Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 477-499

www.brill.com/esm

Transmission and Transmutation: George Ripley and

the Place of English Alchemy in Early Modern Europe
Jennifer M. Rampling
University of Cambridge*

Abstract
Continental authors and editors often sought to ground alchemical writing within a
long-established, coherent and pan-European tradition, appealing to the authority of
adepts from different times and places. Greek, Latin and Islamic alchemists met both
in person and between the covers of books, in actual, fictional or coincidental encounters: a trope utilised in Michael Maiers Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum
(1617). This essay examines how works attributed to an English authority, George
Ripley (d. c. 1490), were received in central Europe and incorporated into continental
compendia. Placed alongside works by the philosophers of other nations, Ripleys
writings helped affirm the unity and truth of alchemy in defiance of its critics. His
continental editors were therefore concerned not only with the provenance of manuscripts and high-quality exemplars, but by a range of other factors, including the desire
to suppress controversial material, intervene in contemporary polemics, and defend
their art. In the resulting compilations, the vertical axis of alchemys long, diachronic
tradition may be compared to the horizontal plane of pan-European alchemy.
Keywords
George Ripley, alchemy, peregrinatio academica, translation, Michael Maier, Andreas
Libavius, Ludwig Combach

* Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free

School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, United Kingdom (jmr82@cam.ac.uk). This re
search was funded by a Darwin Trust of Edinburgh Martin Pollock doctoral scholarship and a Wellcome Trust postdoctoral research fellowship [090614/Z/09/Z]. Further
support for archival visits was provided by the Society for Renaissance Studies, the
Cambridge European Trust and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. Several translations were polished in the erudite and entertaining environment of
the Cambridge Latin Therapy Group. I am very grateful to all these institutions, and
to the journals two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012

DOI: 10.1163/15733823-175000A2

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Introduction
Alchemy, like other branches of natural knowledge, enjoyed a vigorous
circulation in early modern Europe. Offering philosophical speculation,
practical recipes, polemical attacks and passionate defences (several of
these functions sometimes combined in a single text), alchemical writing traversed the continent via manuscript and printed book, in compendia and correspondence, through practical demonstration and by
word of mouth. Practitioners of alchemy also travelled, or were perceived to have travelled, far and wide: seeking to acquire the wisdom
of their own and other nations; sometimes acquiring the sobriquet
Cosmopolite in the process.1 From the latter half of the sixteenth century,
this pan-national pursuit also served rhetorical ends, in defending the
reputation of alchemy from its critics. From their vantage points at the
urban, courtly and academic hubs of Central Europe, a host of writers,
editors and practitioners appealed to the authority of alchemists from
far-flung regions to support their contention that all the philosophershowever dispersed in time and placeessentially spoke with
one voice, testifying to the universal truth of alchemy, grounded in an
overarching prisca philosophia.2
The conference of philosophers provided both a literary trope and a
practical reality. In late medieval florilegia such as the Rosarium philo
sophorum, the words of many and varied authorities were accommodated within a single text, while the commonplacing of dicta and
recipes enabled physical encounters between the words, if not the persons, of the philosophers.3 Within individual tracts, however, authori Famous examples include such legendary, wandering adepts as Alexander Seton and
Eirenaeus Philalethes, able to live off their alchemical expertise; see William R.
Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the
Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1994), Introduction. The grittier practicalities
of alchemical peregrinations are explored by Tara Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority
in the Holy Roman Empire (Chicago, 2006), 30-32 and passim.
2)
On the universality of alchemical knowledge, see also Stephen Clucas, Alchemy
and Certainty in the Seventeenth Century, in Lawrence M. Principe, ed., Chymists
and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry (Sagamore
Beach, MA, 2007), 39-51; and the essays by Hkan Hkansson and Vera Keller in this
volume.
3)
See Joachim Telle, ed., Rosarium Philosophorum. Ein alchemisches Florilegium des
Sptmittelalters. (Faksimilie der illustrierten Erstausgabe Frankfurt 1550), 2 vols.
1)

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479

ties sometimes convened in imagined symposia: a trope rooted in the

Turba philosophorum, a literary conference of philosophers who meet
to clarify the alchemical doctrines hidden within the obscure sayings
of ancient authorities.4
This conceit received detailed elaboration in the Symbola aureae men
sae duodecim nationum (1617), a treatise in twelve books composed by
the alchemist and sometime imperial physician, Michael Maier (1569
1622).5 The setting is a banquet at the court of the Virgin Queen
Chemia, attended by twelve alchemists, each representing a different
nation. Beginning with Hermes Trismegistus as spokesman for the
Egyptians, the representative authorities take turns to refute the criticisms of the anti-alchemist, Pyrgopolynices (Adversarius Chemiae &
Chymicorum).6 His invocation of the combined wisdom of the twelve
(Weinheim, 1992). On the composition of florilegia more generally, see Alastair J.
Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle
Ages (London, 1984).
4)
The Turba, an early thirteenth-century Latin translation of an Arabic text composed
around 900, has generated an extensive literature, notably Julius Ruska, Turba Philoso
phorum: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Alchemie. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte
der Naturwissenschaften und der Medizin, 1 (1931). For a recent study, see Didier Kahn,
The Turba philosophorum and its French Version (15th C.), in Miguel Lpez Prez,
Didier Kahn and Mar Rey Buono, eds., Chymia: Science and Nature in Medieval and
Early Modern Europe (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010), 70-114.
5)
Michael Maier, Symbola avreae mensae dvodecim nationvm: hoc est, Hermaea sev
Mercvrii festa ab heroibus duodenu selectu, artis chymicae usu, sapientia & authoritate
paribvs celebrata, ad Pyrgopolynicen seu aduersarium illum tot annis iactabundum ...
(Frankfurt am Main, 1617). On Maiers alchemical pursuits see, inter alia, Karin Figala
& Ulrich Neumann, A propos de Michael Maier: quelques dcouvertes bio-biblio
graphiques, in Didier Kahn and Sylvain Matton, eds., Alchimie: Art, Histoire et Mythes
(Paris and Milan, 1995), 651-664; ibidem, Author cui nomen Hermes Malavici:
New Light on the Bio-bibliography of Michael Maier (15691622), in Piyo M.
Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio, eds., Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th
centuries (Dordrecht, 1994), 121-147; Erik Leibenguth, Hermetische Poesie des Frh
barock: die Cantilenae intellectuales Michael Maiers: Edition mit bersetzung, Kom
mentar und Bio-Bibliographie (Tbingen, 2002); Hereward Tilton, The Quest for the
Phoenix: Spiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism in the Work of Count Michael Maier
(15691622) (Berlin, 2003).
6)
Maier had in fact visited many of these nations in the course of his own peregrinatio
academica. In the Symbola he further alluded to the benefits of journeying on the
metaphysical level: Maier, Symbola, 569.

