Some indispensable substances to run a difficult sublimation smoothly. According to the c. 1300 ms. Vat. Gr. 1134, known as the Zuretti Anonymous.
Synthesis of the 14th-century Mediterranean alchemical knowledge, Zuretti Anonymous is the longest systematic treatise among the Greek manuscripts on the topic and evidence of the cultural syncretism in the Kingdom of Naples during the Angevin period. The manuscript was named after its first translator and editor, C. O. Zuretti, who published it in 1930 in the 7th volume of Catalogue des Manuscrits Alchimiques Grecs.
The anonymous author of the Vaticanus Graecus 1134 names Hermes Trismegistus and Jābir ibn Hayyān among his inspirers but doesn’t cite his real sources lately deduced from comparisons. There can be found Aristotle, Jābir ibn Hayyān’s Septuaginta, Albertus Magnus “Semita Recta”, Roger Bacon’s Speculum Secretorum, “Breve Breviarum”, Liber Experimentum, and other treatises of uncertain authorship: De Aluminibus et Salibus, De Perfecto Magisterio, Liber Duodecim Aquarum, Liber Rebis or Liber Dabessi, De Essentiis Essentiarum. Frater Guillermus Sedacenus’ poem Sedacina Totius Artis Alchemiae is considered a treatise in parallel with Zuretti’s; furthermore, the author’s death was contemporary to the Vat. Gr. 1134 writing ( second half of the fourteenth century), but while Sedacina is weird and mysterious, Zuretti’s Anonymous is concise and clear.
I was irresolute until the last moment whether to put Zuretti’s Anonymous in the “alchemic authors” or “ancient chemistry” category. In the treatise, there is no mention of medicine and iatrochemistry, and Anonymous lightheartedly tells us of chrysopoeia or the art of making gold. Almost all the recipes in the book are about the first preparatory works—the works to volatilize salts to achieve Mercurius. We know these processes were often more generously described in ancient chemistry, just omitting the indispensable reiterations, which are indeed alchemical.
The short excerpt I decided to publish is taken from Les Alchimistes Grecs Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2002, Tome X, L’Anonime de Zuretti ou l’Art Sacré et Divin de la Chrysopée par un Anonyme, The Anonymous of Zuretti or the sacred art of Crysopoeia by an anonymous, translation by André Colinet. In paragraph 40, indentation 3, we find a technical detail very interesting to the skillful sublimer. The whole paragraph was about the sublimation of mercury, which will be presented in a coming article; I meant to put my finger on the following right now:
” The sublimation of a (metallic) substance is the raising by the fire of its dry matter from the bottom of its container. This is accomplished according to the diversity of metals, or spirits, to be sublimed. (for instance) one is performed with a great fire, like those of marcasite, magnesia, or cadmium; another at a medium fire, like the sublimation of sulfur or arsenic; another at a mild fire, like the sublimation of mercury. You have to know the apex of mercury’s sublimation is the conservation of its dryness and the expulsion of its humidity. Sublimation separates and dismisses the earthen and watery superfluity mixed with the specific substances.
Here is the list of the matters helping in this operation: the eggshells calx (1), the white marble calx, the very finely ground glass, all the kinds of prepared salts; only these matters will whiten”.
In Albertus Magnus Semita Recta we find a pretty identical passage, but the last sentence: “...Ab istis vero mundatur, ab aliis non mundatur”, or by these it is cleaned, by the others it is not cleaned. Zuretti’s “to whiten” seems to have a similar use to Albertus’s “to clean”. We know that the reiteration of the same raising operation can lead to accomplished salt volatilization. The apex of this series of sublimations may end up with the achievement of our white Mercurius/seed of metals, which is the ultimate purification of metal (we are in the first preparatory work).
The list of substances that may help in difficult sublimations, such as those involving metals, is of primary importance here. Although metals’ sublimation, or volatilization, is often performed in Alchemy, the process may present many difficulties. In Alchemy, we know that molecular purity is neither wanted nor crucial; even better, a tiny crusting property in the chosen salt may be useful when our philosophical egg has to start forming a thin crust. That’s enough.
- See an operation with eggshells calx in Orthelius Commentary on Maria Prophitissa. Part 2 ;