Pietro Negri

An Italian Alchemical Text on Lead Tablets

In 1910 a small work appeared entitled: A Little Book of Alchemy Written on Lead Plates in the 14^th Century, preserved in the library of the late Prof. Scipio Lapi. Published with an introduction, notes, and 13 facsimiles by Angelo Marinelli, with a preface by Prof. Cesare Annibaldi. Città di Castello Tipografia dello Stabilmento S. Lapi, 1910, in 8vo, 62 pages.”

The original leaden text is a “rectangular, 36-page booklet, numbered on recto and verso, made of lead plates about one millimeter thick.” According to both Marinelli and Annibaldi, the book dates undoubtedly to the fourteenth century. However, Carbonelli, in one of his works (Giovanni Carbonelli, Sulle fonti storiche della Chimica e dell’Alchimia in Italia, Rome, 1925), has written about this booklet and compared it to another similar leaden text preserved in the Florentine Diplomatic Archive. Carbonelli traced both of these texts to the same period: according to him they are written in characters of the first half of the sixteenth century. We believe, and will give our reasons, that the booklet published by Marinelli is an even later text, dating from the first half of the seventeenth century, to be precise. As far as the second text is concerned, on which Cesare Guasti lectured in 1859 (a lecture found in Guasti’s Opere, vol. III, part I, pp. 93–102, Prato, 1896), it is if anything a little earlier than the first. The issue at stake is not merely of a scholarly nature: among other things, it is connected to a matter of a very arduous and controversial historical nature, namely the relationship between Hermeticism and Freemasonry.

On the cover of the booklet, which has a faceted back, we see in the middle of the first page the image of the sun with a man’s face, surrounded by alternating straight and wavy rays. In the middle of the fourth page we see the image of the crescent moon with a man’s face, whose pointed beard forms one of the extremities. The text of the booklet is interposed with illustrations that have been reproduced (but not photographically) by Marinelli. As we refer to Marinelli’s work, we will briefly describe these images, following the order of the context, thus reproducing step-by-step the text of the booklet.

The first plate contains an elaborately adorned chariot, drawn above the clouds by four horses, in which is seated a fully dressed human figure, whose head is surrounded by a radiant aureole. This figure holds the reins in one hand and a whip with many cords in the other. The face is beardless—a detail that led Marinelli to conclude that it represents Dawn on her chariot illuminated by the sun, which can be seen in the upper-right corner.

At the bottom of the illustration it reads: “Pater eius est Sol; mater eius est Luna” (Its father is the sun; its mother, the moon). This saying is from the “Emerald Tablet” attributed to Hermes, the “Father of Philosophers.” The charioteer driving the four horses reminds one of Basilius Valentinus’s “Triumphal Chariot of Antimony” (1604), and more exactly Nicholas Barnaud’s “Auriga ad quadrigam auriferam” (1601). The closeness of the words auriga (charioteer) and aurum (gold) is very evident and typical of the Hermeticists’ style. However, this comparison is etymologically incorrect since auriga derives from the Sankrit arv = horse (the runner), though at Barnaud’s time the comparison must have appeared undeniable and very suggestive. The four horses represent the four elements; the clouds tell us that this scene does not take place on earth, but in heaven; in other words, one should not look for a material meaning but rather for a spiritual one.¹²⁷

On the second page of the booklet we see a bearded and half-naked man with a scythe, sitting on a small mound of earth, underneath a tree. On his chest is drawn the symbol of Saturn; at the bottom of the plate we read: “Hic est pater, et mater eius, sive lapis noster et philosophorum” (This is his father and mother, namely our stone and the philosophers’ stone). The fact that this figure symbolizes Saturn can be ascertained by the scythe. Saturn, the Italic deity of sown fields (Varro wrote: “ab satu dictus Saturnus”—Saturn is named from sowing), carries the scythe for the ensuing harvest. It will come as no surprise to meet Saturn right at the start, especially when we think of the saturnia regna (rule of Saturn) of the golden age.