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nations is an imaginative development of what was, by 1617, already

a well-worn rhetorical strategy. In this case, however, the philosophers
have assembled both to explicate and to defend their artthe ancient
and early medieval authorities (Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman and
Arab) seated alongside the chief alchemists of Christendom: German,
French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, andthe focus of this
essayEnglish.
George Ripley: An Englishman Abroad
Maiers inclusion of an English representative, Roger Bacon, at his
Golden Table reflects his esteem for the alchemical literature of this
nation, as reflected in his own translations of works by or attributed to
English adepts.7 England, in many respects peripheral to the great centres of European learning, nevertheless produced its share of medieval
alchemical authorities, including, besides Bacons genuine and pseudoepigraphic works, those attributed to his thirteenth- and fourteenthcentury countrymen, Ricardus Anglicus and John Dastin. From the
fourteenth century onwards, an influx of pseudo-Lullian texts from the
continent kept English alchemy vigorous and up to date.8 PseudoLullian practices, fusing with a native tradition of vernacular poetry
typified by the alchemical digressions of Gower and Chaucer, produced
some of the most distinctive works of English alchemy, of which George
Ripley (d. c. 1490) and Thomas Norton (d. 1513) were the most important and influential exponents.9 Their masterworksRipleys Com
Michael Maier, Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres tractatus chymici selectissimi (Frankfurt
am Main, 1618).
8)
On pseudo-Lullian alchemy in England, see Michela Pereira, The Alchemical Corpus
Attributed to Raymond Lull (London, 1989); eadem, Mater Medicinarum: English
Physicians and the Alchemical Elixir in the Fifteenth Century, in Roger French, Jon
Arrizabalaga, Andrew Cunningham, and Luis Garcia-Ballester, eds., Medicine from the
Black Death to the French Disease (Aldershot, 1998), 26-52.
9)
On English alchemical poetry, see Robert M. Schuler, ed., Alchemical Poetry 1575
1700: From Previously Unpublished Manuscripts (New York, 1995); Anke Timmermann,
The Circulation and Reception of a Middle English Alchemical Poem: The Verses
upon the Elixir and the Associated Corpus of Alchemica, Ph.D. dissertation (Uni
versity of Cambridge, 2006); George R. Keiser, Preserving the Heritage: Middle
7)

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481

pound of Alchemy, or Twelve Gates, dated 1471, and Nortons Ordinall

of Alchemy, dated 1477were composed not in Latin prose, but in
Middle English verse. These works remained touchstones of English
alchemical practice throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries;
eventually providing the first two entries in Elias Ashmoles compendium of English alchemical verse, the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum
(1652).10
It was Ripley, however, whose works achieved the greatest success
in mainland Europe, notwithstanding Maiers translation of Nortons
Ordinall into Latin prose, published in 1618.11 The early translation of
the Compound into Latin, as the Liber duodecim portarum (Book of the
Twelve Gates), and the perceived place of the work within a larger
Ripleian corpus (including many late or spurious tracts), undoubtedly
contributed to Ripleys popularity beyond his native shores, including
an honourable mention at Maiers philosophical banquet.
As an established alchemical classic, the Compound has received its
share of scholarly attention, primarily focused on the English print
editions of Ralph Rabbards (1591) and Ashmole.12 However, the work
English Verse Treatises in Early Modern Manuscripts, in Stanton J. Linden, ed.,
Mystical Metal of Gold: Essays on Alchemy and Renaissance Culture (New York, 2007),
189-214; Didier Kahn, Alchemical Poetry in Medieval and Early Modern Europe:
A Preliminary Survey and Synthesis. Part IPreliminary Survey, Ambix, 57 (2010),
249-74, and Part IISynthesis, Ambix, 58 (2011), 62-77.
10)
Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. Containing severall poeticall pieces
of our famous English philosophers, who have written the hermetique mysteries in their
owne ancient language (London, 1652) (hereafter TCB), at 1-106 and 107-93,
respectively.
11)
Maier, Tripus Aureus. On Ripley, see Jennifer M. Rampling, Establishing the
Canon: George Ripley and His Alchemical Sources, Ambix, 55 (2008), 189-208;
eadem, The Catalogue of the Ripley Corpus: Alchemical Writings Attributed to
George Ripley (d. c. 1490), Ambix, 57 (2010), 125-201 (hereafter CRC); Lawrence
M. Principe, Ripley, George, in Claus Priesner and Karin Figala, eds., Alchimie.
Lexicon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft (Munich, 1998), 305-6; Joachim Telle, Ripley,
George, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 7 (Munich, 1995), 861.
12)
George Ripley, The Compound of Alchymy ... Divided into twelue gates ... Set foorth
by Raph Rabbards Gentleman, studious and expert in archemicall artes (London, 1591).
Rabbards text is reproduced with some spelling emendations in a recent edition,
although the accompanying commentary should be approached with caution: George
Ripleys Compound of Alchemy (1591), ed. Stanton J. Linden (Aldershot, 2001); cf.

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known to sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Europe was not the

Compound known today from these editions. Ripleys English editors
were at pains to include the fullest possible versions of the text: two
prefatory poems, the Prologue and Preface; the actual Twelve
Gates and their Recapitulation; Ripleys concluding Admonition;
and an associated, dedicatory poem, The Epistle to Edward IV. Yet no
authoritative master text dates from Ripleys lifetime in which all of
these elements are preserved.13 Rather, the text of the Compound was
adapted over the course of a century-long scribal circulation, later to
be reassembled from multiple copies by diligent scribesa process that
did not end with the works translation into Latin and European vernaculars.14
The posthumous peregrinations of Ripleys works are fitting, given
that the major items in the corpus describe their authors alchemical
studies abroad. In the Compound, Ripley mentions his learning in
Italy,15 observing that, I cowde never fynde hym wythin Englond /
whych on thys wyse to Ferment cowde me teche.16 In the preface to
his prose treatise, the Medulla alchimiae, he promises to reveal the learning that he obtained during his travels in Italy and the surrounding
regions, over the space of nine years.17 Italian wanderings are also
described in the Ripleian Cantilena and Philorcium alchymistarum,
although these works cannot be definitively linked to Ripleys pen.18
Didier Kahn, Stanton J. Linden (ed.): George Ripleys Compound of Alchemy (1591)
(review), Archives Internationales dHistoire des Sciences, 53 (2003), 347-53.
13)
The earliest surviving complete Compound may well be Bodleian Library MS e.
mus. 63, transcribed around 1550 (CRC 9.26 in Rampling, CRC).
14)
See Keiser, Preserving the Heritage, 192-93; Rampling, CRC.
15)
TCB, 108.
16)
Fermentation 16, TCB, 177. It is perhaps during his travels that he met the master
referred to later in the Compound: The same my Doctour to me did shew, Calcina
tion 9, TCB, 131.
17)
[T]ractaturus de secretis Alkimice que progressu et indagatu annorum nouem in
Italia circumvicinisque ipsius partibus nanciscebar medullam quodammodo natur[a]e
ipsa grossiori feculentiorique substancia carnium resecata ex ipsius interioribus secre
tioribus. Cambridge, Trinity College Library R.14.58 (Part 3), fol. 1v. Italics denote
expansion of abbreviated text in manuscript. All translations are mine unless otherwise
stated.
18)
Rampling, CRC, at 146, 184.

