New Light On Sendivogius

Ambix
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New Light on the Alchemical Writings of Michael

Sendivogius (15661636)
Rafa T. Prinke
To cite this article: Rafa T. Prinke (2016) New Light on the Alchemical Writings of Michael
Sendivogius (15661636), Ambix, 63:3, 217-243, DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2016.1246845
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ambix, Vol. 63 No. 3, August 2016, 217243
New Light on the Alchemical Writings of

Michael Sendivogius (15661636)
Rafal T. Prinke
Eugeniusz Piasecki University, Poznan, Poland
The Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius is best known for the influential
Novum lumen chymicum, a work composed of three separate texts. Sendivo-
giuss authorship was questioned in the mid-seventeenth century, and these
reservations are still held by some modern historians. On the other hand,
other early modern and modern readers not only accepted his authorship of
all three texts, but also ascribed as many as eleven texts to him. This paper dis-
cusses the key works published under the anagrammatised name of Sendivo-
gius with the aim of resolving the authorship question. Newly discovered
evidence makes it possible to trace the circumstances leading to the publi-
cation of these works in much greater detail than previously, and to present
new arguments affirming Sendivogiuss authorship. In the Tractatus de sul-
phure, Sendivogius promised to write another two treatises, which readers
sought to identify and (in some cases) to write themselves. This paper sets
out, and rejects, the arguments for including them in the corpus of genuine
Sendivogian writings.
Introduction
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the name of Michael Sendivogius (1566
1636) was counted among the most universally recognizable early modern alchem-
ziwj, the name of a noble Polo-
ical authorities. It is a Latinised form of Micha Sed
nian, born in or near Cracow. His origins and early years are still not fully known,
but he certainly studied at several universities, starting with Cambridge in the late
1580s.1 In 1594, while still a student at Altdorf, he became a courtier of Emperor
Rudolf II, who made him his counsellor in 1598. Sendivogius held the position at
least until 1612, retaining it under Emperor Matthias, but at the same time (from
1
The information about Cambridge comes from a panegyric published in Prague in 1598 (Jir Carolides of Karlsperk,
Praecepta institutionis generosae indolis) but no matriculation record is known. He was properly matriculated at
Leipzig, Vienna, and Altdorf.
Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 2016 DOI 10.1080/00026980.2016.1246845
218 RAFA T. PRINKE
figure 1 Michael Sendivogiuss signature from the castle court records of Cracow (1610):
Micha Sendziwoy, Secretarz M[anu propria]. Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie, Acta Cas-
trensia Cracoviensia 1175, 489. By kind permission of the National Archives in Cracow.
1600) he also served as a royal secretary to Sigismund III, king of Poland, and used
that title in his correspondence throughout the rest of his life (Figure 1). Both mon-
archs sent him on diplomatic missions to other European courts, besides using his
services for private communication between themselves. After a brief stay at the
court of Duke Frederick I in Stuttgart, Sendivogius again settled down in Poland
and lived in his cottage outside the city walls of Cracow, next to the University,
until 1626. Then he entered the service of the third Emperor, Ferdinand II, who in
1630 gave him a land estate with a small castle in Silesia. He remained a counsellor
to Ferdinand until his death in 1636 (and thus was called trium imperatorum con-
siliarius; see Figure 22), and was probably buried in the Minorite church of the Holy
Ghost in the nearby town of Opava.
Much new research on Sendivogius has been conducted in recent decades, result-
ing in important findings for the biography of the Polish alchemist and the intellec-
tual circles in which he moved,3 but the accepted corpus of his writings has yet to be
firmly established. During his lifetime, three books were published under his name
(disguised using anagrams) and became extremely influential, often later printed
together under the collective title of Novum lumen chymicum (The New Light of
Chemistry). Their authorship was, however, questioned in the mid-seventeenth
century, when the works were attributed to the mysterious Cosmopolite, later
identified with the Scottish alchemist Alexander Seton. It became a matter of contro-
versy among both alchemical writers and modern scholars, which still has to be suc-
cessfully resolved. Before the last quarter of the twentieth century, historians of
alchemy tended to accept the Cosmopolite-Seton version, while in recent
2
From a bookplate of Friedrich Roth-Scholtz with an imagined portrait of Sendivogius (see Figure 2).
3
Recent biographical contributions include: Rafa T. Prinke, Beyond Patronage: Michael Sendivogius and the Mean-
ings of Success in Alchemy, in Chymia: Science and Nature in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Miguel
Lpez Prez, Didier Kahn, and Mar Rey Bueno (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010),
175231; Prinke, Veronika Stiebarin, the Wife of Michael Sendivogius, in Srat Prajz. Erich efck (1945
2004). Sbornk k nedozitm 65. narozeninm historika a archivre, ed. Jir Hanzal and Ondrej efck (Prague: Nak-
ladatelstv Lidov noviny, 2010), 15162; Prinke, Nolite de me inquirere (Nechtyejte se po mnie ptatj): Michael Sen-
divogius (15661636), in Alchymie a Rudolf II. Hledn tajemstv prrody ve stredn Evrope v 16. a 17. stolet, ed.
Ivo Pur and Vladimr Karpenko (Prague: Artefactum/stav dejin umen AV C R, 2011), 31733; Prinke, Micha
Sedziwj pocza tki kariery, Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki 58 (2012): 89129.
NEW LIGHT ON THE ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS OF MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (15661636) 219
figure 2 An imagined portrait of Michael Sendivogius, based on the medallion from the
title page of Michael Maiers Symbola aureae mensae (1617). One of a series of bookplates
featuring famous alchemical writers, produced by the alchemical publisher and bibli-
ographer Friedrich Roth-Scholtz (16871736) for his library, and engraved by D. C. C. Fleisch-
mann (active 16901736 in Nuremberg). From the authors collection.
220 RAFA T. PRINKE
decades they have preferred to suspend judgement or to accept Sendivogius as the

sole author.4
The purpose of this paper is to survey the evidence for the authorship of the core
writings attributed to Michael Sendivogius, as an attempt to settle the question. The
newly discovered facts and clues about the circumstances in which those texts were
written, circulated, translated, and published are of considerable interest in their
own right. They provide new insights into this important historical figure and the
ways in which his alchemical teachings spread across Europe. Besides the works dis-
cussed below, several other texts were already attributed to Sendivogius in the seven-
teenth century and accepted as such by some modern scholars, but they need a
separate lengthy discussion and thus are not covered here.5
Historiography
Despite his unquestionably important position in the history of alchemy, Michael
Sendivogius has received surprisingly little attention from historiographers. Earlier
generations of scholars usually restricted themselves to mentioning him in passing
as one of the lesser Paracelsians.6 He was later depicted as a proto-scientist and dis-
coverer of oxygen.7 It was only with the advent of what is now called the new his-
toriography of alchemy that Sendivogius began to be studied within the context of
the European alchemical tradition.8 William Newman was the first scholar to
4
For example, writing in 1989, Lawrence Principe and Andrew Weeks accepted Alexander Setons authorship of Sendi-
vogian works without reservation in Jacob Boehmes Divine Substance Salitter: Its Nature, Origin, and Relationship to
Seventeenth-Century Scientific Theories, British Journal for the History of Science 22 (1989): 5961, but Principe later
attributed the authorship to Michael Sendivogius with equal certainty: Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept:
Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 42, 69, 103, 147, 215.
