In his preface, Orthelius points at what will be the focus of the commentary on Sendivogius Novum Lumen Chymicum: the heavenly influences on the earth rendered by twelve images.
In fact, Andreas Orthelius’s commentary on Sendivogius is mainly known for the twelve accompanying images, which seemed so simple and immediate in their rendering of the operations, that the Latin text explaining them was scarcely translated. But, as you will see, Orthelius does not reveal whether the German book he mentions in his preface and from which the twelve figures are extracted was the German original version of Sendivogius New Chemical Light or not.
As we will see further on, Orthelius mentions the year 1624 as the publication date of the German book; this might suggest he perhaps meant Rythmi de Opere Universali ex coelo soloque prodeunte… in Michael Sendivogius Lumen Chymicum Novum ed. Andreas Orthelius, Erphordiae 1624. In spite of the Latin title, the book is in German. There is a summary in Summa Rhytmorum Germanicorum de Opere Universalis edited by the same Orthelius, which the reader can find in the same Theatrum Chemicum Zetzneri Argentorati, Tome 6.
Back to the Orthelius commentary on Sendivogius published on Theatrum Chemicum, I think to please the readers by presenting my own translation. I warn you that Orthelius Latin is all but classic and often packed with neologisms, syntax errors, and carelessness. Definitely, one of the worst Latin you can bump into in a seventeenth-century alchemical treatise.
At the Levity website, you can find an English version of the New Chemical Light by Sendivogius. Here’s my translation from Orthelius’s commentary from Theatrum Chemicum Zetzneri Argentorati, Tome 6 page 397: Orthelius Commentator in Novum Lumen Chymicum Michaelis Sendivogii:
Commentary on New Chemical Light of Michael Sendivogius Polish illustrated with twelve images found in Germany. In the year 1624, it was published in favor of the real children of Hermes. Now, it is genuinely translated from German to the Latin language (1).
Preface by Orthelius.
Ut de veris Dei et artis amantibus Doctrinae filiis bene mereri possem, quo de miraculo Hermetico fundamentalem instructionem haberent… To be truly worthy to offer to the true children of the Doctrine lovers of God and art the ultimate instructions on the Hermetic miracle, and make sure that they don’t lose their time, not so much as regarding studies and research but work practices, I put in order the figures of a german text that were obscure and difficult to read, I had arranged them in an appropriate order, albeit fragmented, however exhaustive, and now I want to offer these images to your consultation with my explanations and additions, and testimonies taken by New Chemical Light by Sendivogius, so I will attempt to explain the power of nature and the true meaning of the author, not extrapolating and bending his words to my theories. But before dealing with this subject, I think it worthwhile to explain the general meaning so as to make more accessible the task of your intellect.
Here starts the general discourse on the first matter of metals and the essential parts of the Philosophers Stone.
The mentioned text, accompanied by the pictures array (it was corrected and inferred as some pictures either could not be read or were missed out ), starts with the following words.
Side-note: Aim of the Hermetic Pyrotechnic.
Ancient philosophers have been sharing Adam’s ignominy and the following curse. To mitigate human destiny, burdened by diseases and death, they try to discover remedies and medicines ( not for death, though).
For this purpose, they could not find a better subject than gold, nor a more worthy art than the art of fire; among the creatures living in the sub-moon circle, nothing can be found more perfect and consistent than gold, which cannot be destroyed by no element. They concluded gold could not fear any natural decadence but only lack of perfection, although it’s the king of metals. They also infer that gold is compact and dissolution-proof because of its solar nature.
Side-note: The descent of Metals.
In fact, what nature destroys on the surface appears again as a mineral in the deep of the earth; conversely, what can be destroyed by gold, appears as medicine. So ancient philosophers spared no effort to work on gold and got to improve the work of nature with what they called Pyrotechnic, the art of fire, or ingenious alchemical art, which is the mother of all the human arts, and through this art, they learned to really dissolve and regenerate gold, taking it to absolute perfection.
Side-note: Agent and Patient.
