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Splendor Solis. Treaty of Alchemy
Chemistry and Medicine at the Dawn of Modern Science.

· This work is attributed to Solomon Trismosin, the alchemist who searched after the Philosopher’s Stone that would turn base metals to gold and serve as the elixir of eternal life. His writings were widely read and commented on throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and did much to hasten the development of chemistry and medicine as modern science.

The illustrations have been attributed to Nikolaus Glockendon, in a style reminiscent of contemporaries of his such as Durer, Holbein and Cranach, making this one of the most sophisticated and lavishly decorated of surviving alchemical manuscripts.

 

 

 

The Templars and the Philosophers’ Stone.

The vast wealth of the Templars led some of their contemporaries to accuse them of acquiring their silver and gold by means of alchemy, knowledge of which was contained in the Ark of the Alliance that had supposedly passed into their keeping. Since the secret wisdom of the universe was said to be kept in the Ark that King Solomon had made for his temple at Jerusalem, the princes and potentates of Europe were keenly interested in the art that combined equal parts science and magic, and Spain’s King Philip II ordered Europe’s largest distillation apparatus constructed at the royal monastery at El Escorial.