5
These works include: Operatie elixiris philosophici (written in Polish ca. 1590, known only from a
mid-seventeenth-century manuscript copy); Processus super centrum universi, seu Sal centrale (published by
Johann Joachim Becher in 1682 but known in other versions from several manuscripts); Lettre philosophique (pub-
lished in 1671 as a translation from German); Epistolae LV (first published in 1691 in French translation but known
from earlier manuscripts in Latin).
6
Sendivogious is mentioned a few times in Allen G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medi-
cine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 2 vols. (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002), but not even
named in Robert P. Multhauf, The Origins of Chemistry (Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers,
1993) or F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists (Frogmore: Paladin, 1976 [1949]).
7
This historiographic turn was started by Henry Guerlac, John Mayow and the Aerial Nitre, in Actes du VIIe congrs
international dhistoire des sciences: Jerusalem (Paris: Acadmie internationale dhistoire des sciences, 1953), 33249;
Guerlac, The Poets Nitre, Isis 45 (1954): 24355; and taken up by Polish scholars, including the author of the funda-
mental monograph: Roman Bugaj, Micha Sed ziwj (15661636). Z ycie i pisma (Wrocaw: Ossolineum, 1968); and the
author of three influential articles in English: Wodzimierz Hubicki, Michael Sendivogiuss Theory, its Significance in the
History of Chemistry, in Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the History of Science, Ithaca (Paris:
Hermann, 1965), 82933; Hubicki, The True Life of Michael Sendivogius, in Actes du XIe Congrs International
dHistoire dSciences (Wrocaw, Warszawa, Krakw: Ossolineum, 1968), 5155; Hubicki, Sendivogius, Michael,
in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles Coulston Gillispie (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1975), vol.
11, 30608; and the author of a new monograph and two Ambix articles: Zbigniew Szydo, Water Which Does Not
Wet Hands: The Alchemy of Michael Sendivogius (Warsaw: Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of
Sciences, 1994); Szydo, The Alchemy of Michael Sendivogius: His Central Nitre Theory, Ambix 40 (1993): 129
46; Szydo, The Influence of the Central Nitre Theory of Michael Sendivogius on the Chemical Philosophy of the Seven-
teenth Century, Ambix 43 (1996): 8098.
8
This alternative approach to Sendivogius was initiated by such works as Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Foundations of
Newtons Alchemy or The Hunting of the Greene Lyon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Karin
Figala, Die Alchemistenzahl 8200, in II Radovi I. Medunarodnog Kongresa za Povijesnu Metrologiju, Zagreb,
convincingly indicate the place held by Sendivogius within the lineage of alchemical
philosophers and to show how he constructed his system as a new synthesis of fun-
damental but diverging earlier theories.9 Paulo Alves Porto took up the same
approach of looking for internal coherence rather than modern ideas in the
Polish alchemists work.10
A different aspect of Sendivogius was studied by Hiro Hirai, who discussed his
system in the context of the vitalist semina tradition, thus placing him within an
alternative line of intellectual descent.11 Sendivogius also embraced the religious and
prophetic aspects of medieval alchemy that have drawn the special attention of
Didier Kahn and the present author.12 Sendivogius used a variety of literary genres
which were popular among earlier writers, such as the treatise, dialogue, and enigmatic
riddle, but at the same time modified them to create the impression of novelty. It seems
that Sendivogius deliberately used a variety of writing styles and language registers
because early seventeenth-century readers expected such parables and enigmas,
enjoyed interpreting them, and hoped to find additional clues hidden in their meta-
phors.13 In this way, his reinterpretation of alchemy appealed to readers on many
levels of expression and through the harmonisation of earlier authorities.
Contemporary opinions
Sendivogius was praised by his contemporaries, such as Andreas Libavius14 and
Michael Maier,15 his teachings pervaded early Rosicrucian pamphlets,16 and his
8
Continued
2830. listopada 1975, ed. Zlatko Herkov (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska Akademija Znanosti i Umjetnosti, Historijski
Zavod, 1975), 41532; Figala, Die exakte Alchemie von Isaac Newton, Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden
Gesellschaft in Basel 94 (1984): 157228; William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an
American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
9
William Newman, Thomas Vaughan as an Interpreter of Agrippa von Nettesheim, Ambix 29 (1982): 12540, on
131; Newman, Gehennical Fire, 88; Newman, Geochemical Concepts in Isaac Newtons Early Alchemy, in The
Revolution in Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. Gary D. Rosenberg (Boulder, CO: The Geo-
logical Society of America, 2009), 4150, on 43.
10
Paulo Alves Porto, Michael Sendivogius on Nitre and the Preparation of the Philosophers Stone, Ambix 48
(2001): 116, on 1.
11
Hiro Hirai, Le concept de semence dans les thories de la matire la Renaissance: De Marsile Ficin Pierre Gassendi
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 35174 (chap. 13).
12
Didier Kahn, Le Tractatus de sulphure de Michael Sendivogius (1616), une alchimie entre philosophie naturelle et
mystique, in Lcriture du texte scientifique au Moyen Age, ed. Claude Thomasset (Paris: PUPS, 2006): 193221;
Rafa T. Prinke, Heliocantharus Borealis: Alchemy, Polish Sarmatism and the Fourth Northern Monarchy in
the Prophetic Vision of Michael Sendivogius, in Apocalypticism, Millenarianism, and Prophecy: Eschatological
Expectations between East-Central and Western Europe, 15601670, ed. Howard Hotson and Vladimr Urbnek
(London: Routledge, forthcoming in 2016).
13
Jan V. Golinski, Chemistry in the Scientific Revolution: Problems of Language and Communication, in Reapprai-
sals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 36796, on 374.
14
Libavius summarised, interpreted, and commented upon the first publication of Sendivogius in Andrea Libavius,
Septadis Hermeticae monas septima, continens inuestigationem veri artificii in Nouo lumine Michaelis Sendivogii,
in Syntagmatis arcanorum chymicorum tomus secundus, ed. Andrea Libavius (Frankfurt: Petrus Kopff, 1613),
43753.
15
Maier devoted the twelfth chapter of his Symbola aureae mensae to Sendivogius (calling him Sarmata Anonymus):
Michael Maier, Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum (Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617), 553621.
