Article ID: CBB000952880

Some Considerations Concerning the Alchemy of the De anima in arte alchemiae of Pseudo-Avicenna (2009)

unapi

This article explains some essential features of the alchemical doctrine of the De anima in arte alchemiae, a treatise written in Spain during the twelfth century (in Arabic, but only the Latin translation remains), and wrongly attributed to Avicenna. It shows that pseudo-Avicenna uses alchemical principles and elixir theory directly inspired by Jabirian texts, and classification of materials influenced by al-Razi. The alchemy of pseudo-Avicenna is entirely based on operations on the four elements: the alchemist has to reduce hair, blood or eggs to their elements, and isolate one of their essential properties (warmth, coldness, moisture and dryness), so that he can change the proportion of essential properties of the body he wants to transmute into gold or silver. The preparation made from hair, blood or eggs (the isolated property) is what he calls the elixir.

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Authors & Contributors
Moureau, Sébastien
Bertolacci, Amos
Burnett, Charles
Ferrario, Gabriele
Joosse, N. Peter
King, David A.
Journals
Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Sciamvs: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences
Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Journal of the History of Ideas
Publishers
SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo
Cambridge University Press
Edizioni Cadmo
Concepts
Arabic language
Alchemy
Translations
Arab/Islamic world, civilization and culture
Latin language
Manuscripts
People
Avicenna
Albertus Magnus
al-Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad
al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr Muḥammd ibn Muḥammad
Aristotle
Casaubon, Isaac
Time Periods
Medieval
12th century
13th century
Ancient
14th century
16th century
Places
Europe
Spain
Byzantium
Egypt
Germany
Florence (Italy)
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