Alchemically speaking, Saturn is lead, namely the metal that our alchemical text, as well as the other codex, is made of. Ancient Egyptian alchemists regarded lead as the progenitor of the other metals. Its name was also applied to any white and fusible metal or alloy, namely tin (white lead), and lead and tin alloys, which were likewise combined with antimony, zinc, etc. Our lead is that which Pliny and the ancients called “black lead” (and this is the apparent etymology of the Latin word plumbeum) in contrast to white lead, namely tin. Lead ores often contain silver, so that when working with them it looked as if the only thing to do was to imitate and to help nature in the work of transmutation. The specific weight of the metal and the slow movement of the planet Saturn, the farthest from earth (Uranus and Neptune had not yet been discovered), made lead a natural symbol for what in human beings is thick, slow, and heavy, namely the entire bodily organism. This correspondence is not merely the result of our induction, but a matter of fact, as can be seen in this ancient six-line French stanza:

Il est une partie dans l’homme

Dont le nom six lettres consomme.

Si tu y vas un P adjoiutant

Puis l’S en M permutant

Tu trouveras sans nul ambages

Le vray nom du subjet des Sages.

(There is a part in man

Whose name is of six letters.

If you will add aP

Then change the S to M,

You will find with no trouble

The true name of the Matter of the Wise.)

The third figure of our Hermetic booklet represents the Rebis, or Hermetic hermaphrodite.

This symbol, probably the most important Hermetic one, can be traced from alchemist to alchemist as far back as to Zosimus Panopolitanus, who was initiated into the Egyptian mysteries either at the end of the third century or at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.

According to Zosimus:

This is the great and divine mystery—the object that is sought. This is the All. From it the All (proceeds) and for it the All (exists). Two natures, one essence; for one attracts the other and dominates it. This is the silver water (ἀργύριον), the hermaphrodite (ἀρσενόθηλου from ἒρρεν = virile and θῂλυς = feminine), which always eludes us, and which is always attracted to its own elements. It is the divine water that the whole world has neglected, whose nature is difficult to contemplate, for it is neither a metal, nor water ever in motion, nor a (metallic) body; it is not dominated. (Collection des Anciens Alchimistes, Paris, 1888; v. III, p. 146, from ms. 299 of the Biblioteca San Marco di Venezia, eleventh cent.)

In Zosimus this androgynous character is attributed to Mercury (the Greeks’ hydrargyros, quicksilver).

This symbol appears in the oldest Latin alchemical texts of the Middle Ages, which are nothing other than translations or immediate derivations from Arabic or Hebrew-Arabic texts. This symbol is designated as “Magnesia,” “Diabessi stone,” and with the singular title of Rebis, namely res bis, or “double thing.” Thus, in writings that have been attributed to Rosino (possibly a corruption of “Zosimus”), which certainly predate the year 1330 (since Rosino is quoted by Pietro Bono in 1330), we read: “Take the stone found everywhere, called Rebis . . . which means binas res, or two things, namely the wet and cold and the dry and warm” (Rosimi ad Sarratantam episcopum in Auriferae Artis quam Chemian vocant antiquissimi authores, sive Turba Philosophorum, Basel, 1572, pp. 333–34). Moreover, the alchemist Richardus Anglicus, who was a contemporary of Pietro Bono, wrote: “The stone is one of a kind, just like the medicine that the Philosophers call Rebis, namely a double thing (res bina), made of body and either white or red spirit” (Richardus Anglicus, Correctorium in Theatrum Chemicum, 1602, vol. II, p. 453). Lorenzo Ventura of Venice says, “That thing, out of which the stone is made, is called Rebis, namely composed of res bis. . . . It is made of two things, the sperm of the male and the menstruum of the woman; it is born of red and white . . .” (Laurentii Venturae Veneti, Liber de conficiendi Lapidis philosophicis ratione in Theat. Chem., 1602, vol. II, p. 286; the text is also found in the collection by Gratarola, 1561). This list of Hermetic writers who write about Rebis could easily go on. We will mention also Gaston Claveus (Apologia Chrypsopeia in Theat. Chem., 1602, II, 46); Philalethes (Introitus apertus, Amsterdam, 1667, p. 63, ch. XXIV); and Ireneus Philalethes (Ennaratio methodica trium Gebri medicinarum . . ., Amsterdam, 1678, p. 13).

Beginning with the second half of the sixteenth century, we find in Hermetic books and manuscripts several graphic portrayals of the Rebis, all depicting it as an androgynous being. We need to briefly discuss these images in order to examine their variations and to establish the origin and the date of the androgyne portrayed in our Hermetic booklet.