16
For example, Philip Gabella, Secretioris philosophiae consideratio brevis (Kassel: Wilhelm Wessel, 1615), to which
the first edition of Confessio Fraternitatis was appended, contains passages from and paraphrases of Sendivogius,
222 RAFA T. PRINKE
writings were translated and published in a number of editions which greatly

exceeded those of any other alchemical writer of the seventeenth century. After
his death, he was studied and quoted as an authority with equal admiration by
chymical virtuosi of the Royal Society of London and German proto-industrial
chymists on the one hand, and by transmutational alchemists and
mystically-inclined theosophists on the other.17 By the end of the century he
was recognised as the founder of one of the three major schools of alchemy
(alongside those of Paracelsus and Eirenaeus Philalethes)18 and his texts were
read and commented upon by, among others, Isaac Newton.19 The Sendivogian
grand scheme of Natures workings was disseminated by encyclopaedists and
handbook writers, so that it soon became common knowledge, often repeated
without direct reference to its designer.20
Sendivogiuss exegetic talent for reinterpreting earlier authorities finds strong
confirmation in a letter written to Ferdinand II by Rafael Mniovsk of
Sebuzn (15801644), a member of the court of appeal at Prague Castle and vice-
treasurer of the kingdom. Mniovsk was also the head of the commission in
charge of the lands in Silesia confiscated after the Battle of White Mountain,
who supervised the process of granting them to new owners, one of whom was
Michael Sendivogius. In 1630 Dr Raphael (as he was commonly called)
made a survey and inventory of the Poles estate of Kravare and Kouty, spending
some time with the alchemist (then sixty-four years old). The letter, dated 22 Sept-
ember from the nearby town of Opava, includes requests to annul the mortgage
debts and to make the estate a barony, directly subordinated to the Emperor
(both of which were granted). But knowing the Emperors interest in alchemy,
or perhaps even having been instructed by him to interview Sendivogius on the
16
Continued
along with extracts from John Dees Monas hieroglyphica; see Rafa T. Prinke, Michael Sendivogius and Christian
Rosenkreutz: The Unexpected Possibilities, The Hermetic Journal (1990): 7298, on 8485; Prinke, The Twelfth
Adept. Michael Sendivogius in Rudolphine Prague, in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited, ed. Ralph White
(Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Books, 1999), 14192, on 18283; N. H. Clulee, Astronomia Inferior. Legacies of
Johannes Trithemius and John Dee, in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed.
William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001), 173233, on 20001, 215
17, 22223. Another important example is the fourth manifesto or Speculum sophicum Rhodostauroticum by
Theophilus Schweighardt (=Daniel Mgling), published in 1618 (without the place of publication or printers
name), the third chapter of which describes the system of Sendivogius (without giving his name, but with reference
to his zwlff Chymischen Tracttlein, on 18, misnumbered 13) and illustrates it with a geometrical diagram on one
of the three engravings.
17
On the use of Sendivogian concepts by Jakob Bhme himself see Principe and Weeks, Jacob Boehmes Divine Sub-
stance Salitter.
18
Georg Ernst Stahl, Philosophical Principles of Universal Chemistry, trans. Peter Shaw (London: J. Osborn and
T. Longman, 1730), 395; the section on alchemy republished in Georg Ernst Stahl: The Philosophers Stone, ed.
Rafa T. Prinke (Glasgow: Adam McLean, 2003), 6; see also Newman, Gehennical Fire, 226.
19
Although some of the early conclusions of Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Karin Figala were disproved by later research,
the influence of Sendivogius on Newtons ideas is unquestionable; see, for example, Newman, Geochemical
Concepts.
20
For example, the influential encyclopaedist Johann Heinrich Alsted summarised, paraphrased, or reprinted verbatim
whole sections from Sendivogius (whom he knew personally) in his Systema physicae harmonicae; see Prinke,
Heliocantharus Borealis.
subject, Mniovsk added some comments, apparently as arguments to make Fer-

dinand agree to the proposed solutions:
I am happy that I have met this man. Since my youth I have spent much effort and
time on all this, over thirty years, seriously consulted all authors that ever became
available, also read much in manuscripts, in characters and in cipher, [belonging
to] emperor Rudolf, and also found many such ones in the libraries of monasteries,
especially the abbeys of Braunau and Kremsmnster, but such fundamentals and
power of reason that Sendivogius has, I have never heard nor read. And in following
the possibilities and faculties of nature, it seems impossible that these matters will be
other than what he proposes. I have also never encountered anyone among all those
that I have ever spoken to, and their number was great, who were his equal. His
argumentation embraces all ancient allegories that were ever written, [and] flows
from all authors that ever came to light, so that one can see clearly to what aim
each [of them] proceeded; [it] confirms all ciphers, manuscripts, all illustrations and
hieroglyphs and enigmas that I have seen in all my life, and touches the true origin
of all things.21
He then announces his conviction that if anyone in the world can deduce something
from the alchemical authorities, it is Sendivogius, and that if he does not achieve the
goal of the art, then it is all false. Such an enthusiastic opinion from a person who
was both knowledgeable and cautious about alchemy indicates that Sendivogius,
even at the end of his life, was highly persuasive and easily convinced others to
accept his reinterpretations.
Interestingly, it is clear from Mniovsks letter that the Polish alchemist had not
reached the ultimate goal of the art and still continued his quest. A quarter of a
century earlier he stated plainly: So far reached my experience, I can do no
more, I found out no more, before adding, I have done it not out of many
Books but by the labour of my Hands, and mine own experience.22 Thus he por-
trayed himself as a new type of alchemist, giving priority to empirical
21
[Ich] bin fro das mirn dieser Mann zu henden gestossen. Hab viel mhe und zeit in diesem allem von iugendt auf,
wohl ber die dreissig iahr zugebracht, ernstig in allen authoribus so ie frkhummen nachgeschlagen, auch viel in
manuscriptis, in charakteribus et Cifris Rudolphi Imperatoris gelesen, viel desgleichen auch in Bibliothecis Monas-
teriorum insonderheit des Abtn von Braunau und Crembsmnster befunden, aber solche fundamenta und rationer
potentissimas, wie Sendivogius hatt, nie gehrt weder gelesen, welche also der Natur mglikheit und facilitet nach-
gehen, das unmglich zu sein erscheinet, das sich die sache anderst befinden solle, als er frbringt. Ist mir auch
kheiner frkhummen under allen denen mitt welchen ich ie conversiret, derer doch grosse menge gewesen, der
diesem gleich wre. Sein nachrichtung schleust auf alle allegorias ueterum die ie geschriben worden, leget auss alle
authores welche ie in lucem khummen, das man mercken khan augenscheinlich zu was fr ziel ein ieder collimiret,
confirmiret alle cifrar, manuscripta, alle imagines und Hieroglyphica und aenigmata die ich mein lebelang gesehen,
und zwiget den rechten unsprung aller sachen. Mniovsk to Ferdinand II, 22 September 1630, Vienna, Haus-, Hof
und Staatsarchiv, Hausarchiv, Familien-Korrespondenz A, Karton 8, fols. 27984 with confused foliation, here 279v
and 282r. It was discovered and briefly described by R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550
1700. An Interpretation (Oxford: University of Oxford Press [Clarendon Press], 1979), 36061. I am grateful to
Ren Zandbergen for his correction of my transcription and for translating this letter.