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483

The travels and travails of the alchemist are familiar topoi of alchemical texts, and given the prevalence of pseudo-epigraphic works in the
Ripley corpus, these autobiographical assertions should be handled with
care. Such survivals nevertheless illustrate an interesting trend in Ripleys later reception, in which the Yorkshire canon is extracted from his
geographically remote starting point and resituated within a wider
European tradition. The relationship between knowledge and travel,
often worked out through the peripatetic lives of alchemical practi
tioners, is explicit in Ripleys methodology. Dissatisfied by the inade
quacies of English learning, he embarks for the great heartlands of
alchemical knowledge: Italy and the German lands. Having acquired
the necessary knowledge from continental masters, he makes the return
voyage to England to compose his works, unaware that a century later
his physical and intellectual peregrinatio alchemica would be curiously
echoed by the activities of his own continental editors.
Early Editions
Even as Ripleys reputation blossomed in England, his alchemy took
root abroad, with Latin translations of Ripleian works already circulating in manuscript in France and Italy by the early 1570s,19 and throughout East-Central Europe by the end of the century.20 An established
and trusted authority, Ripley was esteemed among continental cogno
scenti both for his clarity of exposition, and the practical utility of his
processes. Thus the Saxon alchemist, physician and schoolmaster
Andreas Libavius (c. 15501616), a sharp critic of contemporary practitioners, considered the late medieval Hermetic alchemy of Lull and
Ripley superior to more recent Paracelsian works in practical efficacy

See, for instance, Rampling, CRC 9.42 and 9.46 (Liber duodecim portarum); and
CRC 16.10-11 (Latin re-translations from the English Marrow of Alchemy, based on
the Medulla alchimiae).
20)
These include Ripleian compilations in Cieszyn, Ksinica Cieszyska MS
DD.vii.33 and Wien, sterreichische Nationalbibliothek Codex 11133. See Rampling,
CRC; eadem, John Dee and the Alchemists: Practising and Promoting English
Alchemy in the Holy Roman Empire, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 43
(2012), 498-508, at 501-2.
19)

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and consistency of terminology.21 In his monumental Syntagmatis arca

norum chymicorum, Libavius provided a commentary on the Liber duo
decim portarum that runs to 37 folio pages, in which he allowed the
English Canon to be either the first of the best who have written of
chrysopoeia [...] or to be not far from the first.22 Nor was Ripleys
knowledge limited to gold-making. The French royal physician and
defender of Paracelsian medicine, Joseph Du Chesne (15461609),
ranked the English Canon among the foremost doctors and philosophers who worked to uncover the universal medicine: the others being
Raymond Lull, Roger Bacon, John of Rupescissa and Christopher of
Paris.23
Over the period 15951649, the Liber duodecim portarum was published in three Latin editions. Two of these, edited by the Frenchmen
Bernard Gilles Penot (c. 15221620)24 and Nicolas Barnaud (c. 1539
1604?),25 were subsequently reprinted in the monumental Theatrum
See Bruce T. Moran, Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating
Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire (Sagamore Beach, MA, 2007).
22)
[N]oster Riplaeus videatur inter optimos, qui de chrysopoeia scripserunt, ...
primus, aut non procul primis esse. Analysis Dvodecim Portarvm Georgii Riplaei
Angli, Canonici Regularis Britlintonensis, in Andreas Libavius, Syntagmatis arcanorum
chymicorum: tomus [primus] secundus (Frankfurt, 16131615), 400-36, at 400.
23)
Huiusmodi interpretes fuerunt Lullus, Rogerius Baccho, Riplaeus, Rupecissa [sic]
Cristophorus Parisiensis, ac plerique alij magni nominis ac celeberrimi Medici &
Philosophi. Joseph Du Chesne, Ad Veritatem Hermetic Medicin ex Hippocratis
veterumque decretis ac Therapeusi, ... adversus cujusdam Anonymi phantasmata Responsio
(Paris, 1604), fol. [a.v]r. On Du Chesne, see Didier Kahn, Alchimie et Paracelsisme en
France la fin de la Renaissance (15671625) (Geneva, 2007), chs. 3.2, 4.1 and passim.
24)
George Ripley, Duodecim portarum epitome, in Egidii de Vadis Dialogus inter
Naturam et Filium Philosophiae, Accedunt Abditarum rerum Chemicarum Tractatus Varii
scitu dignissimi ut versa pagina indicabit. Autore et Collectore Bernardo G. Penoto a Portu
S. Mariae Aquitano, Reipubl. Franckatallensis D. Physico (Frankfurt, 1595), 67-92;
Theatrum chemicum, prcipuos selectorum auctorum tractatus de chemi et lapidis
philosophici antiquitate, veritate, iure, prstantia et operationibus ... , 6 vols., comp.
Lazarus Zetzner (Ursel and Strasbourg, 16021661) (hereafter TC), II: 114-25; JeanJacques Manget, ed., Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1702), II: 275-85
25)
Nicolas Barnaud, Quadriga aurifera (Prima rota: Tractatus de philosophia metallorum,
a doctissimo ... viro anonymo conscriptus; 2a rota: Georgii Riplei Liber duodecim
portarum; 3a rota: Liber de mercurio et lapide philosophor. Georgii Riplei; 4a rota:
Scriptum ... docti viri cuius nomen excidit, elixir solis Theophrasti Paracelsi tractans)
(Leiden, 1599); TC, III: 797-821.
21)

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485

chemicum, ensuring wide diffusion throughout the seventeenth century.

A version of Ripleys Medulla was printed in 1614,26 while Barnauds
edition of the Liber duodecim portarum appeared in French translation
in 1618, and in German in 1624.27
Ripley made his Latin print debut in 1595, when an abbreviated
prose translation of the Compound was published in Frankfurt by the
Paracelsian physician Bernard Penot.28 Penot included the Epitome of
the Twelve Gates, or Axiomata philosophica, in a collection of alchemical tracts that seems almost consciously international in flavour. Ripleys axioms are located between the Dialogus and epistle of gidius de
Vadis (alias Giles Du Wes, a Frenchman domiciled in England), and a
further set of axioms attributed to Albertus Magnus. The Physica chy
mica attributed to another German, the Benedictine abbot Johannes
Trithemius, follows, then a short work by the legendary Dutch adept,
Isaac Hollandus.29
The geographical and linguistic range of Penots selection is no accident. On its arrival in mainland Europe, Ripleys text entered a rough
playing field, riven by confessional and professional disputes, notably
the escalating debate between the proponents of chemical and Galenic
medicine. In 1571 the Swiss theologian Thomas Erastus (15241583)
had denied the possibility of interchange between metallic species,
Opuscula quaedam Chemica. Georgii Riplei Angli Medvlla Philosophiae Chemicae.
Incerti avtoris canones decem, Mysterium artis mira brevitate & perspicuitate compre
hendentes Omnia partim ex veteribus Manuscriptis eruta, partim restituta (Frankfurt
am Main, 1614). Latin re-translation of the English Marrow.
27)
Trois traitez de la philosophie naturelle, non encores imprimez: savoir: La turbe des
philosophes, plus, La parole dlaisse de Bernard Trevisan et un petit traict, trs-ancien,
intitul, Les douze portes dalchymie, autres que celles de Ripla (Paris, 1618); Chymische
Schrifften des hochgelehrten, frtrefflichen vnd weitberhmten Philosophi Georgii Riplaei,
Canonici Angli. Darinnen vom gebenedeyeten Stein der Weisen vnd desselben kunstreicher
praeparation grndlich gelehret wird, Zuvor durch den Hochgelahrten Herrn Nicolaum
Barnaudum Chymicum zu Lateinischer Sprache publiciret ... (Erfurt, 1624).
28)
Penot, ed., Egidii de Vadis. For a detailed biography and bibliography of Penot, see
Eugne Olivier, Bernard Gilles Penot (Du Port), mdecin et alchimiste (15191617),
ed. Didier Kahn, Chrysopoeia, 5 (19921996), 571-668.
29)
gidius de Vadis, Dialogus inter Naturam et Filium Philosophiae (fols. A3vA5v,
1-64); Albertus Magnus, Alia axiomata philosophiae (93-101); Ps.Trithemius, Physica
chymica (101-6); Isaac Hollandus, Fragmentum de lapide philosophorum (114-24).
26)

