The word itself tells the story: "alchemy" comes from the Arabic al-kīmiyā', itself probably derived from Greek. The name preserves the trace of the journey this discipline made. Born in Greco-Roman Egypt, alchemy was received, translated and deeply reworked in the Islamic world, and only in the twelfth century did it reach Latin Europe, where it became one of the most debated fields of knowledge in the Middle Ages.
Alchemy in the Islamic world
Between the eighth and tenth centuries, as part of the great movement of translation from Greek into Arabic, many ancient alchemical texts were studied and commented on. Arabic authors did not merely receive them: they introduced new theories and a more systematic laboratory practice.
The most famous name is Jabir ibn Hayyan. A huge corpus of writings circulates under his name, which scholars regard as the work of several authors over several decades. Linked to this corpus is a theory that would last for centuries: all metals are composed of two principles, sulphur and mercury, in different proportions and degrees of purity. If the proportions could be corrected, a base metal could in theory be turned into gold.
Another leading figure was al-Razi, known in the West as Rhazes, a Persian physician and philosopher of the ninth and tenth centuries. In his alchemical works he classified substances into groups and described apparatus and operations precisely, with a very practical approach.
The Emerald Tablet
One of the shortest and most influential texts of the tradition, the Tabula smaragdina or Emerald Tablet, reached Europe by way of Arabic. It appears in an Arabic work on the secrets of creation attributed to Apollonius of Tyana, which relates that the text was found engraved on an emerald tablet in the hands of Hermes.
The Tablet, translated into Latin in the twelfth century, contains phrases that would be commented on for centuries, such as the one stating that what is below is like what is above. Its enigmatic character encouraged both laboratory and cosmological readings.
Arrival in Europe
The traditional date for alchemy's entry into Latin Europe is 1144, when the Englishman Robert of Chester completed his translation of an Arabic treatise, the Liber de compositione alchemiae, presented as a dialogue between the Umayyad prince Khalid ibn Yazid and a hermit named Morienus. In his preface Robert remarked that the Latins did not yet know what alchemy was.
In the following decades, especially in Spain and Italy, other translators made available texts attributed to Jabir, al-Razi and Avicenna. Avicenna, as it happens, had voiced doubts about whether one metal could truly be transformed into another, and these doubts fuelled a long debate.
Geber's Summa and the Latin masters
At the end of the thirteenth century a Latin treatise appeared entitled Summa perfectionis, attributed to "Geber", the Latinised form of Jabir. In fact it was written in Latin by a European author; the historian William Newman has proposed identifying him as Paul of Taranto, a Franciscan friar. The Summa is a clear, systematic text that sets out the sulphur-mercury theory with a striking attention to experimental testing.
Other names became linked to Latin alchemy:
- Albertus Magnus, who discussed the nature of metals cautiously in De mineralibus;
- Roger Bacon, who saw alchemy as a science useful for medicine too;
- Petrus Bonus of Ferrara, who in the fourteenth century wrote the Pretiosa margarita novella, a philosophical defence of the art.
Many texts were also falsely attributed to famous authors, such as Ramon Llull or Arnald of Villanova, to increase their authority.
Suspicion and condemnation
Alchemy was not welcomed without reservations. The main problem was economic: anyone claiming to produce gold might really be passing off counterfeits. In the early fourteenth century Pope John XXII issued the decretal Spondent quas non exhibent, condemning counterfeiting alchemists. Several religious orders forbade their members to practise it.
At the same time, alchemy was gaining a symbolic and spiritual dimension. The images of king and queen, of the death and resurrection of matter, which would find full form in the Rosarium philosophorum printed in 1550, are rooted in this medieval tradition.
For Studio Esoterico Cornelio, medieval alchemy is an instructive example of how a field of knowledge can be technique, philosophy and language of the soul all at once, and of how this very richness exposed it to suspicion.
In short
- Alchemy passed from Greco-Roman Egypt to the Islamic world, where it was deeply reworked.
- The corpus attributed to Jabir introduced the theory of metals composed of sulphur and mercury.
- Robert of Chester's 1144 translation traditionally marks alchemy's entry into Latin Europe.
- The Summa perfectionis attributed to Geber, written in Latin, became a standard reference.
- The Church condemned counterfeiting alchemists, but the art kept developing as a symbolic language.