22
Michael Sendivogius, Novum lumen chemicum, in Musaeum Hermeticum reformatum et amplificatum (Frank-
furt: Hermann Sande, 1678); text identical to the first 1604 edition but with expanded contractions: Hucusque
pervenit mea experientia, non plus possum, non plus inveni, 573; [N]on e multis libris, sed ex mearum
manuum labore et propria experientia feci, 580; English translation quoted from Sendivogius, A New Light of
Alchymy, trans. J[ohn] F[rench] (London: Thomas Williams, 1674), 31, 43; the 1650 English edition is the same
(on 31, 42).
224 RAFA T. PRINKE
experimentation over the prisca sapientia found in ancient books, and yet reminding
the reader throughout the text that proper understanding of the secrets of nature is a
gift of God (donum Dei).23 That reference to experience as the source of knowledge
appears most prominently in the subtitle, stating that his teachings were taken out
of the Fountain of Nature and manual experience.24 The same subtitle was bor-
rowed by Jean Bguin for his Tyrocinium chymicum of 1610. Two years earlier
Bguin produced the first French edition (in Latin) of Sendivogiuss work, and the
two texts were later reprinted together a number of times as foundational works
of the new empirical alchemy.25
The obsessively secretive nature of Sendivogius, hinted at by Mniovsk, was
already displayed by his request to readers of Novum lumen chymicum: [I]f
you know me, and desire to shew your selves good and honest men, you shall
hold your tongue: if you know me not, do not enquire after me, for I will reveal
to no mortal man, whilst I live, more than I have done in this publick
Writing.26 This might be dismissed as a rhetorical device if not for a number of
testimonies, especially the printed works of people who knew him personally,
such as Croll and Maier, in which the name of Sendivogius was indeed hidden
in elaborate ways, just as he requested.27 His secretiveness in contacts with
others is further confirmed in a letter written by the Torgau chiliast Paul Nagel
to his friend Arnold Kerner, a physician from Leipzig. This shows that Sendivogius
visited Nagel in the summer of 1619 but forbade his name to be divulged.28
The Poles attitude did not change ten years later, when Mniovsk informed
Ferdinand II:
I enjoy with all my heart that I have been engaged in conversation with such a man, that
he liked me, and enjoyed discussing [alchemy] with me; otherwise nobody gets any word
out of him and in front of others he speaks very little or not at all, and anyone else [than
myself] would have trouble to follow and understand him.29
23
The phrase donum Dei itself appears three times and is paraphrased in other places.
24
[E] naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromptum. Sendivogius, Novum lumen, 545; New Light, title page.
25
In some cases both works were attributed to Bguin alone, e.g. Novvm lvmen ad Tyrocinivm chymicum, ex autogra-
pho Ioannis Begvini (Cologne, 1625). For the printing history of Bguins handbook and its relationship to Sendivo-
giuss treatise see T. S. Patterson, Jean Beguin and his Tyrocinium chymicum, Annals of Science 2 (1937): 24398.
26
[S]i me nostis, & boni ac honesti viri esse desideratis, tacebitis: si me non nostris nolite de me inquirere, nulli mor-
talium enim quandiu vixero plus a me revelabitur quam hoc publico scripto factum est. Sendivogius, Novum
lumen, 58485; New Light, 5051.
27
Prinke, The Twelfth Adept, 14749; Prinke, Milczenie alchemikw. Tozsamosc Michaa Sedziwoja zakodowana
w tekscie Basilica chymica Oswalda Crolla, Pamietnik Biblioteki Krnickiej 28 (2007): 21741.
28
[Sendivogius] hart verboten seinen Namen nicht zueroffnen. Nagel to Kerner, 1 April 1620, Leipzig, Universitts-
bibliothek MS 0356, fol. 17r-v; I am indebted for this reference to Leigh Penman. See also Leigh T. I. Penman,
Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Crisis, Chiliasm, and Transcendence in the Thought of Paul Nagel (1624), a Lutheran
Dissident During the Time of the Thirty Years War, Intellectual History Review 20 (2010): 20126, on 206, 214.
This is probably the same letter to which Werner Soukup refers on the basis of personal communication from Oliver
Humberg, but here Kerner is said to be the author and the date is 1 April 1629 (obviously a typographical error):
R. Werner Soukup, Chemie in sterreich. [Bd. 1:] Von den Anfngen bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Geschichte
der frhen chemischen Technologie und Alchemie des ostalpinen Raumes unter Bercksichtigung von Entwicklun-
gen in angrenzenden Regionen (Wien, Kln, Weimar: Bhlau Verlag, 2007), 408.
29
Erfreue mich von hertzn das ich zur conversation solchen Mans gerathen, das er mir gemogen, vnd mitt mir gern
discuttiret, sonsten bringt khein Mensch khein wort von ihm, vnd redet vor andern gar wenig oder gar nichts,
Such secrecy obviously generated legends, ranging from the belief that Sendivogius
was a true possessor of the Philosophers Stone to the opinion that he did not know
much about alchemy and only published the work of others.
Cosmopolita sum
Four writings were published during Sendivogiuss lifetime and remained the most
often reprinted: De lapide philosophorum tractatus duodecim (Twelve Treatises
on the Philosophers Stone) and Parabola seu aenigma philosophicum (The
Parable or Philosophicall Riddle) in 1604; Dialogus Mercurii, alchymistae et
Naturae (A Dialogue between Mercury, the Alchymist and Nature) in 1607;
and Tractatus de sulphure altero Naturae principio (A Treatise of Sulphur) in
1616.30 The first two were usually published together, but the Frankfurt printer
and translator Georg Beatus (or maybe Johann Bringer, the publisher) added the
Parabola to the beginning of his Latin translation of Azoth sive aureliae occultae
philosophorum, a work attributed to the fictitious adept Basilius Valentinus.31
The Parabola was also published separately with the Dialogus in a late Russian
translation (St Petersburg, 1781). Jean Beguins 1608 edition brought the De
lapide and Parabola together with the Dialogus under the new title of Novum
lumen chymicum, which was later used in French, Dutch, English, and Russian edi-
tions. German editions, on the other hand, usually retained the original title or modi-
fied it slightly, thus forming a different editorial tradition, with a number of other
distinctive features. In addition to these known writings, the author of De sulphure
promised to write two more books, one to deal with the third Paracelsian principle,
entitled De sale, and one on many other topics, to be called Harmonia. In the
remaining part of this paper, I will first discuss the general question of the
Cosmopolite-Seton story, its origins and evolution. Then I will consider each of
the abovementioned titles, including several texts which were sometimes identified
as the promised treatises De sale and Harmonia.