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J.M. Rampling / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 477-499

attacking the very basis of alchemical transmutation and hence the

authority and veracity of past adepts.30 The chymist Gaston DuClo, or
Claveus, responded with a detailed rebuttal of Erastuss arguments in
the Apologia argyropoeiae et chrysopoeiae adversus Thomam Erastum (Nevers, 1590), which Penot, himself a vocal defender of Paracelsian medicine, re-edited in 1598, with a subtly altered title.31 In 1602, the
Apologia, supported by Penots commendatory preface, was reprinted
immediately before Ripleys Axiomata in the Theatrum chemicum.
The Axiomata and their accompanying texts were therefore mustered
for reasons beyond the simple imparting of alchemical knowledge.
Together they provide witnesses to the truth of alchemy, whose arguments and precepts, set forth at different times and in different places,
nevertheless cohere. The stockpiled axioms of Ripley and other philosophers line up silently behind DuClo, whose text takes the offensive
part, disputing against Thomas Erastus, and solidly refuting all his
arguments not only with reasons, but also with demonstrations, and
sure experiments. Thus, says Penot, the Art is shown to be true, certain, and without difficulty.32
The Axiomata do not, of course, give a complete rendition of Ripleys
poem. The text itself consists of a more or less direct translation of the
Thomas Erastus, Explicatio quaestionis, qua quaeritur: utrum ex metallis ignobilibus
arte conflari aurum posit verum et naturale in Disputationum de medicina nova
Philippi Paracelsi pars prima (Basle, 1571). Various aspects of the controversy are
discussed by Kahn, Alchimie et Paracelsisme; Moran, Andreas Libavius; William R.
Newman, Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the. Experimental Origins of the Scientific
Revolution (Chicago, 2006). See also Charles D. Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus and the
Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation (Leiden, 2011).
31)
Gaston Claveus, Apologia chrysopoieae et argyropoeiae Adversus Thomam Erastum
Doctorem et Professorem Medicinae. An. Quid, et Quomodo sit Chrysopoeia et Argyropoeia
Nunc primum a Bernardo G. Penoto a portu S. Maria Aquitano, cum annotationibus
marginalibus edita (Geneva, 1598). On DuClo, see Lawrence M. Principe, Diversity
in Alchemy: The Case of Gaston Claveus DuClos: A Scholastic Mercurialist Chry
sopian, in Allen G. Debus and Michael T. Walton, eds., Reading the Book of Nature:
The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution (Kirksville, MO, 1998), 181-200.
32)
Claveus adversus Thomam Erastum disputans, eiusq[ue] argumenta omnia solide
refutans, firmissimis tum rationibus, tum demonstrationibus & certis experimentis
Artem veram, certam & facilem esse ostendit, & confirmat. Bernard G. Penot,
Ad Lectorem Praefatio, in qua omnem totius artis potentiam & efficaciam in
duobus consistere verbis ostendit, in TC, II: 1-2.
30)

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487

first five stanzas of the Compounds Preface, followed by selected precepts drawn from the remainder of the Preface, the Twelve Gates
and the Recapitulation. The concluding Admonition, in which
Ripley recounts his long past history of failed experiments, is omitted
entirely, apart from a few lines at the end. Possibly Penot felt that this
material detracted from the case he was attempting to put across. Also
omitted is a long passage from the fifth Gate, Putrefaction, in which
Ripley satirises fraudulent alchemists. Although satirical verses provided
a staple component of English alchemical poetry, in emulation of Chaucers Canons Yeomans Tale, it seems they failed to weather the tough
continental climate.
The publication of a more substantial edition of Ripleys poem was
not, however, far off, and was soon effected by Nicolas Barnaud, who
had previously met Penot in Prague.33 Ripleys Liber duodecim portarum
and Liber de mercurio et lapide philosophorum provide, respectively, the
second and third wheels of Barnauds four-wheeled chariot of texts, the
Quadriga aurifera, compiled in Leiden in 1599.34
Even more explicitly than Penot, Barnauds prefaces emphasise the
trans-national quality of alchemical knowledge. In the preface to his
readers, the well-travelled editor promises that his Quadriga offers the
best knowledge to be gleaned from the French, English, Germans, Italians, Poles, Bohemians, Prussians, Swedes and Dutch, not to mention
the philosophers of the Swiss Confederacy:
All of which kingdoms, dominions and countries, by the goodness of God I travelled through, practising medicine, several times: and I discussed my studies with
no small number of philosophers known to me.35

On Barnauds travels, see Didier Kahn, Between Alchemy and Antitrinitarianism:

Nicolas Barnaud (ca. 15391604?), trans. Robert Folger, in Martin Mulsow and Jan
Rohls, eds., Socinianism and Arminianism: Antitrinitarians, Calvinists, and Cultural
Exchange in Seventeenth-century Europe (Leiden, 2005), 81-96.
34)
George Ripley, Liber duodecim portarum, in Barnaud, Quadriga aurifera, 23-66.
35)
Idq[ue] maxim in Gallorum, Anglorum, Germanorum, Italorum, Polonorum,
Bohemorum, Borussorum, Suecorum, & ad miraculum natorum Batauorum, &
Regionum confderatarum philosophorum. Quorum omnium regna, ditiones &
agros, Dei beneficio, medicinam faciens aliquoties lustraui, & cm non paucis
philosophis mihi notis studia mea contuli. Barnaud, Quadriga aurifera, 8.
33)