As far as we know, the most ancient of these representations is found in the second edition (1593) of the De Arte aurifera and in the third edition (1610) of the same. The second volume of this work contains the text called Rosarium philosophorum (in which it is erroneously attributed to Arnaldo Villanova), which is also included without pictures in Manget’s Biblioteca Chemica Curiosa (II, 87), as the work of an anonymous author. This is one of the alchemical texts of the fourteenth century, and a derivation, if not translation, of Arabic or Hebrew-Arabic texts. The tenth figure (Artis auriferae quam Chemiam vocant, Basel, 1593, II, 291; and 1610, II, p. 190) represents (see our fig. 1) the Hermetic androgyne, standing above the crescent moon. It has a winged back, and in its right hand holds a cup, from which the heads and necks of three little snakes emerge; in its left hand it holds a coiled snake. On the bottom, on the right side we see a bird, and on the left side a little tree with six pairs of lunar faces and an extra one on the top. The seventeenth figure (p. 359 of the 2nd ed., p. 235 of the 3rd) is merely a variation of the tenth figure; the androgyne is dressed instead of being naked, and instead of standing on the crescent moon it stands on a little mound out of which three snakes emerge; behind its legs lies an old lion. It has bat’s wings, and on the right side we see again the three heads of snakes, while on the left side the coiled snake. On the right side, at the bottom, there is a swan or a pelican with one of its young; on the left side we can see the same tree mentioned before. On the top we read: “Perfectionis ostensio” (depiction of perfection).

According to the authoritative opinion of Michael Maier, this figure “expresses the compendium of the entire art with an allegorical description, in German verses, of the two-headed figure of both masculine and feminine appearance, which holds in its right hand three snakes and in the left hand a single serpent.” (Symbola Aureae Mensae duodecim nationum authore Michaele Maiero, Frankfurt, 1617, VI, p. 274). See also what Abraxas wrote in relation to this in chapter VI.

Three years after the last edition of the De Arte auriferea we find in a famous Hermetic work a representation of the Rebis, with an important innovation, which also appears on our plate, namely the replacement of the Hermetic symbols in the hands of the Rebis with the two most important symbols of Masonry, namely the square and the compass. In fact, the second edition of the Theatrum Chemicum (Strasbourg, 1613), contains (IV, p. 468) the work entitled Aureliae Occultae Philosophorum Partes duo, which can easily be identified with Basilius Valentinus’s Azoth, whose text is also found in Manget’s work (1702) (Bibl. Chem. Cur. II, 217), in which it is attributed to the Arab author Zadith. The Aurelia Occulta Philosophorum is adorned with a dozen figures, the fifth of which, reproduced here (see fig. 2 ), represents the Rebis.

At the top, we read Materia Prima. The whole figure is enclosed within an egg (the philosophical egg of Hermetic generation); in the center stands the Rebis, fully dressed, with its feet on the back of a winged dragon, endowed with four legs and breathing fire out of its mouth. The dragon, in turn, stands over a winged globe, within which we can see a cross, an equilateral triangle, and a square. On the higher and lower vertices of the cross we can read the numbers 1 and 2; along the perimeters of the triangle and of the square we read the numbers 3 and 4, respectively.

The Rebis of Basilius Valentinus holds in its right hand a compass and in the left a square. The right hand corresponds to the masculine part of the figure (a detail that is inverted in the plate of the Italian alchemical text). On the chest of the androgyne we read “Rebis.” Interestingly enough, the letters of the word Rebis, written from right to left, are all inverted; the word is seen as it would appear by looking in a mirror. From the middle of the chest, rays lead to the astrological symbols of the seven planets, or to the alchemical symbols of the seven corresponding metals, all arranged in a circle beginning with the left (the feminine part) and then, descending, in this order: Saturn, Jupiter, Moon, Mercury, Sun, Mars, Venus. Thus the symbol of Mercury is at top center between the two heads, one masculine, the other feminine. After this table comes a lengthy explanation, very sibylline, which we will not reproduce for the sake of brevity.

The Rebis, in Basilius Valentinus’s variation, soon became a very popular Hermetic symbol, thanks to the importance of this author. We do not know if it appeared in the German edition of Basilius Valentinus’s Occulta Philosophia (1613). However, it is found in the French editions of Azoth (Paris, 1624; 2nd ed., 1659) and in the third edition of the Theatrum Chemicum (1659–61). It is also reproduced in the 140th engraving found at the end of the third volume of Mylius’s Basilica Philosophica (1620), and therefore, together with the other figures found in the Basilica, in Daniel Stolz’s Hortulus hermeticus (Frankfurt, 1627). We could easily complete the list of these reproductions of Rebis by Basilius Valentinus, all the way to the most recent ones, by Silberer, Poisson, and Wirth: however, it will suffice to notice how this symbol appeared only in 1613 and how it became widespread in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Figure 1. Hermetic androgyne from the Rosarium Philosophorum, reproduction from vol. II, p. 291, of Artis auriferae quam Chemiam vocant, Basel, 1593.