The nominal authorship of the first editions of De lapide philosophorum and Dia-
logus was thinly hidden in the phrase on the title page: Divi Leschi genus amo (I
love the race of divine Leschus, or I love the divine race of Leschus), which is
both an anagram of Michael Sendivogius and a reference to his nationality,
Leschus (Leszek, Lech) being the mythical founder of Poland. For De sulphure
another anagram of Sendivogius was used, Angelus doce mihi ius (Angel, teach
29
Continued
vnd wirdt ein anderer zuthuen haben ihm zuverstehn vnd zubegreiffen. Mniovsk to Ferdinand II, 22 September
1630, fol. 282v.
30
Dialogus Mercurii, alchymistae et Naturae (Cologne: Servatius Erffen, 1607); Tractatus de sulphure altero Naturae
principio (Cologne: Joannes Crithius, 1616). Except for the Twelve Treatises, the English versions of the titles are
taken from the London 1650 edition.
31
[Pseudo-]Basilius Valentinus, Azoth sive aureliae occultae philosophorum (Frankfurt: Johann Bringer, 1613). The
Parabola was also included alongside the Azoth in both editions of the fourth volume of Theatrum chemicum (Stras-
bourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1613; Strasbourg: Haeredes Eberhardi Zetzneri, 1659), 51824 and 45762, respectively, as
well as in Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, ed. Jean-Jacques Manget (Geneva: Chouet, 1702), vol. 2, 19899. It was not
included in the original German edition or the French translation of 1624.
226 RAFA T. PRINKE
me the right/law/justice/duty). Both anagrams were soon resolved by knowledge-

able readers. Probably the first person to openly announce the pseudonymous
authors identity in print (as opposed to the hints and clues given by Croll and
Maier) was Raphael Eglinus in 1612,32 closely followed by Andreas Libavius in
1613.33 The first edition to allude to the authors name on the title page was the
German translation Tripus chymicus Sendivogianus of 1628, edited by Hisaias
sub Cruce Ath[enensis] (an anagram of Isaac Habrecht) and published by
Lazarus Zetzners heirs in Strasbourg.34 The Geneva edition of the same year con-
tains a note on the last page identifying the author as Sendivogius, but the infor-
mation did not appear on the title page. The texts remained anonymous in the
Theatrum chemicum and were openly ascribed to Sendivogius on the title page
only in the 1650 English translation. The eighteenth-century editions commonly
used the name of the Polish alchemist as the author, with the exception of the
French translations and some minor printings.
Of all those numerous editions, only one appeared under the name of another
author, a 1751 German translation of De lapide philosophorum by Alexander
Seton of Scotland, the true owner of the Art. The anonymous editor explained
that Sendivogius published Setons work as his own.35 This story was quite wide-
spread by that time, assumed its canonical form in Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoys
influential Histoire de la philosophie hermtique of 1742, and was retold with
some additional details by many later authors, including such influential scholars
as Eric Holmyard.36 The roots of the legend are to be found in two letters with
short biographies of Sendivogius, the first of which was published almost a
century earlier (in 1655) by Pierre Borel.37 It was written in 1651 from Warsaw
by Pierre Des Noyers (160693), personal secretary to the Queen of Poland.38
The second letter was sent ten years later from Cracow by Girolamo Pinocci
(161276), a diplomat, master of the mint and custodian of the Royal Archives.39
It was originally written in Italian but is now known only from its French translation
32
Nicolaus Niger Hapelius [=Raphael Eglinus], Cheiragogia Heliana de auro philosophico necdum cognito (Marburg:
Rudolph Hutwelcker, 1612), 276; English translation in George Thor, ed., An Easie Introduction to the Philosophers
Magical Gold (London: Matthew Smelt, 1667), 29.
33
Libavius, Septadis Hermeticae monas septima, 437.
34
The 1624 book by Andreas Orthelius published in Erfurt as Michaelis Sendivogi Poloni Lumen chymicum novum
XII. tractatibus divisum is not an edition of the text, as often erroneously claimed, but uses quotations from Sendi-
vogius as comments on another text; see my introduction to the Czech translation: Andreas Orthelius a jeho
komentr k Sendivogiovi, Logos [Praha] (2014): 10509.
35
Alexand[ri] Sitonii aus Schottland eines wahren Besitzers der Kunst zwlf Bcher von dem rechten wahren Philoso-
phischen Steine (Frankfurt-Leipzig: s. t., 1751), sig.)(6v.
36
Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy, Histoire de la philosophie hermtique (Paris: Constelier, 1742), vol. 1, 32269; Eric
J. Holmyard, Alchemy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957), 21832.
37
Pierre Des Noyer, untitled letter, in Pierre Borel, Trsor de Recherches et Antiquitez gauloises et franoises (Paris:
Augustin Courb, 1655), 47986.
38
For more on Des Noyers see Karolina Targosz, La cour savante de Louise Marie de Gonzague et les liens scientifiques
avec la France (16461667) (Wrocaw: Ossolineum, 1982), an abridged translation of Targosz, Uczony dwr
Ludwiki Marii Gonzagi (16461667). Z dziejw polsko-francuskich stosunkw naukowych (Wrocaw: Ossolineum,
1975).
39
On Pinocci see Targosz, Hieronim Pinocci. Studium z dziejw kultury naukowej w Polsce w XVII wieku (Wrocaw:
Ossolineum, 1967).
published in 1669 as an appendix to Cosmopolite ou Nouuelle Lumiere Chemi-

que.40 Both letters claimed that Novum lumen chymicum was written by an English-
man, whom Sendivogius helped to escape from prison and whose widow he married,
thus obtaining his treatise which he later published as his own. Neither of the two
biographers knew the adepts name, so they called him the Englishman, and
Des Noyers also uses the authors self-designation in the text, calling him [t]he Cos-
mopolite (whom I shall thus name, having been unable to learn his true name), who
was Catholic.41
As I have argued at length elsewhere, Pinoccis account depends on that of Des
Noyers and the story is undoubtedly based on reminiscences of Michael Sendivo-
giuss contacts with Edward Kelley, who was indeed known in Bohemia as the Eng-
lishman (Engellender), and his subsequent dealings with Kelleys widow Joan, who
was likewise referred to as Lady Englishman (pan Engllendrova) in court records,
and from whom the Polish alchemist purchased a house with a small farm in Jlov
near Prague.42 Moreover, Kelley and Dee, urged by the angels, returned to the
Roman Catholic faith during their stay in Cracow.43 This is not only obvious
from Dees diaries,44 but also from independent sources, such as Faustus Socinus,
who knew of the English visitors from Francesco Pucci and informed his friend
Mateusz Redecki about their dealings with angels.45 The known alchemical texts
attributed to Edward Kelley bear no resemblance to those of the Cosmopolite,
however, and after Des Noyers and Pinocci no one else suspected or suggested
that he might have been their author.
The name of Alexander Seton, the hero of one of the earliest and best documented
transmutation histories,46 was incorporated into the legend not much later, probably
40
Poliarco Micigno [=Girolamo Pinocci], Lettre missive, contenant la vie de Sendivogius, appended to some copies of
Cosmopolite ou Nouuelle lumiere chemique, divise en douze traitez (Paris: Jean dHoury, 1669), no pagination.
