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

...life. The text begins mid-sentence, continuing a Latin quotation from Herman Boerhaave regarding Ramon Lull. You may see with what clarity he explains there, through naked experiments and without any circumlocution, deceit, or fictions, the natures and actions of animals, fossils, and things growing from the earth. Then indeed, speak candidly: where have you found physics treated in such a way? "Through those demonstrations," he says, "which present bodies resolved by our art The "art" here refers to alchemy or the early chemical processes of separating substances. to the eyes and minds, we express our assent infinitely more effectively than by any force of arguments; through them, we do what we say, and we perform what we teach."

He recognized Arnald de Villanova Arnald de Villanova (c. 1240–1311) was a Catalan physician and alchemist, one of the most famous medical authorities of the Middle Ages. as his master. "I received these things," he says *), "and I held them from the most Serene King Robert of Naples, under the seal of secrecy; these experiments he himself had obtained from the most skilled Arnald de Villanova, who deserves to be called the fountain of science, because he flourished in all sciences beyond all other men."

Regarding the ridiculous fable of the rose nobles rose noble: a 15th-century English gold coin. A popular legend claimed Ramon Lull created the gold for these coins through alchemy for King Edward III. of Ramon, one need only read what Wegener says in his The Inept Adept original Latin: Adepto inepto, page 339, and what the late Wiegleb says in his Investigation of Alchemy, page 216 and following. Even Paracelsus judged: "It is thought that Lull falsely fabricated this gold from which the rose nobles were made." original Latin: Lullium hoc aurum, ex quo Rosenobel facti, falso fabricasse putari.

Ich hatte 1780 zwey seltne alchemistische Papier-Codices codex: a manuscript in book form, rather than a scroll., welche jetzt in einer berühmten Fürstlichen Bibliothek sind. Der eine ist in Frankreich, der andere in Italien geschrieben. Beyde enthielten die works of Ramon Lull.

*) In His Testament, and in the Preface to the Operative Art original Latin: Testamento suo and Praefat. artis operatiuae. Brucker, Critical History of Philosophy, Volume IV, Part I, page 15.