The androgyne portrayed on the plate of the Italian Hermetic text is obviously a derivation from it; only the roughness of the drawing can have induced Marinelli and Carbonelli to give it an earlier date. Even the saying at the bottom is obviously taken from the figure found in the Aurelia Occulta Philosophorum.

The Rebis of Basilius Valentinus is different from all other previous representations of the Hermetic androgyne, especially from those of the Artis auriferae, due to the masonic rather than alchemical symbols that replace the coiled snake, the three-headed snake, and other symbols in other versions of it. Another innovation, without leaving the Hermetic field, is that of the seven planets around Rebis and of the dragon and winged globe beneath it.

This dragon and globe have disappeared in the plate of our booklet, as has the word Rebis found on the androgyne’s chest. In exchange, this Rebis is endowed with an eye on each elbow, which is obviously the representation of extraordinary vision. Moreover, on the two thighs, in correspondence to the masculine and feminine sides, we find two rough drawings of male and female genitals. Above the vulva, the artist drew a globe surmounted by a cross; above the penis, a diamond. This globe surmounted by the cross with a diamond at the side constitutes a symbol of antimony (cf. Theatro d’Arcani by the physician Lodovico Locatelli, Bergamo, 1644, p. 409); thus, in open contradiction, the prima materia sapientis (first matter of the wise) is no longer lead, but antimony. The fact that this is really antimony is confirmed by the first tablet of the Florentine leaden codex, which contains an equilateral triangle with the point up, and nine letters written along its sides. Above it is written: Benedicta (sic) lapidem Prima materia est (Blessed be the stone: it is the first matter). The nine letters (nine, just like the nine leaden tablets of this codex) constitute the word antimonio; it is odd that both Guasti and Carbonelli were unaware of this. Beneath the triangle is written: Ego sum Ambasagar quo dabo a tibi veri secretum secretissimum noster. Written in ungrammatical Latin, this sentence means: “I am Ambasagar, the one who will reveal to you our innermost secret.”

Figure 2. The Rebis of Basilius Valentinus: reproduction from Aurelia Occulta Philosophorum, in Theatrum Chemicum, Strasbourg, 1613, vol. IV.

The Florentine treatise ends by saying that the matter on which one needs to operate is “a cheap one, called ‘Saturn,’ father and son”; it then adds: “Look at the triangle.” In this way it identifies Lead (Saturn) and Antimony. Marinelli’s book, on page VII, says the same thing: “This matter is called chosen and immature mineral or your Saturn ex hoc ◊ [ex hoc = “from this”], this is black mineral earth.” After all, the identification of Saturn with Antimony was theoretically made at the beginning of the Liber Secretus of Artefius. He was the first (eleventh century) to use the word “antimony,” which probably derives from the Arabic “athmond” or from the Greek “ithmi” (στἱμμι) with the addition of “al.” This identification also leads us back to Basilius Valentinus, to his times, to his chariot and to his regulus of antimony. By melting the mineral with black sulfur, namely with antimony (Sb₂ S₃, antimony trisulfide; crude antinomy), sulfur pro-duces sulfides with all extraneous metals, and the gold of the mineral unites with the metallic antimony that is now free (the regulus of antimony of the ancients), producing a regulus or button of antimony and gold. It is sufficient to warm this regulus, taking advantage of the lowest degree of fusion and of the volatility of Antimony, in order to isolate the gold. This fusion with (sulfur of) antimony was called “the king’s bath,” or the “sun’s bath” (balneum solius regis); antimony, by means of which all the metals disappeared and only gold was left, was called the wolf that devours all metals.

Guasti came to the conclusion that Ambasagar was the author of the little treatise, though he confessed that he was unable to trace the original author and work. The key of the mystery lies in the fourth plate of Marinelli’s alchemical booklet, which we describe here. According to Marinelli, “In the fourth figure we can see a man scarcely clad with a fluttering cloth, who holds in his right hand a small globe covered with a cross. In his left hand he has a clock, and on each elbow there is an eye; this is an evident, though curious, personification of time.”