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Barnaud fittingly dedicated his edition of an English work to another

probable acquaintance from his Prague days, the recently-knighted
English courtier, poet and alchemical enthusiast, Sir Edward Dyer
(15431607).36 In the dedication, he recalls his motives for publishing
Ripleys unabridged text. Some years have passed, he explains, since
Bernard Penot, medical doctor and my esteemed friend, published
the axioms extracted from the Liber duodecim portarum of the learned
English philosopher, Ripley. However, the usefulness of this work is
such that Barnaud thought it worthwhile to publish the entire book
of the author, which has long lain concealed in my house, dedicating
it to Dyer: you who easily hold the first place among all philosophers
in the realm of England.37
Penots and Barnauds versions were thus linked from the start, and
comparison reveals that the latter text is, indeed, virtually identical to
the former. Furthermore, the source of Barnauds more complete version
of the Compound is not Rabbards recent edition from across the English Channel, but the manuscript already concealed in his possession.38
Barnaud has relied on this exemplar to plug the gaps between Penots
extractions, presenting The Book of the Twelve Gates, in no way mutilated, but complete.39 Yet despite this claim, Barnauds edition is still
Dyer was knighted in 1596. He had previously visited Prague on at least three
occasions between 1588 and 1590, partly in repeated attempts to persuade Edward
Kelley to return to England or to teach him alchemical secrets, and it is probable that
he met Barnaud during this time. See Ralph M. Sargent, The Life and Lyrics of Sir
Edward Dyer (Oxford, 1968).
37)
Cvm annos iam aliquot in luce[m] prodierint axiomata quaedam philosophica,
Bernardo Penoto portu Doctore medico, amico meo obseruando, libro duodecim
portarum Georgij Riplei, doctissimi philosophi Angli, collecta, & comperissem quae
dam, ad rem maxim facientia, in iis desiderari: opere pretium existimaui, integrum
illum auctoris librum, qui apud me iam diu delituit, qua par est fide, & obseruantia,
tuo nomini (qui omnium philosophorum in Regno Angliae, vt caetera regna tacea[m],
facile primas tenes) dicare, & tuo clypeo tutum typis tradere, & euulgare. Barnaud,
Dedication to Quadriga Aurifera, secunda rota, Quadriga Aurifera, 21-22.
38)
This conceit evokes Rabbards own preface to the English edition, in which the
revelation of another private, exemplary manuscript is described: Rabbards Hauing
reserued the Copie hereof these fortie yeares for many secrete vses. Rabbards,
Preface to Ripley, Compound of Alchymy, 9.
39)
Liber dvodecim portarvm nequaquam mutilus, sed integer. Barnaud, Quadriga
Aurifera, 23.
36)

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489

far from a complete translation of the Compound. Both the Admonition and 30 stanzas from Putrefaction, including the most controversial material, are missing.40
That Ripleys works were already circulating in France by the 1580s
is confirmed by the survival of several early manuscripts, including a
compilation in the Caprara collection, now in Bologna, containing a
Liber duodecim portarum and five other Ripleian works, transcribed in
France around February 1570.41 The Liber in Bibliothque Nationale
MS Lat. 12993 is dated 1571,42 while Bibliothque Nationale MS Lat.
14012 includes a Liber and six other Ripleian texts compiled between
January 1585 and August 1587.43
A striking similarity between these manuscript Libri and Penots and
Barnauds editions is that all are based on the same Latin translation.44
However, there is also a significant difference. Although lacking the
original prologue (also missing from both print versions), the Libri in
BUB MS 109 and BN MS Lat. 12993 are otherwise complete versions
of Ripleys poem, while BN MS Lat. 14012 lacks only twelve stanzas
throughout. All three retain the controversial sections on fraudulent
and failed alchemy, subsequently omitted in print. Thus, although
Penot and Barnaud drew on an existing manuscript tradition in prepar TC, II: 120; III: 810. The omitted stanzas are 20-47 and 49-50 respectively.
Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna MS 109, vol. II, fol. 1r: Ex vetustissimo
manuscripto | transcriptus Anno Christi 1570 | Mense februario 5 (see Rampling,
CRC). On the provenance of the Caprara collection, see Didier Kahn, Le fonds
Caprara de manuscrits alchimiques de la Bibliothque Universitaire de Bologne,
Scriptorium, 48 (1994), 62-110.
42)
Georgii Riplaei Chanonici angli. Xii. portar[um] Libru[m] ann[o] .1471. Prologus.
anno 1571. CRC 9.46, in Rampling, CRC.
43)
CRC 9.47, in Rampling, CRC. The other texts are the Epistle to Edward IV,
Philorcium, Pupilla (dated January 1585), Liber de Mercurio et lapide philosophorum,
Terra terrarum, and Medulla (dated August 1587). Both manuscripts are described in
James A. Corbett, Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques latins, vol. I: Manuscrits des
bibliothques publiques de Paris antrieurs au XVIIe sicle (Brussels, 1939), 161-63;
202-7. As Didier Kahn has noted, part of Ripleys Preface was also incorporated into
an anonymous Discours of 1590: Didier Kahn, Alchimie et littrature Paris en des
temps de trouble: le Discours dautheur incertain sur la pierre des philosophes (1590),
Rforme, Humanisme, Renaissance, 21 (1995), 75-122, at 120.
44)
Incipit: O lumen incomprehensibile, et gloriosum in Majestate; explicit: Quam
in suo regno faxit is ut possimus videre. Amen.
40)

41)

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ing their editions, they appear to have been selective with this materialexcising text which did not suit the apologetic objectives of their
compilations.
Exemplary Texts
The selection of high quality exempla was necessary for any editor claiming to preserve an original text, free from errors, lacunae or extraneous
additions. This humanistic concern with textual integrity was as valid
for alchemy as for other subjects, and editors of alchemical books were
quick to point out the inadequacies of earlier or rival publications, and
to emphasise the reputable provenance of their own manuscript copies.
However, as the excision of controversial material from print copies of
the Liber suggests, editors could also introduce changes to their text
that influenced its subsequent reception. Thus Libavius, relying on the
editions of Penot and Barnaud, seems to have been unaware of the
content of Ripleys prologue and Admonition, which accordingly
receive no commentary in his own Analysis duodecim portarum.
Yet Libavius was clearly aware of the perils of faulty transcription
and careless editing. In his introduction to the Analysis he describes
a German translation of the Liber made by a nameless alchemist, who
presented it to a certain prince as though the treatise were his own.45
However, this translation differed in various ways from the text of
Barnauds 1599 edition. Libavius concluded that, rather than interpolating anything new himself, the translator had relied upon an alternative version of the classic text. He does not speculate as to whether this
version may have been an alternative Latin redaction, or a fresh translation from the English. Rather, he takes the opportunity to criticise
errors arising from faulty transcription or inappropriate amendment:
Which no one should wonder at who knows that monks in epitomising render
many things ambiguous and obfuscate; while scribes will have gone astray in read-

I have been unable to trace this German translation of the Compound, which clearly
does not correspond to that published in Chymische Schrifften. The latter is a direct
translation of Barnauds Quadriga aurifera, in which all four texts, including one
attributed to Paracelsus, are grouped under Ripleys name.
45)

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491

ing and copying; to say nothing of those smatterers, who when they think some
text is false, delete it, substituting their own fantasies, and thus make work for
other correctors in turn, so that eventually, if the author had to identify his own
book, he would probably not be able to recognise it.46