Besides the editorial statement that the letter was translated from Italian, the letter was signed Poliarco
Micigno, an anagram of Pinoccis name that he used when writing in his mother tongue. He was fluent in
several languages and had a curious habit of using different anagrams for different languages: Nicephorus Nicoymius
(Latin), Poliarco Micigno (Italian), Cyprion Miechoni (Polish), Ermes-Pio Ciconii (French), and Remigio Conopi
(Spanish). Fourteen years later, Johann Lange translated the letter from French into German, as he explained on
the title page: Michael Sendivogii Leben, wie solches anfangs in Italinischer Sprache beschrieben von Poliarcho
Micigno, folgends in die Frantzsische und nunmehro in die Hochteutsche Sprache bersetzet durch J. L. M. C.
[=Johann Lange] (Hamburg: Georg Wolff, 1683).
41
English translation: Michael Sendivogius, The New Chemical Light II: Treatise of Sulphur (Edmonds, WA: The
Alchemical Press/Holmes Publishing Group, 1998), 39.
42
Prinke, Beyond Patronage, 20102.
43
Glyn Parrys recent discovery shows that Dee received full ordination into Catholic priesthood in 1554 and became
bishop Edmund Bonners chaplain: Glyn Parry, The Arch-Conjuror of England: John Dee (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2012), 2829.
44
See especially the fragments on Dee taking ghostly counsel and receiving communion from Hannibal Rosselli at the
Bernardines church in Cracow and Kelley doing the same at St Stephens church there at Easter time (1922 April, 21
May 1585): Meric Casaubon, ed., A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers between Dr. John Dee
and Some Spirits (London: T. Garthwait, 1659), 39799, 401; see also the corrected edition: Stephen Skinner, ed.,
Dr. John Dees Spiritual Diary (15831608) (Singapore: Golden Hoard Press, 2011), 513, 516.
45
Faustus Socinus, Fausti Socini ad amicos epistolae (Rakw: Sebastian Sternacius, 1618), 11011; Polish translation:
Faust Socyn, Listy, trans. Ludwik Chmaj (Warszawa: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1959), vol. 1, 26162.
46
Two eminent witnesses related it in print and in correspondence: Johann Wolfgang Dienheim, Medicina universalis
(Strassburg: Lucas Zetzner, 1610), 6468; Theodor Zwinger, De Chrysopoeia variae literatorum epistolae, Miscel-
lanea curiosa Decuriae II. Annus nonus, Annus M.DC.XC. (1691): 1641.
228 RAFA T. PRINKE
as a guess at whom the Englishman may have been. This merging of the Engellender
with the figure of Seton received wide circulation in 1673 through its authoritative
acceptance by Daniel Georg Morhof (163991) in his influential letter to Joel Lan-
gelott (161780), where he wrote: Sendivogius knew nothing whatsoever pertain-
ing to the essence of the thing. But he had the book of Seton who called himself the
Cosmopolite containing the twelve treatises printed.47 However, Morhof was not
the first to suggest this identification, as the Danish scholar Ole Borch already men-
tioned it in his history of chymistry in 1668.48 Borch also recorded in his diary on 20
May 1664 that he learned about the identity of the Cosmopolite as Alexander Seton
from Samuel Cottereau Du Clos (15981685).49 Because Pierre Borel, the publisher
of Des Noyers letter, did not identify Seton with the author of De lapide philoso-
phorum in the second edition of his Bibliotheca chemica printed a year later
even though he listed a different text attributed to Seton the link must have
been forged between 1656 and 1664, perhaps in Parisian alchemical circles.50
The use of the name Cosmopolite is a separate aspect of the legend. Popular
accounts often state that Sendivogius stole Setons pseudonym,51 but none of the
genuine sources concerning the Scottish alchemist recorded his use of it. Because
the author of the twelve treatises stated in the preface to the Parabola, If you ask
who I am, I am one that can live anywhere (Cosmopolita sum), the attribution of
the text to Seton made it his self-designation.52 It can, however, be shown that Sendi-
vogius was called (or called himself) a Cosmopolite at least six years earlier. In 1599
an extensive historical work, Ogrod krolewsky (The Royal Garden), was published
in Prague. This was written in Polish by the poet and genealogist Bartosz Paprocki (ca.
15401614), who dedicated the last of the three parts to Michael Sendivogius. In the
dedicatory epistle, Paprocki praised him as a man who traveled a lot, so that,
you could answer like the famous Socrates, if anyone asked Your Lordship Cuiatem se
esse dicis: Mundanum se pronunciare, i.e. that you are a citizen of all countries in the
whole world, because virtue and learning for their respectability give settlement to every-
one everywhere. And therefore Your Lordship could and can, in order to proclaim that
primary virtue to the world, use the words of Diogenes and call yourself Civem mundi.53
47
Nihil quicquam quod ad summam rei faceret Sendivogius scivit. Librum tamen Setoni, qui se Cosmopolitam
vocavit, duodecim scilicet Tractatus imprimi curavit. Daniel Georg Morhof, De metallorum transmutatione
(Hamburg, Amsterdam: Gottfried Schultze, 1673), 150. English translation after Newman, Gehennical Fire, 7.
48
Ole Borch, De ortu et progressu chemiae (Copenhagen: Petrus Haubold, 1668), 14445.
49
Cosmopolitam fuisse Alexandrum Sethon Scotum (i.e. Alex: Sidonium). Olai Borrichii itinerarium 16601665.
The Journal of the Danish Polyhistor Ole Borch, ed. H. D. Schepelern, vol. 3 (Copenhagen: The Danish Society
of Language and Literature, 1983), 412; in my earlier paper (Prinke, Beyond Patronage, 189) I misinterpreted
Borchs note as referring to Kenelm Digby, who is mentioned in the previous sentence, but the whole section contains
notes from Borchs conversation with Du Clo, who thus was the immediate source of the information.
50
Pierre Borel, Bibliotheca chimica, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Samuel Broun, 1656), 6364, 199; Seton on 200.
51
For example: Holmyard, Alchemy, 230; Gaston Bachelard, The Formation of the Scientific Mind: A Contribution to a
Psychoanalysis of Objective Knowledge, ed. and trans. Mary McAllester Jones (Manchester: Clinamen, 2002), 8990.
52
Si quaeritis quis sim; Cosmopolita sum. De lapide philosophorum (Prague, 1604), 108; English translation from A
New Light of Alchymie (1650), 49. Hereafter, all English translations are taken from this edition unless stated
otherwise.