At the bottom of the plate it says: Ego sum Tubalchaimo qui dabo tibi verissimum secretum secretissimum nostrum. This is the same sentence as in the Florentine codex, this time without grammatical errors, and with the replacement of Ambasagar with Tubalcain. In his right hand this figure carries the first symbol of antimony; in the left, a tablet that is cut above in a semicircle. Within it, there is a symbol that Marinelli mistook for a watch, and in which Carbonelli instead saw the symbol of fire and of gold . However, this circle is inside a square, which recalls the square surmounted by a triangle, another symbol of the antimony that was popular in the seventeenth century. We may also observe that these four elements, namely the circle, the cross, the triangle, and the square, are also found, though in a different order, within the winged globe of the Rebis of Basilius Valentinus. We may also see in the circle inside the square a representation of the squaring of the circle, another symbol that was used in a Hermetic sense during the first half of the seventeenth century (see Michael Maier, De circulo phisico quadrato, hoc est auro . . ., Oppenheim, 1616). We must note that inside the plate there is in fact not a representation of a circle, but rather that of a spiral; if this is intentional, and not the result of the artist’s lack of expertise, we need to consider yet another interpretation. The spiral is not a usual alchemical or Hermetic symbol: it represents the vortex of life, and if it is placed within the square, which is symbol of form, and under the sign of Hermetic fire, it symbolizes the vortex of life in the ongoing creation, within the interplay of the two opposite aspects of form that are represented by the two couples on the opposite sides of the square.

Tubalcain is the “forger of all instruments of bronze and iron” mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 4:19–22), and this is briefly how and why he has his place in the alchemical plate. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the majority of scholars tried to explain all languages by referring them to Hebrew, which was spoken by Adam and Eve, and by the Eternal Father himself at the time of the Garden of Eden. Thus, Hebrew was regarded as the mother tongue of every language. Following this logic, Tubalcain was identified with Vulcan, both because of the phonetic similarity and because Vulcan was the blacksmith of the gods. John Funger, in his Etymologicum Trilingue (Frankfurt, 1605—see pp. 859, 916, 917 of the 1607 ed.) wrote: “Vulcan is obviously a derivation of Tubalcain.” Twenty years later, the same identification is found in an even more popular text of etymology: “Tubalcain, Thubalkain, namely terrenus possessor, or Vulcan, master of copper, or of metals . . .” (Christian Beckman, Manuditio ad latinam linguam, 5th ed., 1672, p. 1124; 1st ed., 1626). Samuel Bohart: “Vulcan is Tubalcain, as the name suggests.” (Opera Omnia, 1712, vol. I, p. 399; 1st ed., 1646). Vossius (1662) and Stillingfleet (1662) came to the same conclusion as well.

While scholars identified Vulcan and Tubalcain, alchemists and Hermeticists attributed to him an alchemical or Hermetic nature. Gerhard Dorn, in the second half of the sixteenth century, mentioned a certain “Vulcanic Abraham Tubalcain, an alchemist, astrologer, and mathematician who brought from Egypt the various arts and sciences to the land of Canaan” (G. Dorn, Congeries Paracelsicae in Theatrum Chemicum, 1613, II, 592; Dorn’s writings appeared between 1567 and 1569). Michael Maier mentions how, understandably, “many people attribute the first practice of Chemistry” to Tubalcain. Olao Borricchio too, a historian and apologist of alchemy, identifies Vulcan and Tubalcain (De Ortu et de progressu Chemiae, Hafniae, 1668). This identification and this alchemical character of Tubalcain were popular throughout the eighteenth century, a trend that was probably responsible for the adoption of Tubalcain as a password by French and Rhineland masonic lodges between 1730 and 1742. This password appears mainly in the Ordre des Franc-Maçons trahi . . . (Geneva, 1742) and in Der Neu-aufgesteckte Brennende Leuchter . . . (Leipzig, 1746), at a time when the typical Hermetic degrees began to emerge in continental Masonry.

The Tubalcain of our plate is evidently, then, the Tubalcain who invented the art of working metals, and therefore the inventor of transmutation, of which he has good reason to claim that he can give us the secret. However, this identification leads us back approximately to the first half of the seventeenth century, at the peak of its popularity. Thus everything conspires to attribute the creation of our alchemical booklet to this date.

As far as the Ambasagar of the other leaden codex is concerned, we may suppose that it signifies ambus agar, “May I be led to perform both” (i.e., operations, both albedo and rubedo). Or, maybe, it means ambas agam, namely “May I perform both” (i.e., operations). Again, it may be that the nine letters are the initials of some Hermetic saying, just as in the case of the word vitriolum. It is almost certain that these words, Tubalcain, antimonio, ambasagar, vitriolum, are intentionally composed of nine letters, and the end of our booklet shows us why. The tradition that attributes nine letters to the name of the “first matter” is very ancient. The Greek alchemists identified it in this way:

ἒννεα γράμματ’ ἒχω, τετρασύλλαβος εἰμὶ, νόει με.