Ludwig Combach (15901657), physician to Moritz, Landgraf of

Hesse-Kassel, and his successors, Wilhelm V and Wilhelm VI, expressed
a similar concern regarding both textual degeneration and manuscript
provenance in his own Tractatus aliquot (1647). This typically international compendium included treatises attributed to Dutch, French,
German and Italian alchemists, besides the English adepts John Belye,
John Dastin and Edward Kelley.47 In the preface, Combach deplores
the degradation of alchemical texts through poor transcription, pointing to his own careful selection of exemplars as a corrective. For example, one text, previously published full of vices by Johannes Rhenanus,
has been salvaged through cross-referencing with two other sources: a
Latin manuscript belonging to one of Combachs predecessors at Kassel,
the physician Jacobus Mosanus; and a reliable German translation by
the former abbot, Erasmus Kupfermann.48 Combach was thus at pains
Quod cum quidam alius, de cuius nomine non constat, verum iudicaret, in
linguam patriam Germanorum opus transtulit, & magno cuidam Principi tanquam
suum obtulit, in qua translatione deprehendi alicubi dissensum ab impresso Barnaudi,
vt veri simile sit, si interpres nihil de suo adiecit, diuersae lectionis scripturam habuisse,
id quod nemo mirati debet, qui scit monachos abbreuiando multa ambigua reddere
& obscurare: notarios autem legendo, describendoq[ue] falli, ne quid dicamus de sciolis
istis, qui cum putent falsum scriptum, deleto sua phantasmata substituunt, atque ita aliis
rursum correctoribus negotium facessunt, vt tandem, si autor deberet recognoscere
suum libellum, verisimile sit, non agniturum. Libavius, Syntagmatis, 400.
47)
Ludwig Combach, Tractatus aliquot chemici singulares summum philosophorum
arcanum continentes, 1. Liber de principiis naturae, & artis chemicae, incerti authoris.
2. Johannis Belye Angli ... tractatulus novus, & alius Bernhardi Comitis Trevirensis, ex
Gallico versus. Cum fragmentis Eduardi Kellaei, H. Aquilae Thuringi, & Joh. Isaaci
Hollandi. 3. Fratris Ferrarii tractatus integer, hactenus fere suppressus, & in principio &
fine plus quam dimidia parte mutilatus. 4. Johannis Daustenii Angli Rosarium. Opuscula
partim nondum in lucem producta ... (Geismar, 1647).
48)
Et prior quidem, qui est de principiis naturae & artis, in Syntagmate harmoniae
Chymico-philosophicae Johannis Rhenani vitiosiim editus ex duplici manuscripto
exemplari nunc correctus est, uno Latino ex bibliotheca Dn. Jacobi Mosani Angli
Doctoris Medici, altero ver Germanico Dn. Erasmi Kupfermanni Abbatis quondam
in Herren Breitungen, translatitio, ut puto, sed nullis mendis aut lacunis hiulco.
46)

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to stress the reliability and completeness of his editions, based on manuscript exemplars that included copies endorsed by well known practitioners, who included, besides Mosanus, the imperial councillor
Nicolaus Mai, or Maius, and the English alchemist Edward Kelley.
Combachs comments may also offer clues to his relationship with other
physicians who benefited from the Landgraf s patronage.49 Despite his
chemical interests, Combach was employed as a medical rather than an
alchemical consultant, in contrast with Moritzs protg Rhenanus: a
fact which may have added spice to his critique.
Contemporary concerns also underwrote Combachs efforts to bring
the Liber duodecim portarum to the press for the third time, as the first
of twelve works included in Ripleys Opera omnia chemica (1649).50
Combachs interest in editing texts in a variety of languages, by both
medieval and contemporary authors, is attested by his earlier volume,
the Tractatus aliquot, and his later translation of Jacques de Nuysements
popular work on salt from French into Latin.51 In the Opera omnia we
have apparently his only attempt to collect the works of a single author,

Combach, Tractatus aliquot, 10-1. This treatise is presumably the anonymous Liber
de principiis naturae, & artis Chemicae (Combach, Tractatus aliquot, Pt. I, 3-56),
previously published by Rhenanus as De Principiis naturae, & arte alchymica in his
Syntagma harmoniae chymico-philosophicae ... (Frankfurt, 1625), 7-48. The Syntagma
should not be confused with the similarly titled Harmoniae chymico-philosophicae ...
Decas II, also published by Rhenanus in Frankfurt in 1625.
49)
See Bruce T. Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy
and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (15721632) (Stuttgart, 1991),
ch. 5, esp. 75-9.
50)
George Ripley, Opera omnia chemica, cum praefatione a Ludovico Combachio (Kassel,
1649) (hereafter OOC).
51)
Tractatus De Vero Sale Secreto Philosophorum, & de universali Mundi Spiritu ... Nunc
simplicissimo stylo Latine versus a Ludovico Combachio D. & Illustrissimor. Hassiae PP.
Medico ordinario (Kassel, 1651). This edition was itself translated into English by
Robert Turner, who also transformed Combach into a French court physician: Sal,
lumen, & spiritus mundi philosophici: or, the dawning of the day ... Written originally in
French, afterwards turned into Latin, by the illustrious doctor, Lodovicus Combachius,
ordinary physitian to the King, and publick professor of the physick in the University of
Mompelier. And now transplanted into Albyons Garden, by R.T. (London, 1657). Bruce
Moran also cites Combach as the author of a treatise concerning an alchemical Liquor
Alkahest (Venice, 1641): Moran, The Alchemical World, 75.

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493

yet even here it is clear that the English Canon is to be viewed as an

actor on a wider international stage.
Combachs preface demonstrates familiarity with the tropes and
devices common in the alchemical literature of the period. The tract
opens with a denouncement of false and fraudulent practitioners, who
debase the spirit of alchemical philosophy (huius Philosophiae genius).
Combach then follows the example of Maier in the Symbola by listing
the great alchemists by nation, starting with Hermes Trismegistus
among the Egyptians. However, Maiers twelve nations are here reduced
to eight, with an additional grouping of important anonymous works.
The apparent division reflects an underlying unity that is all the more
impressive given the range of its manifestations:
You see, good reader, how many and how great men bear witness to the truth of
this divine knowledge, who are all available either in manuscript or in print; and
differ so much in nations, eras, and languages, while great dissimilarity can also
be seen to belong to their words; yet they agree marvellously in sense and in fact.
Rashly to pronounce them guilty, with Nicolas Guibert, the Lotharingian physician, of vanity, ignorance, stupidity, madness, falsehood, and impiety would surely
be the greatest temerity.52

The nations of philosophers have, once more, been assembled to good

purpose. In 1603 a physician from Lorraine, Nicolas Guibert (c. 1547
c. 1620), disillusioned after forty years of unsuccessful alchemical practice, published a powerful denunciation of the art. Among his criticisms,
Guibert sought to undermine the textual basis of alchemical practice
by challenging the authority of past adepts. Thus, the ancient authorities, Hermes and Aristotle, had not written the foundational texts of
alchemy which had long been attributed to them. The alchemical works
of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were spurious. Although

Vides, benigne Lector, quot & quanti viri veritatem hujus divinae scientiae
testentur, qui omnes aut manuscripti, aut typis impressi extant; & cum tantoper
nationibus, aetate, & linguis different, magna etiam verbis eorum videatur inesse
discrepantia, mir tamen in Sensu & Rebus consentiunt; quos temer, cum Nicolao
Guiberto Medico Lotharingo, vanitatis, inscitiae, stultitiae, insaniae, mendacii,
impietatis reos pronunciare, maxima profect temeritas esset. OOC, fol. 4r.

