Literary Notices on the History of So-called Gold-making

Philippe d’Orville, regarding the copies of Chemical Glosses original: Glossis chemicis and passages from alchemical poems communicated to him, which were at that time in the St. Mark’s Library in Venice and are now in Paris. The parchment codex dates to the twelfth century and contains 169 folio leaves.

The excellent Abbate Morelli provides a precise description of it in the first part of his Library of Greek and Latin Manuscripts of the Royal St. Mark’s Library of Venice original: Bibliotheca manuscripta graeca et latina Bibliothecae regiae diui Marci Venetiarum (Bassani, 1802, large octavo), pages 172–178. Among other things, it contains nine Actions|The Greek word praxeis (πράξεις) used here refers to lectures or lessons rather than chemical processes by Stephan of Alexandria, the "Universal Philosopher," which Domenico Pizzimenti published in Latin in Padua in 1573. From a manuscript in the Breslau library, Hofrath Gruner had the first lecture printed in Greek in 1777.

Heliodorus’s iambic verses to the Emperor Theodosius, concerning the mystical art of the philosophers, were brought to light by Fabricius in volume VI of the Greek Library original: Biblioth. gr., page 790; excerpts with variations were provided by Bernard on page 151. On page 154, one reads excerpts from Theophrastus’s iambic verses On the Divine Art original: de Arte divina, as well as from several others.

The philosopher Anepigraphus|A Greek term meaning 'unlabeled' or 'untitled,' here used to refer to an anonymous author’s treatise On the Whitening of the Divine Water original: περι θειου υδατος της λευκοσεως is also found in a Vienna codex according to Lambecius, Book VI, page 397 and in a Florentine one according to Bandini, Volume III, page 352. In these same volumes, there are also Chemical Experiments original: Experimenta chemica by an unnamed author, as well as a treatise On the Divine Water, to Sergius by an "Anonymous Christian," and on the consistency of gold...