Î'ἱ τρεῐς μἐν πρται δύο γράμματ’ ἒχουσιν Pκaστη,

Αἱ λοιπαὶ δἐ τἀ λοιπἀ. καi εἰσιν ἒϕωνα τἀ πέντε.

Οὐκ ἀμuητος ἒσῃ τς παρ’ ἀμοὶ σοϕίας

(I have nine letters, am four-syllabled, and you will know me, because the first three [syllables] are each of two letters, and the last of the rest, and there are five consonants in all. You will be initiated into the wisdom that I possess.)

The key to this riddle is the word ἀρ−σε−νι−κόν = arsenic, composed of nine letters, four syllables, four vowels, and five consonants. Arsenic was the ancient name of orpiment (from auri pigmentum), which is an arsenic sulfide. This was regarded as a second mercury, due to the identity of its behavior. It is easy to see how ambasagar is composed of the same number of letters, vowels, and consonants as ar-se-ni-kon. With some variations, they conform to the same law of composition of the words Tubalcain, vitriolum, antimony, and other words of lesser importance in the hermetic literature, such as ἀμ−πε−λῐ−τις = terra vinealis, which the Hermeticists of the seventeenth century regarded as the true solution of the above-mentioned riddle. Even in the alchemical manuscripts we find traces of this tradition; an example can be found in a representation of Gerber in an ancient manuscript, reported by Carbonelli (op. cit., p. 57), which has at the bottom the word Riovrabet.

The fifth plate of the alchemical booklet contains only these words: “Benedictam lapidem LAPIS NOSTER.” And further on, “Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini.” Then the text begins, divided into seven short chapters that we are going to reproduce here followed by a few explanatory notes. The first little chapter is a prologue to the next five, all of which are devoted to the various operations. The last chapter is the epilogue, unless it has been added by someone else. The first short chapter fills the plates VI–XII of the booklet. Here is the text:

The Great Work can be performed either according to the humid or the dry way.¹²⁸ In the first way, one employs pure dew, hail, or fior coclis.¹²⁹

In the second way one employs matter that has been prepared by nature for the imperfect metallic work¹³⁰:

This matter is called elect and immature mineral, or “your Saturn.” This ◊ is black mineral earth¹³¹ that is still green and heavy, and it is called mafesia¹³² or saturnine marcasite.¹³³ If that matter had cooked longer in the bowels of the earth, and if it had not been mixed by accident with various impurities, it would have been the sacred sun and moon: for Saturn is the first principle of the metals, which is therefore called leprous Gold .¹³⁴

This gold must be purified from this leprosy and from other drosses in the easiest and quickest way. But in order for Gold to be utilized, it first needs to be reduced to seed,¹³⁵ that the first matter may grow as much as is proper to this earth. Out of it we need to draw the true mercury, or the clear water found in the royal bath.¹³⁶ This matter can be found in many places where lead and tin are mined, though it is more perfect in one place than in another.

In Bohemia, near Prague, there is a good mine where lead is found, resembling butter but black and of an acidic spirit. Many people have found such matter in the well-preserved receptacle of Saturn, which is virgin lead called Saturno pater, et Saturno filii (Saturn father and Saturn son).

The first operation is described in the plates XIII–XVII of the booklet. At the top of plate XIII it is written: “Si volunt procedere fiat totum in nomine domini. Hop. Prima.” This means: “If they want to proceed, let everything be done in the name of the Lord.” Here is the text:

FIRST OPERATION

R.^e137 The center of this matter→◊ operates as if it were in the bowels of the earth. Having pulverized its accuracy in a very subtle way,¹³⁸ and having passed it through a very tight silk sieve,¹³⁹ put it in and subject it to .¹⁴⁰ After placing it on a very strong flame, distill it in an open container; this operation is called “extraction of the elements.”¹⁴¹ The retort, in order to be able to endure on the fire, must be luted at the bottom¹⁴² and the fire must last sixteen hours. In the beginning it must be a light fire fed with coals, until the spirit or Mercury is produced.¹⁴³ At the end, the fire must be very strong, and fed with wood, so that may be attached in the retort.¹⁴⁴ Keep the spirit well closed in the o = o¹⁴⁵ and scrape the sulfur with all diligence through the second work.