52)

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Raymond Lull had written on alchemy, in doing so he had been deluded

by demons.53
Guiberts attack provoked immediate retaliation, most vociferously
from Libavius (in 1604 and 1615), but also from the Dutch alchemist
Ewald von Hoghelande (1604), and Ripleys sometime editor, Penot
(1608).54 Combachs comments, published in 1649, therefore provide
a surprisingly late response to the controversy, yet his response to Guibert may reflect more immediate concerns. Only a few years earlier, in
1641, Guerner (Werner) Rolfinck (15991673), professor of anatomy,
surgery and botany at the University of Jena, had argued against transmutation in his chemical textbook Chimia in artis formam redacta.
Rolfinck cited Guibert with approval in the sixth book, damningly
titled On imaginary effects or works, and chemical non-entities.55
More recently still, the distinguished scholar Hermann Conring (1606
1681), professor of natural philosophy, medicine, and law at the University of Helmstdt, had followed Guiberts example in debunking the
authority of Hermes, arguing that the origins of Egyptian wisdom were
Mosaic rather than Hermetic. Among his targets, the Liber de secretis
naturae, seu de quinta essentiaa core work of pseudo-Lullian alchemy,
and one of Ripleys own sourceswas condemned as full of follies and
Nicholas Guibert, Alchymia ratione et experientia ita demum viriliter impugnata,
una cum suis fallaciis et deliramentis, quibus homines imbubinarat: utnunquam
imposterum se erigere valeat ... (Strasbourg, 1603). For Guiberts specific arguments
against alchemy, and his subsequent dispute with Libavius, see Moran, Andreas
Libavius, 84-101; Newman, Atoms and Alchemy, 104-6; Kahn, Alchimie et paracelsisme,
213-4, 402-9.
54)
Andreas Libavius, Defensio et declaration perspicua Alchymiae transmutatoriae
opposite N. Guiperti expugnationi virili (Ursel, 1604); Andreas Libavius, Vita,
vigor et veritas alchymiae transmutatoriae demonstratio irrefragabilis, transmuta
tionem metallorum, et argenti viui ex imperfectioribus ad perfectiora non tantum esse
possibilem arti, et naturae, in Appendix necessaria syntagmatis arcanorum chymicorum
Andreae Libavii (Frankfurt am Main, 1615); Ewald von Hoghelande, Historiae
aliquot transmutationis metallicae pro defensione alchymiae contra hostium rabiem:
adjecta est venerab. viri Raymondi Lullii vita, et alia quaedam (Kln, 1604); Bernard
G. Penot, De denario medico, quo decem medicaminibus, omnibus morbis internis
medendi via docetur (Bern, 1608).
55)
Liber VI. De effectis seu operibus imaginariis, & non entibus chimicis. Guerner
Rolfinck, Chimia in artis formam redacta (1641), 419; 438. Rolfinck also taught
chemistry at Jena, becoming professor of chemistry in the same year.
53)

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495

vanities.56 Guiberts ghost had yet to be laid, and although Combach

mentions neither Rolfinck nor Conring by name in his preface, he
evidently felt that the Lotharingian slur on Ripleys prime authority still
demanded a reply.
In defending Lull Combach took as his model the approach of Ewald
von Hoghelande some years earlier, by offering a short biography of
the Majorcan philosopher.57 Here, particular emphasis is placed on
Raymonds learning, sarcastically juxtaposed with Guiberts own:
As I may mention in passing, this Guibert was a sufficiently learned man in other
respects, besides becoming the bitterest enemy of chemists. Raymond Lull, a man
who cannot be sufficiently praised, he said to be a merchant, a layman, fantastical, unskilled and utterly ignorant of grammar, to fall into the traps of demons
[he] who was known by that honourable title, of Enlightened Doctor of Arts. 58

Ten pages into an eleven page preface to his own collected works, Ripleys name has as yet appeared only once, and then merely as an entry
in Combachs roll call of adepts. Only in the final pages does Combach
turn to Ripleys merits, in a passage that would shortly after be translated by Ashmole:
A worthy Author without exception, who is diligently studyed by the lovers of
Chimestry, forasmuch as he is open, well compast, and plaine of delivery, and not
wrapt in any Thornes, after the custome of others Besides, he hath great Affinity with the Writings of Lully, insomuch that the one explaineth the other.59
Et vero iam supra demonstratum est, librum de Quinta essentia Raimundi plenum
esse ineptiarum ac vanitatum. Hermann Conring, De Hermetica gyptiorum vetere
et Paracelsicorum nova medicina (Helmstedt, 1648), 382.
57)
Von Hoghelande, Historiae aliquot, 39-49.
58)
Vt obiter hoc inseram, fuit hic Guibertus, vir alioquin satis doctus, prae aliis
Chemicorum acerrimus hostis. Raymundum Lullium, hominem nunquam satis
laudatum, dicit Mercatorem, laicum, phantasticum, imperitum, & totaliter Gram
maticae ignarum fuisse, in Daemonis laqueos incidisse, [...] quae specioso titulo, Artis
illuminati Doctoris circumfertur. OOC, fol. 4r4v.
59)
TCB, 456. Combachs text reads, Est autem Riplaeus autor procul dubio dignus,
qui ab amatoribus Chemiae sedul evolvatur, cu[m] in sermone apertus sit, rotundus
& planus, nec ullis spinis aliorum more obsitus. Videtur tamen lectionem requirere
multiplicem & saepis repetitam, ut locus cum loco conferri, ex sensu sensus erui,
atq[ue] ad usum practicum accommodari felicius omnia possint, quem laborem ijs
56)