53
[Z ]e iko on sawny Socrates moges dc odpowiedz, gdyby by W: W: kto spyta Cuiatem se esse dicis: Mundanum
se pronunciare, to iest wszytkich krin n swiecie obywatelem, gdysz cnot nuka dla swey zacnosci kzdemu
Cosmopolita is obviously the Greek form of civis mundi (i.e. citizen of the world),
while the explicit use of both past and present tense (could and can) by Paprocki
shows that Sendivogius was already using that nickname before 1599. It is also
important to note that Diogenes is evoked by Paprocki in this context, while the
author of De lapide philosophorum states, in the same passage where he assumes
the name of Cosmopolita, that he would prefer with Diogenes to lie hidden under
a tub.54 The Sendivogian text is thus nearly a paraphrase of Paprockis text, and
there can hardly be any doubt that it was Michael Sendivogius who used the name
of Cosmopolita long before 1604 not Alexander Seton. But he was not the only
one to use it. Its appearance and spread before 1600 is a fascinating topic in itself
but beyond the scope of this paper, so I will only mention the scholar, linguist, and
cabbalist Guillaume Postel (151081), who first added it to his name in 1559. Five
years before that, Barthlemy Aneau made perhaps the earliest reference to Cosmo-
polites as the sages of the past (olim etiam fuerant Sapientes Cosmopolitae).55 Inter-
estingly, Aneau says this in the line immediately following his mention of Thomas
More and the Utopia, to which Sendivogius alludes at the very end of the Parabola,
where Neptune transfers the protagonist to the desired region of Eutopia.56
The hermetic connotation of the name Cosmopolita lasted throughout the seven-
teenth century, but of the few pre-1600 bearers of the designation, two may have had
direct influence on Michael Sendivogiuss use of it. One was Nicolas Barnaud, whom
the Polish alchemist may have met in Prague or Cracow, where both stayed at
roughly the same time. Barnaud is well known in the history of alchemy as the
editor of a number of intriguing texts, but he was also closely involved in the activi-
ties of the Polish Brethren.57 He is also traditionally identified as the author of the
radical political pamphlet Rveille-matin des Franois, published in 1574 by the
pseudonymous Eusebius Philadelphus Cosmopolita. Robert Evans even speculated
that he may have been the prototype of Seton-Cosmopolite. However, it now
seems doubtful that he was the author of Rveille-matin and thus would not be a
Cosmopolite, either, because in no other place did he use that name.58
The most probable source from which Sendivogius may have borrowed his nick-
name appears to be John Dee, who apparently took it from Postel.59 Although Dee
refers in the Monas to his cosmopolitical theories (nostris Cosmopoliticis
53
Continued
osidosc wszedy dawia , y W: W: moges y mozesz by on pierwsza cnota swit sprwow Dyogenesowemi sowy
minowc sie Civem mundi. Bartosz Paprocki, Ogrod krolewsky (Prague: Daniel Sedlcansk, 1599), bk 3, List, fol.
cxli verso.
54
[C]um Diogene sub dolio delitescere. De lapide philosophorum (1604), 108; New Light (1650), 50.
55
Barthlemy Aneau, Jurisprudentia (Lyon: ad Sagittarii, 1554), 13.
56
[M]e somno excitatum in desideratam Eutopiae regionem sistit. De lapide philosophorum (1604), 12425; in
some later editions the name is changed to Europa.
57
For this side of Barnaud see Didier Kahn, Between Alchemy and Antitrinitarianism: Nicolas Barnaud (ca. 1539
1604?), trans. Robert Folger, in Socinianism and Arminianism: Antitrinitarians, Calvinists and Cultural Exchange
in Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. Martin Muslow and Jan Rohls (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2005).
58
Kahn, Between Alchemy and Antitrinitarianism, 117; also private communication from Didier Kahn about his
planned article devoted exclusively to this question.
59
Parry, Arch-Conjuror, 51.
230 RAFA T. PRINKE
theoriis)60 rather than calling himself a Cosmopolite, in General and Rare Memor-
ials (p. 54) he discusses Cosmopolites, alluding to himself as one of them.61 Even
more indicative of the link with Sendivogius is Dees use of the rare Greek term
Heliocantharus (sun-beetle),62 later applied to the Pole by Oswald Croll in his Bas-
ilica chymica.63 Young Sendivogius may have met Dee in Cracow or in Bohemia, but
Dees Monas and the teachings related to it were known well enough in the alchem-
ical circles of Central Europe that no such direct personal connection was needed for
Sendivogius to pick up the names of Cosmopolita or Heliocantharus.64
The fact that Sendivogius indeed used the name long before 1604 and did not steal
it from Alexander Seton does not automatically prove he was the author of the three
books. It is therefore necessary to consider what else is known about the circum-
stances of their original publication, early editions, and translations, as well as the
people involved in producing them.
De lapide philosophorum (Novum lumen chymicum)

Until now, the place of publication of De lapide philosophorum has not been
certain because only the year 1604 appears on the title page. The assumption
that it was printed in Prague was based on early references to it, but these are con-
fusing and contradictory. In 2013 Petr Voit of the Strahov Monastery Library in
Prague, the leading expert on early Czech prints, kindly identified at my request
the printing house where that original edition was produced comparing its
various features with those found in the works of printers active in Prague at
the time.65 There can now be no doubt that the book was printed by the press
established by Jan uman (d. 1594), which at the time of publication was run as
a family company under the name of Johann Schumann Druckerei.66 The
same printing house was earlier used by Bartosz Paprocki to publish some of his
works, including Nova kratochvile (1598), a volume of facetious poems, some
of which were dedicated to Sendivogius and members of his family. Most interest-
ingly, however, in 1617 a Latin eulogy with a collection of epigrams was printed by
60
C. H. Josten, A Translation of John Dees Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564) with an Introduction and Anno-
tations, Ambix 12 (1964): 84221, on 11819.
61
The topic was first studied by Graham Yewbrey, John Dee and the Sidney Group: Cosmopolitics and Protestant
Activism in the 1570s (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hull, 1981); see also William H. Sherman, John Dee: The
Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press,
1995), 14147; on Sidneys cosmopolitan ideas without reference to Dee see Robert E. Stillman, Philip Sidney and the
Poetics of Renaissance Cosmopolitanism (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2008).
62
Josten, A Translation of John Dees Monas Hieroglyphica, 17677.
63
Prinke, The Twelfth Adept, 14749; Prinke, Milczenie alchemikw, passim; Prinke, Heliocantharus Borea-
lis, forthcoming.
64
Peter J. Forshaw, The Early Alchemical Reception of John Dees Monas hieroglyphica, Ambix 52 (2005): 247
68; Jennifer M. Rampling, John Dee and the Sciences: Early Modern Networks of Knowledge, Studies in History
and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012): 43236; Rampling, John Dee and the Alchemists: Practising and Promoting
English Alchemy in the Holy Roman Empire, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012): 498508.
65
Personal communication of 17 March 2013; I wish to express my grateful thanks to Petr Voit for this friendly help.
