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Artefius
Artephius (or Artefius) (c. 1150) is a writer to whom a number of alchemical texts are ascribed. Although the roots of the texts are unclear and the identity of their author obscure, at least some of them are Arabic in origin. He is named as the author of several books, the ''Ars sintrillia'', ''Clavis sapientiae'' or ''Clavis maioris sapientiae'', and ''Liber secretus''. Confusion over identity Alchemical pseudepigraphy makes it difficult to identify who the historical Artephius may have been. His identity remains an open question. As ''The Secret Book of Artephius'' was respected and mentioned by Roger Bacon many times, Artephius’ writing is dated to around 1150. One author, Restoro d'Arezzo, conflated Orpheus with Artephius in his ''Composizione del Mondo'' in 1282.Austin, H.D. 1937. "Artephius-Orpheus." ''Speculum'' 12: 251–54. This mistake was due to a translation error, with the Arabic for Orpheus and Artephius being very similar. This transcription error gave us "Artephiu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatrum Chemicum
(''"Chemical Theatre"'') is a compendium of early alchemical writings published in six volumes over the course of six decades. The first three volumes were published in 1602, while the final sixth volume was published in its entirety in 1661. remains the most comprehensive collective work on the subject of alchemy ever published in the Western world. The full title of the work is ,Roughly translated as "Chemical Theatre, for a particularly selected person responsible for handling about Chemicals and the Philosopher's Stone. Ancient, truthful, pure, excellent, and working, containing: An account of True Chemicals, and the study of Medical Chemicals (how to most fruitfully accomplish the best remedy) brought together as parts in arrangement. though later volumes express slightly modified titles. For the sake of brevity, the work is most often referred to simply as . All volumes of the work, with exception of the last two volumes, were published by Lazarus Zetzner in Oberursel an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchemical
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.Principe, Lawrence M. The secrets of alchemy'. University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 9–14. Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with all of these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudepigraphy
Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseudo-Apostolic Letters", ''Journal of Biblical Literature'', Vo. 107, No. 3, September 1988, pp. 469–94. In biblical studies, the term ''pseudepigrapha'' can refer to an assorted collection of Jewish religious works thought to be written 300 BCE to 300 CE. They are distinguished by Protestants from the deuterocanonical books (Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha (Protestant), the books that appear in extant copies of the Septuagint in the fourth century or later and the Vulgate, but not in the Hebrew Bible or in Protestant Bibles. The Catholic Church distinguishes only between the deuterocanonical and all other books; the latter are called biblical apocrypha, which in Catholic usage includes the pseudepigrapha. In addition, two books consi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon (; la, Rogerus or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. In the early modern era, he was regarded as a wizard and particularly famed for the story of his mechanical or necromantic brazen head. He is sometimes credited (mainly since the 19th century) as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method, along with his teacher Robert Grosseteste. Bacon applied the empirical method of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) to observations in texts attributed to Aristotle. Bacon discovered the importance of empirical testing when the results he obtained were different from those that would have been predicted by Aristotle. His linguistic work has been heralded for its early exposition of a universal grammar, and 21st-century re-evaluations emphasise that Bacon was essentially a medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Restoro D'Arezzo
Ristoro or Restoro d'Arezzo was an Italian monk and scientist of the Middle Ages. Italian scholar Enrico Narducci calls him the ' Humboldt' of the thirteenth century. Life and works Restoro was born in Arezzo, Tuscany, at an unknown date in the first decades of the 13th century. Very little is known about his life. He himself states that he wrote his book in a convent at Arezzo; that he was an artist and a painter of miniatures, and that he lived in the second half of the thirteenth century. In 1282 he completed an elaborate treatise on cosmography, ''Della composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni'' he composition of the world with its causes It was the first scientific treatise to be written in an Italian vernacular (Arezzo dialect). Ristoro gives an exhaustive account of the Aristotelian science that was taught in the Universities at that time. He deals with Astronomy and Astrology (which are one-and-the-same for Restoro, as indeed they were for most people at that time), M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orpheus
Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: ; french: Orphée) is a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and even descended into the Underworld of Hades, to recover his lost wife Eurydice. Ancient Greek authors as Strabo and Plutarch note Orpheus's Thracian origins. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus, who tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollonius Of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς; c. 3 BC – c. 97 AD) was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Anatolia. He is the subject of ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', written by Philostratus over a century after his death. Life dates Apollonius was born into a respected and wealthy Greek household. His primary biographer, Philostratus the Elder (circa 170c. 247), places him circa 3 BCc. 97 AD, however, the Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 155 – c. 235 AD) writes that Apollonius was in his 40s or 50s in the 90s AD, from which the scholar, Maria Dzielska gives a birth year of about 40 AD. Sources The earliest and by far the most detailed source is the ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', a lengthy, novelistic biography written by the sophist Philostratus at the request of empress Julia Domna. She died in 217 AD and he completed it after her death, probabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephanos Of Alexandria
Stephanus of Alexandria (; fl. c. 580 – c. 640) was a Byzantine philosopher and teacher who, besides philosophy in the Neo-Platonic tradition, also wrote on alchemy, astrology and astronomy. He was one of the last exponents of the Alexandrian academic tradition before the Islamic conquest of Egypt.. Life Stephanus studied at Alexandria, probably under Elias. He is often named alongside Elias and David as among the Christians of the school of Olympiodorus. According to John Moschus, he was teaching and writing commentaries in Alexandria in the 580s, where he was involved in the controversy over Monophysitism, apparently taking positions on both sides. John calls him a "sophist and philosopher". Shortly after the accession of the Emperor Heraclius in 610, Stephanus moved to Constantinople, the capital of the empire, "thereby bridging late Alexandria and the medieval Byzantine world." Whether he was invited by the emperor is not known. He took up a position as "ecumenical professo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Tughrai
Mu'ayyad al-Din Abu Isma‘il al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Samad al-Du'ali al-Kināni al-Tughra'i (Arabic: العميد فخر الكتاب مؤيد الدين أبو إسماعيل الحسين بن علي بن محمد بن عبد الصمد الدؤلي الكناني; fa, اسماعیل طغرایی اسپهانی) (1061 – c. 1121) was an 11th–12th century Arab poet and alchemist. Biography Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Tughra'i was born in Isfahan, Persia, and composed poems in the Arabic language. He was an administrative secretary (therefore the name ''Tughra'i). He ultimately became the second-most-senior official (after the vizier) in the civil administration of the Seljuq Empire. Al-Tughra'i had been appointed vizir to Emir Ghiyat-ul-Din Mas'ud, and upon the death of the emir a power struggle ensued between Mas'ud's sons. Al-Tughra'i sided with the emir's elder son, but the younger prevailed. In retribution, the younger son accused al-Tughra'i of heresy and had hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibn Umail
Muḥammad ibn Umayl al-Tamīmī ( ar, محمد بن أميل التميمي), known in Latin as Senior Zadith, was an early Muslim alchemist who lived from to Very little is known about his life. A Vatican Library catalogue lists one manuscript with the ''nisba'' al-Andalusī, suggesting a connection to Islamic Spain, but his writings suggest he mostly lived and worked in Egypt. He also visited North Africa and Iraq.Starr, Peter''Towards a Context for Ibn Umayl, Known to Chaucer as the Alchemist Senior'' Retrieved 2013-05-22 He seems to have led an introverted life style, which he recommended to others in his writings.p. XIII. Statements in his writings, comparing the Alchemical oven with Egyptian temples suggest that he might have lived for some time in Akhmim, the former centre of Alchemy. He also quoted alchemists that had lived in Egypt: Zosimos of Panopolis and Dhul-Nun al-Misri. In later European literature, ibn Umayl became known by a number of names: his title Shei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity. It occurred after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages and was associated with great social change. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. The traditional view focuses more on the early modern aspects of the Renaissance and argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it was an extension of the Middle Ages. However, the beginnings of the period – the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the Italian Proto-Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300 – overlap considerably with the Late Middle Ages, conventionally da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
12th-century Arabic Writers
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. In conventions of sign where zero is considered neither positive nor negative, 1 is the first and smallest positive integer. It is also sometimes considered the first of the infinite sequence of natural numbers, followed by 2, although by other definitions 1 is the second natural number, following 0. The fundamental mathematical property of 1 is to be a multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. Most if not all properties of 1 can be deduced from this. In advanced mathematics, a multiplicative identity is often denoted 1, even if it is not a number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number; this was not universally accepted until the mid-20th century. Additionally, 1 is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