The chapter ends with the illustration of a star with seven points. In correspondence to each point we see the symbols of the seven planets in the same order and arrangement found in the Rebis of Basilius Valentinus. Each tip of the star is split into two parts, one clear, the other dark. Inside the star there is a circle in which we can see an infant with a crowned head. Inside the circle there is a saying: Qui rex natus a Philosophis est Lapis Noster (This king born from the philosophers is our stone).¹⁴⁶

Plate XVIII bears the inscription: Infantem natum debes alimentare usque ad aetatem perfectam; namely, “The infant who is now born must be fed until he reaches the perfect age.” What follows is the operation according to plates XVIII–XX–XXI.

SECOND OPERATION

Take your and purify it by sublimating it three times; every time put back that which is at the bottom together with what has come up. R.^e the spirit that is ; together with the latter put ten grains of this sulfur.¹⁴⁷ Put it at the lowest point and then for forty days¹⁴⁸ in an alembic with a blind hat. After forty days take it out; in place of the hat put on the other rostrum; distill everything and remove the dregs at the bottom. Make sure that when distilling, the container does not become glued and leaky in the alembic. Having done that, place it in a well-sealed glass and hide it in a cool place, so that the spirits may not come out and roam around.

The chapter ends with the following line: Hic est donus (sic) dei optimum (this is the best gift of God). Plates XXII, XXIII, and XXIV contain the:

THIRD OPERATION

R.^e as much weight of your according to the quantity of your in a flask or vial over which you will sink ten times more than your .¹⁴⁹ Then put on top of it another vial, placing it on sand; use a light fire until the sulfur melts down.¹⁵⁰ Make sure that the vial in which you put the matter has a long neck, while the other vial has a short neck; moreover, make sure that the short neck can fit in the long one, so that the spirits may not escape while they are circulating inside. This solution, well closed, serves for the next work.

At the bottom of the plates we read: Item, in rerum moltitudine ars nostra non consistit; namely, “Our art does not consist in the multitude of things.”

Plates XXV and XXVI contain the:

FOURTH OPERATION

R.^e this solution of sulfur and place it in the alembic as in the second operation, with its lid in the sand. At first use a light fire, so that the spirit may ascend. This spirit is called “virginal milk” for its purity.¹⁵¹ Then turn up the heat so that the will adhere to the lid: this is our perfect sulfur, which you need to gather carefully. After putting a lid on the alembic, keep it as well as the spirit, or .

At the bottom we read the following saying: “Si fixum solvas faciasque volare solvitum, et solutum ridas, faciat te vivere lietum.¹⁵²

Plates XXVII–XXX contain the:

FIFTH OPERATION

R.^e your perfect sulfur, on which you will sink ten parts of the Mercury¹⁵³ you have prepared. Place it in an egg of .¹⁵⁴ Having sealed it with the seal of Hermes, place it over a small stove; the heat should not be greater than the temperature of a feverish person. Then the various materials will disintegrate.

At the bottom of Plate XXVIII, at the lower-right corner, we can see a crow carrying in its beak some sort of tablet on which is written nigro nigrium, which more correctly and completely should read instead nigrum nigri nigrius (the black blacker than black). This alludes symbolically to the first phase of the operation, namely to the stone in black. The text continues on Plate XXVIII and says:

After it disintegrates it will turn white.

In this context we see a figure that represents a chariot being drawn above the clouds by two doves. In the chariot there is a seated woman with a half-moon over her head and with a radiating aura behind her head. She holds in her left hand a small flowering branch, the “tree of Diana.”¹⁵⁵ After this figure, the text continues:

This is our Diana, whom you can cause to stop here, if you wish, through the work in white.¹⁵⁶ If you wish to go further, keep feeding the fire until the upper part turns red like the color of blood.¹⁵⁷

At the bottom of the plate we see a man with a crowned head. He holds in his right hand some kind of scepter and in the left hand an elliptical crown with the symbols of the seven planets in the following order: Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Sun. In this way Mercury is always in the middle, as in the Rebis of Basilius Valentinus, but this time on the bottom.

