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Textual Alchemy: The Transformation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s Semita Recta into the Mirror of Lights
Grund, Peter
Grund, Peter
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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.
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This is the author's accepted manuscript. The published version can be found here http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/000269809X12529013496257
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2009-11-01
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Maney Publishing
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Grund, Peter. 2009. “Textual Alchemy: The Transformation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s Semita Recta into the Mirror of Lights.” Ambix: The Journal for the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 56(3): 202–225. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/000269809X12529013496257