Visualization in Medieval Alchemy
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper explores major trends in visualization of medieval theories of natural and artificial transformation of substances in relation to their philosophical and theological bases. The function of pictorial forms is analyzed in terms of the prevailing conceptions of science and methods of transmitting knowledge. The documents under examination date from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. In these, pictorial representations include lists and tables, geometrical figures, depictions of furnaces and apparatus, and figurative elements mainly from the vegetable and animal realms. An effort is made to trace the earliest evidence of these differing pictorial types.
منابع مشابه
The British Postgraduate Medical Federation: The First Fifteen Years
Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, by ELIAS ASHMOLE, reprint of the London 1652 ed., with introduction by Allen G. Debus, New York, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1966, pp. xlix, 486, illus., no price stated. Alchemy, like Astrology, is a close relative of Medical History-there are many dramatis personae whom they have in common from antiquity to the eighteenth century and some of these form the best...
متن کاملWhat Is (Was) Alchemy?∗
A serious scientific journal seems to be the wrong place for a paper on alchemy. However, we believe that the history of science includes knowledge of the complex relations between specific scientific disciplines and what is called the “world-view” (Weltanschauung): the image of the world corresponding to a given stage of cultural development. The world-view, born of the “marriage” of Aristotle...
متن کاملTheatrum Chemicum Britannicum
Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, by ELIAS ASHMOLE, reprint of the London 1652 ed., with introduction by Allen G. Debus, New York, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1966, pp. xlix, 486, illus., no price stated. Alchemy, like Astrology, is a close relative of Medical History-there are many dramatis personae whom they have in common from antiquity to the eighteenth century and some of these form the best...
متن کاملChemistry in the 17 th Century : Art or Science ? [ DRAFT ]
Introduction In his study of the didactic origins of chemistry Owen Hannaway maintained that in the seventeenth century chemistry achieved ‘sufficient coherency and identity to sustain a vigorous and ongoing didactic tradition.’ The origins of the debate on the status of alchemy can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Albert the Great (1206-1280) and Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1294) maintained that al...
متن کاملThe Alchemical Process of Transformation
Alchemy traces its roots back to the Egyptian civilisation where it emerged as a practising art and science and an expression of the Egyptian religion. Thus it was that the Egyptian Thoth, the god of mathematics and science, became the inspirational source for the Hellenistic figure of Hermes Trismegistus, who in turn became the model for the medieval Mercurius. The Greeks learned their Alchemy...
متن کامل