Plate XXXI contains on the upper left the image of a cup with its lid held by an arm protruding out of a cloud. It is possibly an image of the Grail. Next to it we read: “Hic est lapis noster: fortuna medius granus huius est cura omnium morborum incurabilium; that is, “This is our stone, half of which suffices to heal all incurable diseases.” The following text is written on this plate and the next:

R.^e an ounce of purged by means of ◊. Liquefy it, test it, and when it reaches boiling point put on it a drachme of your medicine and you will immediately see coming to a halt and no longer running. What remains is a reddish stone that easily breaks: and this is the philosophers’ stone.

What follows is Plate XXXIII, containing an allegorical figure. High above, a crowned human figure holds in both hands a crown; a bit lower, three crowns float in the air. Farther down we find human portrayals of Moon, Mercury, and Saturn, which are characterized by their alchemical symbols. These figures stretch their hands toward the three crowns. On the right we can see Jupiter, Mars, and Venus (the latter already crowned). On the upper right is the sun: the head of the central figure is surrounded by a nimbus of rays. Here too, as in the figure of the Hermetic charioteer and in the figure of Diana, the entire scene does not take place on earth, but above the clouds.

At the bottom we see the saying: Et hoc est donus Dei qui omnia imperfecta metalia in aurum aurum comutat—that is, “This is God’s gift that transforms into (pure) gold all the imperfect metals.” In regard to the Hermetic mean-ing of the metals, see what Luce says in chapters I and II. Plates XXXIV and XXXV contain this admonition:

Make sure that in the beginning the wick is of no more than four or five threads until it becomes black, and that is called putrefaction. After seven threads, it becomes white, which is the philosophers’ white daughter. After nine threads it becomes red. The oil of the lamp must be very pure. In the middle of the stove place a copper plate, and on it put the ashes of mistletoe from an oak, from which the salt should be extracted; in them put the philosophical egg. The lamp must not be closer than four fingers from the plate—i.e., from its flame. Continue in this fashion until the

Finis (end). L. D. (meaning “Laus Deo” [Praise God])

Non plus ultra (No further)

What follows is the last plate that contains the key of the cryptic alphabet in which the booklet is written, preceded by the saying: Hic est via veritatis, “This is the way of truth.”

Even in this detail the two leaden codices resemble each other: the Florentine codex too is written in code, and it contains at page 18 the key of the characters preceded by the title: Hic est via veritatis.

The fact that the two leaden codices are written in code is not insignificant. Obviously the owner of the alchemical book must have held it in great regard, and wanted to make sure that, if it fell into other people’s hands, its meaning would be obscure. The great similarity between the two codices suggest that one is a derivation from the other, or both derived from one secret ritual that was their common source. The presence in the alchemical book of Tubalcain and the Rebis of Basilius Valentinus shows that it was later than 1615, and probably belongs to the period 1615–1650, during the golden age of Hermeticism and of the Rosicrucians, after the Cosmopolite and before Philalethes. During this period we know that there were secret Hermetic organizations. Hermeticism penetrated even British Masonry at that time; its influence in the ancient Masonic order can be traced for about two centuries. Are we then looking at the ritual of one of these secret organizations? Or should we assign to this codex a meaning and a value that is exclusively alchemical? Are the coarseness of the drawing and the errors of orthography and grammar in Latin and in Italian to be attributed only to the author of the booklet, or are they the proof of the low cultural level of the booklet’s owner? Are these deficiencies enough to exclude the symbolical, Hermetic value of the booklet and to guarantee that we should not see in it anything else than the exposition of the norms of a purely chemical procedure for the extraction of gold?

Modern scholars of alchemy presuppose that in every alchemical writing we are always dealing with chemical operations, despite the explicit declarations to the contrary of so many authors, such as the Cosmopolite and Philalethes. However, we should also be careful not to fall in the opposite error, by giving a symbolical value to something totally devoid of it. By following the text of the alchemical booklet we have tried, within the limits of our competence and of the available space, to shed light on its literal-alchemical and spiritual-Hermetic meaning. In doing so we have referred to what has been outlined in excellent fashion by Abraxas and by Luce. We do not want to claim that the true symbolical meaning can be attributed to it only in virtue of the methodical correspondence that was traditionally established by Hermeticists between the phases of chemical transformation and the phases of inner transformation; but neither do we want to claim that the meaning that writer of the booklet had in mind was just of inner transformation and that he only strove to hide it, more philosophico (in philosophic fashion), under the appearance of chemical transformation. It may well be, after all, that for the writer the two transformations were both possible and that he dealt with them at the same time; and that the Hermetic symbolism was the simple and natural consequence of an analogy of procedure. The expert reader will judge for himself if it is possible to give an answer to these questions, and what answer is most plausible.