Moureau, Sébastien
[UCL]
This article is the first study entirely dedicated to the transmission of alchemy from the Arab-Muslim world to the Latin West in the Middle Ages. Its first part is an analysis of the concept of alchemy in the Arabic tradition and in the Latin literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in order to stress the elements of doctrine that passed from one cultural area to the other. The second part of this article is a commented list of the alchemical Latin texts that are, could be, or pretend to be translations from the Arabic. The article also presents some new discoveries among which two are of special importance: the identification by the author of the Arabic original of the Liber ad filium suum of Alphidius (Asfīdiyūs, i.e. Secundus the silent), and the identification by Marion Dapsens and the author of the Arabic original of a short Latin text attributed to Prince Khālid b. Yazīd.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 740618 - PhilAnd)
Bibliographic reference |
Moureau, Sébastien. Min al-Kīmiyā’ ad Alchimiam. The Transmission of Alchemy from the Arab-Muslim world to the Latin West in the Middle Ages. In: Micrologus : natura, scienza e societa medievali - nature, science and medieval societies, Vol. 28, p. 87-141 |
Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/211340 |