practices as the distilled waters it describes, and I argue that it was shaped by the same concerns about technical precision and reliability.     

The Crystal Structure of Four Phosphorus-Containing Polyoxamacrocycles

Abstract

The crystal structures of four phosphorus-containing polyoxamacrocycles 2,4, 6,11,13-Pentachloro-dibenzo[d,g][1,3,9,2]trioxaphosphacycloundecan-2-thione (1),2,4,9,14, 16-Pentachloro-dibenzo[g,j][1,3,6,12,2]tetraoxaphosphacyclotetra-decan-2-thione (2), 2,4, 10,16,18-Pentachloro-dibenzo[h,k][1,3,7,12,2]tetraoxa-phosphacyclohexadecan-2-thione (3) and 2,4,6,12,14,18,20,28,30—Nona-chloro-tetrabenzo[d,g,p,s] [1,3,9,13,15,21,2,14]hexaoxa diphosphacyclotetracosan-2,14-dithione (4) have been determined by X-ray diffraction. The result shows that compound 4 has a center of symmetry, and compounds 1, 2, and 3 have no elements of symmetry. The molecules of compounds 2 and 4 form inclusion complex with neutral molecule guest (CHCl₃) which is outside of the phosphorus-containing macrocycle in the ratio of 1:1, and compounds 1 and 3 do not form inclusion complexes with CHCl₃. The result obtained in this paper lays a foundation for further research on the complexing properties of phosphorus-containing polyoxamacrocycles.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Phosphorus, Sulfer, and Silicon and the Related Elements for the following free supplemental files: Additional text, figures, and tables.]     

Interpretation and the Hieroglyphic Monad: John Dee's Reading of Pantheus's Voarchadumia

Abstract

John Dee's marginalia in his copy of Johannes Pantheus's Voarchadumia (now in the British Library) are an interesting source of information about the development of Dee's scientific ideas in the period between the Propaedeumata Aphoristica (1558) and the Monas Hieroglyphica (1564). In reading the book, Dee has systematically compared the text with Pantheus's earlier work, the Ars Metallicae, and noted any differences between the two largely identical works. Therefore, most of Dee's comments are not indications of his own interests, as has previously been assumed. Only the marginalia that are not concerned with comparing the two texts can be taken to express Dee's own views. These marginalia, probably written in 1559, provide evidence that Dee had already at this time a strong interest in cabbalistic methods as a means of gaining knowledge about natural substances. Cabbalistic speculation was to be central to Dee's thought in the Monas Hieroglyphica, and has previously been taken to indicate a dramatic change in Dee's scientific outlook, towards a spiritual quest. In his marginalia in the Voarchadumia, however, Dee appears to be using cabbalistic methods to gain information on wholly material, non-spiritual matters. The abundant use of the symbol of the hieroglyphic monad in the marginalia provides a further source of insight into the alchemical import of the symbol, five years before the publication of the Monas Hieroglyphica.     

A Matter of Philosophers and Spheres: Medieval Glosses on Artephius’s Key of Wisdom

The article examines the two Latin versions of Artephius's Clavis sapientiae (Key of Wisdom) that have been preserved in early modern collections of alchemical texts. A comparative analysis of the two versions shows that one of them has undergone a process of textual manipulation. In particular, an interpolation of short philosophical passages concerning the doctrine of prime matter has relevant interpretative implications. These additions appear to be grounded in the early thirteenth-century philosophical debate on cosmology and the first Latinate reception of Aristotle’s metaphysics.     

A New BINOL-Derived Chiral Bifunctional Phosphine Organocatalyst: Preparation and Application in Asymmetric (Aza)-Morita-Baylis-Hillman Reactions

Abstract

A new BINOL-derived chiral bifunctional phosphine has been designed and successfully prepared, which features a cyclic substructure of 1,3,5-diazaphosphinane. This chiral phosphine possesses good air stability in solid state, and it can be conveniently used as a relatively more nucleophilic phosphine organocatalyst. Preliminary investigations showed that it could generally afford fair to excellent yields but only modest enantioselectivity in the (aza)-Morita–Baylis–Hillman reactions of activated olefins such as ethyl acrylate and methyl vinyl ketone with aldehydes or imines.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Phosphorus Sulfer and Silicon and the Related Elements for the following free supplemental files: Additional text and figures.]     

An Efficient Synthesis and Antimicrobial Studies of Bioactive 4H-1,4-Benzothiazine and Their Sulfone Derivatives

Abstract

4H-1,4-benzothiazines were prepared by condensation followed by oxidative cyclization of substituted 2-aminobenzenethiols with β-diketones in dimethylsulfoxide. On refluxing with 30% hydrogen peroxide in glacial acetic acid, 4H-1,4-benzothiazines yielded 4H-1,4-benzothiazine-1,1-dioxides. Structural evaluation has been done by spectral and elemental analysis. All the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their antibacterial and antifungal activity and all these have shown moderate to high activity against the test microbes.

Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Phosphorus, Sulfer, and Silicon and the Related Elements for the following free supplemental files: Additional text, figures and tables.     

Alchemy and Mining: Metallogenesis and Prospecting in Early Mining Books

Abstract

Historians have assumed that alchemy had a close association with mining, but exactly how and why miners were interested in alchemy remains unclear. This paper argues that alchemical theory began to be synthesised with classical and Christian theories of the earth in mining books after 1500, and served an important practical function. The theory of metals that mining officials addressed spoke of mineral vapours (Witterungen) that left visible markings on the earth's surface. The prospector searched for mineral ore in part by studying these indications. Mineral vapours also explained the functioning of the dowsing rod, which prospectors applied to the discovery of ore. Historians of early chemistry and mining have claimed that mining had a modernising influence by stripping alchemy of its theoretical component, but this paper shows something quite to the contrary: mining officials may have been sceptical of the possibility of artificial transmutation, but they were interested in a theory of the earth that could translate into prospecting knowledge.     

Synthesis and Characterization of Novel 7-6-7 Ring-Based PCP Pincer Rhodium Complexes

Abstract

A series of Rh-PCP pincer complexes (^iPrPCP)Rh(L) bearing a novel alkyl–aryl mixed “7-6-7” ring skeleton has been synthesized and fully characterized. The 7-6-7 ring skeleton in the hydrido-chloro and carbonyl species was found to assume the cis and trans conformations, respectively, in solid state as determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. This suggested a flexibility of the backbone compared with the similar but strictly fixed anthracene backbone. Electron density on the central rhodium atom was investigated by IR experiments and by DFT computations. NMR monitoring of the reaction of the hydrido-chloro complex with base followed by application of H₂ showed the presence of what are likely to be the active 14e^? species and the dihydride derivative. Especially, noteworthy is the former that was found to be relatively stable, in contrast to the corresponding iridium complex.

[Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Phosphorus, Sulfer, and Silicon for the following free supplemental files: Additional text, tables, and figures.]