Article ID: CBB123621980

Real or Fake? New Light on the Paracelsian De natura rerum (2020)

unapi

So far it has never been clearly decided whether the treatise De natura rerum constitutes an authentic work by the physician and natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493/94–1541) This article outlines the manuscript and printing traditions of De natura rerum, in which a recently discovered manuscript from 1571 is identified as the earliest source. The watermarks of this manuscript refer to the Tyrolean Inn Valley, where great alchemical expertise was available due to silver mining. A detailed examination of the content and style of the preface and the nine chapters indicates the involvement of at least three different authors. Some of these parts are definitely forgeries, while others cannot be judged with certainty as to their authenticity. On the other hand, three chapters, those on death, resuscitation and the signature of natural things, are most likely real writings of Paracelsus.

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Article Didier Kahn; Hiro Hirai (2020) Paracelsus, Forgeries and Transmutation: Introduction. Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 1-3). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Kahn, Didier
Hirai, Hiro
Weeks, Andrew
Zini, Marco
Witt, Mathias
Wagner, Lioba
Concepts
Alchemy
Medicine
Natural philosophy
Forgeries
Chemistry
Paracelsianism
Time Periods
16th century
17th century
Renaissance
Early modern
18th century
15th century
Places
Europe
Belgium
England
Peru
Spain
Italy
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