This art is as tricky as beautiful; they soon understood that nothing could be performed with gold without the proper key, which was nothing but its proper and first mother, in which and from which it was generated. Mother’s name was Prima Materia, first matter, who was gold’s mother and the matrix of all metals. The mother is half celestial and half terrestrial, and consequently, metals are the same nature; philosophers called the sky “above” and the earth as being “below”, and discovered these two entities interacting with each other in a way simile to humans love; they defined the “above”, the firmament, as male and the “below”, the earth, as female, and said that they needed each other to operate. They also said that the celestial beams descended to the deep center of the earth through ducts and channels to have an agent which then, through the terrestrial Archeo, quickly embraced each other, upwards over and over, then with a terrestrial substance liquor, which is called patient, they mix together and because of the qualities of the different place, with the influence and concordance of asters, give birth to various species of metals and minerals.
Enigmatically Sendivogius.
The Opus is primarily the quest for a thing, which is veiled, from which ( wonderfully) a specific humidity dissolves gold without violence and noise, but softly and in a natural way like ice does liquify in warm water. Furthermore, if you investigate the process, you could get what the gold is being produced in nature. And which is also the origin of all metals and things, as well as gold. But, while all the other things have impurities, gold instead has nothing impure, as it shares the same mother.
Third Chapter. The first matter of metals is double, but one without the other cannot create any metal. The first and main is the humid air mix in the warmth, called Mercurius by the Philosophers, ruled by the Sun and Moonbeams in the philosophical sea. The second is the Earth’s dryness, which they called Sulfur.
Fourth Chapter. Hence the elements threw their qualities and strengths in the center of the earth, Archeus does sublime them as vapor by the warm in a perpetual motion on the earth’s surface. In fact, the earth is porous, the wind or vapor dripping through the earth’s pores turns into water, and from this, everything is created. Equally, when the vapor goes through these pores, in which Sulphur’s grease joins, the vapor called Mercurius by Philosophers adjusts and gets attached to the grease; from this mixture, the greasiness takes the neglected name of vapor.
Sixth Chapter. The four elements in perpetual motion drip in the viscera heavy water vapor, which is the seed of metals, called Mercurius, for its flowing quality and combination with everything, not because of its essence. It gets absorbed in Sulphur for its internal warmth. When it joins the grease of the earth, it becomes greasy radical humid ( humidum radicale).
Eighth Chapter. The competing elements in the earth’s center cast its seed as if they were loins. The center is due to motion put in the matrix. Matrices are really countless, many pores, many matrices, one purer than the other, and so on ad infinitum. Then know what a pure matrix generates in her simile: a pure fetus.
Ninth Chapter. The vapor is Sulphur if it goes through warm and pure spots, to which it tends to adhere. If through cold and impure pores, is Saturnus and c. Addition.
On the first matter and generation of metals, there are as many opinions as philosophers who wrote on that, but, in my opinion, Theophrastus Paracelsus came very close to the aim when said minerals are being born from element water and vegetables from the element earth. The latter, despite having their roots in the seawater, their chaos takes hold in the earth, and in there, they grow up, so their real roots are in earth, as their chaos looks for air, in which they rise and extend. All the same, Paracelsus stated minerals seeds to be male, of course, for their form and because of the heavenly influence, but their matter and body are taken from seawater, and in the deep of the earth, in the same way, they are warmed up till maturity in their matrix, by terrestrial fire operations, or pagan heat, which from the center of the earth tends to go upwards, according to its hot-chill scale, in the same way, prescribed locations and matrices of the earth are different for different heavenly influences, which with their beams towards a point in the center of the earth they can strike to get different qualities and impress different forms, and with the addition of both terrestrial and celestial mercurial substances, different genders and natures are being created. For instance, this is the way the element water ( the salty sea water which every single day and night is impregnated with the Sun and Moon, and is not only the external side which surrounds and laps the earth but penetrates and passes through with internal abysses and hidden ducts of water) this empty and lifeless earth, with his saline nature emits and in this act and imprint of conception or heavenly influx I stop to explain further.
Side note: Fresh water from Marine Abysses.
Now we talk of fresh water, there are various types, which first from the marine abysses enter the viscera of the earth, and because of their salt, more or less the total of it is then absorbed in the earth and gets dispersed, over an over till of all that salt only an exiguous taste of salt remains. The same is evident with our common salt when ordinary cooking, both concerning the center of the water element (in fact, the outer part and surface are simply insipid water) with its salt all the metals and minerals which represent the purest parts, and with addition in many ways ( the thing is done with the help of the art), it dissolves and what’s more ( gold above all) regenerates in its mother, and in its natural virtue can abundantly multiply and transmute.