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There is something curiously regressive about Combachs presentation

of the English Canon. Overshadowed by Raymonds authority, and
valued primarily as an expositor of pseudo-Lullian texts, Ripley slips
back into the pan-European tradition from which his own alchemical
thought derived. It is worth remembering that, across the Channel, the
English were commemorating a rather different Ripleya client of the
warrior king Edward IV, a hero of English alchemical verse (soon to be
enshrined in Ashmoles Theatrum), and, within just a few years, the
subject of enigmatic and popular commentaries by Eirenaeus Philalethes.60
Within Combachs national listings, at least, Ripley stands alongside
his countrymen, in the august company of Rasis Cestrensis, Merlin,
Roger Bacon, John Dastin and St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury;
but also that of more recent adepts, including John Dee, Edward Kelley, and Samuel Norton.61 Even here, however, we may detect signs of
contemporary interest, for Combachs decision to publish Ripleys works
may well relate to their connection with the famous Kelley. Indeed,
Combach attributes to Kelley the Latin translation of his complete
version of the Liber duodecim portarum and two other works.62
Given that Combachs Liber is simply a more complete version of
the translation already circulating by the 1570s, this attribution is
clearly spurious. However, this need not imply disingenuousness on
Combachs part, since the edition is actually linked to Kelley through
the medium of one of his main exemplary manuscripts. This codex,
now Kassel Landesbibliothek 4o MS chem. 67, contains eight of the
twelve texts published in the Opera, including the full version of the
committo, qui opibus abundant & otio. Habet insuper cum Lullij scriptis magnam
affinitatem, ut uxus alterum explicet, & hac ratione facilis cuipiam naturae scrutatori
scopum rei attingere liceat. OOC, fols. 6v7r.
60)
Eirenaeus Philalethes (alias George Starkey), Ripley Revivd: or An Exposition upon
Sir George Ripleys Hermetico-Poetical Works, ed. William Cooper (London, 167778).
On Starkey, see Newman, Gehennical Fire.
61)
OOC, fol. 7r.
62)
Finis libri 12. portarum, quem cum Epistola ad Regem Eduardum ex rhythmis
Anglicis Latin vertit Eduardus Kellaeus (OOC, 100); Finis tractatus Georgii Riplae
qui Clavis aurea portae inscribitur, quem ex Anglico in Latinium idioma transtulit
Ed. Kellaeus (OOC, 294). Kelleys relationship with the Ripley Corpus, and Combachs
editing strategy, are discussed in Rampling, Dee and the Alchemists.

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497

Liber that Combach seems to have used as the main exemplar for his
own edition.63 The codexs value, however, is greater than the sum of
its texts. Annotated by Kelleys Prague acquaintance Nicolas Mai, it also
includes fragments of recipes attributed to Kelley, which Combach
published as part of his Tractatus aliquottwo years before his edition
of the manuscripts primarily Ripleian contents.64 In an atmosphere of
heightened concern with authenticity, the association with two prominent practitioners, Mai and Kelley, must have made this codex an
irresistible source for Combach, ever keen to stress the provenance of
his manuscript exemplars.
Conclusion
Such points of contact, often merely hinted at in printed prefaces and
manuscript marginalia, indicate both how and why alchemical authorities from widely dispersed regions were used and represented by their
editors and compilers. As an expositor of pseudo-Lull, George Ripley
could be readily situated on the vertical axis of a universal, diachronic
alchemical tradition. As a doyen of English practice, he also had
a place upon the geographical, horizontal axis of pan-European
alchemy, where superficial differences between nations, languages and
choice of words still failed to obscure the underlying unity of alchemical wisdom. These axes intersect in Combachs preface, where the English canon is redeployed as both descendant and defender of a Hermetic
prisca philosophia.
The Liber 12 portarum, Medulla philosophiae chemicae, Clavis aurae portae, Pupilla
alchemiae, Terra terrae philosophicae, Viaticum seu varia practica, Cantilena, and Epistola ad Regum Eduardum. Of the remaining four texts printed by
Combach, three (Liber de Mercurio & Lapide philosophorum, Philorcium Alchymistarum,
and Accurtationes & practicae Raymundinae) are found in Combachs second major
exemplar, Kassel Landesbibliothek 4o MS chem. 66. I have yet to identify Combachs
source for the remaining item, the Concordantia, although this work is mentioned by
title in 4o MS chem. 67 (fol. 133v). On the Kassel manuscripts, see Hartmut Broszinski,
Manuscripta chemica in Quarto (Wiesbaden 2011), 303-16.
64)
Combach, Tractatus aliquot, 31-33. On Mai, see Joachim Telle, ed., Parerga Para
celsica: Paracelsus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1991), 176-7; Rampling,
John Dee and the Alchemists, 501-2.
63)

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The textual peregrinations of Ripleys writings did not end with his
Opera omnia. In 1690, the entire collection resurfaced in a German
translation by the Nuremberg physician and chemist Johann Hiskia
Cardilucius (16301697).65 In his foreword, the editor speculated anew
on the close relationship between Ripleys alchemy and that of two other
semi-legendary authorities, Bernard Trevisanus and Isaac Hollandus.
Building on Ripleys own reference to a sojourn abroad, Cardilucius
suggested that the similarities might be explained by a physical rather
than a merely textual encounter:
He sets out in the preface to his tract called the Medulla, that for nine whole years
in Italy and the surrounding regions he travelled in search of these philosophical
secrets, and may perhaps himself have met with Trevisanus in Italy, or also in Germany with Hollandus.66

This account, in which the English alchemists deliberations with philosophers of other nations are subsequently enshrined in his own treatise, presents a Ripley who is in fact the image of his own well-travelled
and well-connected editors. From Penot to Barnaud, Mai to Combach,
Ripleys cosmopolitan readers enjoyed fruitful encounters in person and
on paper, at distinct geographical nodes, notably Prague and Kassel.
Such nodes provided centres, or, perhaps more aptly, crossroads, for
scholars and practitioners from across the continent, through whose
efforts the wisdom of all nations was communicated, translated and
edited, transcending territorial divisions of alchemical knowledge.
George Ripley, Des Grossen Engellndischen Philosophi Georgii Riplaei Expe
rientzreiche/Hermetische Schrifften betreffend die Vniversal-Tinctur; so bisher noch
niemals teutsch ausgangen, in Johann Hiskias Cardilucius, ed., Magnalia Medicochymica continuata, Oder, Fortsetzung der hohen Artzney und Feuerkunstigen Geheim
nssen (Endter, 1680), 379-710. On Cardilucius, see Norbert Marxer, Praxis statt
Theorie! Leben und Werk des Nrnberger Arztes, Alchemikers und Fachschriftstellers Johann
Hiskia Cardilucius (16301697) (Heidelberg, 2000).
66)
Aber Riplaeus selber ist allem Ansehen nach, ein hocherfahrner sehr reicher Artist
gewesen, gestaltsam er in der Vorrede ber seinen Tractat Medulla genannt, melder,
da er 9. ganzer Jahr in Italien und den benachbarten Landschafften in Erlern- und
Erfahrung dieser Philosophischen secreten zubracht, und mag vielleicht wohl selbsten
mit Trevisano in Italien senn bekandt worden, oder auch in Teutschland mit Hollando.
Cardilucius, Vorrede to Ripley, Des Grossen Engelndischen Philosophi, 382.
65)

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499

Indeed, if the literary origins of Maiers imagined Golden Table lie

within the Turba philosophorum, perhaps a terrestrial analogue may still
be found in the courts of princely enthusiasts, including those of Moritz
in Kassel and Rudolf II in Prague, attended by numerous budding
philosophersMaier and Ripleys editors included. Traces of these historical turbae remind us of the real communities of practitioners, who
discussed and assembled the works of their distinguished forebears for
practical, polemical, promotional and pedagogical ends. In their collections, the primarily medieval contents provide only a part of the
whole: mined from their crude ore and placed, like carefully polished
jewels, in settings crafted by the disputes and correspondence of contemporary alchemists.