Hermes: A Journal in Occasional Issues

found in the realm of Saturn In alchemy, Saturn is the planetary correspondence for lead and represents the "Nigredo" or black stage—the beginning of the Great Work characterized by darkness and decay..
Meier Michael Maier (1568–1622), a celebrated German physician and counselor to Rudolf II, known for his alchemical emblems. calls the "minerals the subjects of the art" original: "Mineras, tanquam artis subjecta" and describes such a subject as lowly, unsightly, like a king outside his kingdom, without prestige, despised.
The famous Faber Pierre-Jean Fabre (1588–1658), a French physician who sought to reconcile Paracelsian medicine with traditional chemistry. calls it: "A certain mineral body, most vile, not yet in any way fashioned into a metal, findable in mines, full and swelling with metallic spirit and fixed substance." original: "Corpus quoddam minerale, vilissimum, nondum in metallum ullo modo adhuc effectum, in mineris reperibile, spiritu metallico et substantia fixa plenum et turgens." Likewise:
"A raw and unrefined mineral mass, from a hundred pounds of which barely one pound of pure spirit and another pound of fixed substance can be drawn." original: "Rudem indigestamque molem mineralem, e cujus libris centum vix libra una spiritus puri et libra altera fixae substantiae elici possit." He calls this body the philosophical Vitriol Vitriol: While commonly meaning sulfate minerals, alchemists used "Philosophical Vitriol" as a code for the raw, chaotic matter containing the hidden "green lion" or secret fire of nature., the seed of every thing and also of common vitriol, an essence that could be called by countless names, but by none more fitting than Vitriol, because it possesses some striking properties of the common variety. (Palladium of Chemistry, p. 153) Referring to Fabre's Palladium Spagyricum (1624). The Swedish physician
Joh. Raicus Johannes Raicus (died c. 1632), a professor of medicine at the University of Uppsala and later in Dorpat, known for his mystical-chemical leanings. says: "The subject from which nature's spermatic and universal tincture can be extracted is the Mercurial water drawn forth from the BLACK earth, or the vein of the Hermetic fountain or of Parnassus, which Pegasus opened with his iron hoof, or the Star of the black earth and heav-" original: "Subjectum, ex quo naturae tinctura spermatica et universalis potest extrahi, est aqua Mercurialis ex terra NIGRA prolecta seu vena Hermetici fontis aut Parnassi, quem Pegasus soleâ ferreâ aperuit, sive Astrum nigrae terrae et coe-"