66
Petra Vecerov, umansk tiskrna (15851628) (Prague: Scriptorium, 2002), with samples of fonts and ornaments;
concise information about it may also be found in Petr Voit, Encyklopedie knihy: Star knihtisk a prbuzn obory
mezi polovinou 15. a poctkem 19. stolet, 2 vols. (Prague: Libri, 2006), vol. 2, 80304.
the same press, defending one Jacob Alstein (d. aft. 1620) against calumnies,
in which Alstein is addressed as the second Hermes, greater than Paracelsus
and Lull.67 The editor, Lambertus Thomas Schenckelius, preceded the work
with a dedication to Piotr Gorajski, an intimate friend of Sendivogius, to whom
Paprocki dedicated the first part of Ogrod krolewski, writing that they were
like brothers. Alstein appears to have been a very important figure in the
alchemical-Paracelsian networks of the early seventeenth century, but has hardly
been studied by historians. Except for the important article by Jaromr
C ervenka,68 the first scholars to mention him (albeit briefly) were Franois
Secret and Carlos Gilly.69 In 1979 the former wrote that Novum Lumen Chymi-
cum was published in Latin at Prague through the offices of a certain Count of the
Palatinate, Jacobus Alstein,70 but did not support this claim with arguments or
references. Most probably its sole basis was Millet de Bosnays preface to the
first edition of the French translation, which appeared in 1609 in Paris. This
was dedicated to Baron du Pont, at the time a close friend of Alstein.71 Millet
de Bosnay further explains that the Latin text, which was printed earlier, came
from the hands of Count Alstein, while the intention (either of Alstein or Du
Pont) was to publish the French version first.72
This episode clearly refers to the first Latin edition of Sendivogiuss treatise in
France, the Novum Lumen Chymicum of 1608 with Beguins preface, not the
editio princeps of Prague. De Bosnays testimony suggests that Beguin received the
text from Alstein, who may also have sponsored its publication against their
earlier agreement to have the French translation released first. De Bosnay was
clearly displeased with the situation, which may also explain why he did not
67
The eulogy is briefly described (without mentioning the printer and dedicatee) in Carlos Gilly, Vom gyptischen
Hermes zum Trismegistus Germanus. Wandlungen des Hermetismus in der paracelsistischen und rosenkreuzerischen
Literatur, in Konzepte des Hermetismus in der Literatur der Frhen Neuzeit, ed. Peter-Andr Alt and Volkhard Wels
(Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress, 2010), 71132, on 9495.
68
Jaromr C ervenka, J. A. Komensk, Ladislav Velen ze Z erotna a alchymie, Acta Comeniana 2 (1970): 2144, on
2527.
69
Franois Secret, Littrature et alchimie la fin du XVIe et au dbut du XVIIe sicle, Bibliothque dHumanisme et
Renaissance 35 (1973): 10316, on 11314; Carlos Gilly, Zwischen Erfahrung und Spekulation. Theodor Zwinger
und die religise und kulturelle Krise seiner Zeit, Basler Zeitschrift fr Geschichte und Altertumskunde 77 (1977):
57137, on 74.
70
Franois Secret, Palingenesis, Alchemy and Metempsychosis in Renaissance Medicine, Ambix 26 (1979): 8199,
on 83.
71
On this forgotten patron of alchemists see Secret, Littrature et alchimie, Bibliothque dHumanisme et Renais-
sance 35 (1973): 499531, on 51619; Secret, Rforme et alchimie, Bulletin de la Socit de lHistoire du Protest-
antisme franais 122 (1978): 17386, on 17880; Didier Kahn, King Henry IV, Alchemy and Paracelsianism in
France (15891610), in Chymists and Chymistry, ed. Lawrence M. Principe (Canton, MA: Science History Publi-
cations/Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2007), 111, on 5; more details on Du Pont and Alstein will be presented by
Didier Kahn in the forthcoming Cercles alchimiques. I wish to thank Didier Kahn very much for additional infor-
mation and for providing copies of key pages from that very rare 1609 edition.
72
Secondement les premiers memoires de ce qui a est Imprim en Latin estants sortis dentre les mains du Seigneur
Comte Alstein vostre intime, & auec lequel vous viuiez familierement en ce mesme temps. Il estoit plus que raison-
nable, que ceste Impression nouuelle, nouuellement vestu la Franoise, vous saluast le premier en langage Franois,
puis que vous estiez le premier, & en partie le seul motif de ce quelle estoit ne au monde. Contre quelques autres
particularitez, afin que ie ne die animositez, que le susdict Comte me declara en vostre presence, soudain que lIm-
pression Latine fut vee en public. Cosmopolite ov Novvelle Lvmiere de la Phisique naturelle (Paris: Irmie
Ptier, 1609), 2.
232 RAFA T. PRINKE
finish translating the Dialogus (included in Beguins edition), appending only its
introduction. On the other hand, Sendivogiuss own preface to De lapide philoso-
phorum is missing, so de Bosnay may have assumed that it was written by the
editor or by Alstein, and omitted it for that reason.
The confusion introduced by Franois Secrets mistake received wider circula-
tion through the most comprehensive treatment of Jacob Alstein to date, pub-
lished by Julian Paulus.73 He approached Secrets statement with some
reservation, pointing out that there is nothing in the 1604 Prague edition to
confirm it.74 Although Alstein may have known Sendivogius, there is no reason
to assume that he was involved in the original edition of De lapide philoso-
phorum, since Michael Sendivogiuss social and financial position was high
enough to enable him to publish the book himself. If another party was involved,
this may have been none other than the Emperor Rudolf II, as suggested by a note
to the very first translation (into Czech), undertaken in the year of publication of
the editio princeps.
This translation is preserved in a beautifully executed manuscript at the library of
the National Museum in Prague, bound together with alternating leaves of the orig-
inal print edition, so that the manuscript translation appears on pages facing the
printed text. At the end is the following note:
This little book De lapide Philosophorum was presented to me by Adam Jiskra

Bielsk, citizen of Prague New Town, in the Jewish Gardens in the year 1604, on
the twentieth day of the month of September, on the Eve of St Matthew, who received
at the Castle of [C esk] Krumlov [one of the] unbound copies from the library of His
Imperial Majesty, when they were being bound in the rooms there; the translation was
completed by me in Hotice in the year 1605, on the twenty-first day of January. Lord
God kindly bestow good luck [upon me] in this [undertaking]. Amen. I: B: B:
Rotenperk.75
The important point is that at least part of the print run was transported from
Prague to C esk Krumlov to be bound in the Imperial library there, so we may
suspect that the Emperor knew about it. The book may even have been written at
the request (or rather express wish) of Rudolf and under his subtle pressure. In
the records of the municipal court of justice in Prague there is an entry from a
case of 1604, in which Sendivogius sued one Jindrich Krynger, alias Z elynsk, for
73
Julian Paulus, Alchemie und Paracelsismus um 1600. Siebzig Portrts, in Analecta Paracelsica. Studien zum
Nachleben Theophrast von Hohenheims im deutschen Kulturgebiet der frhen Neuzeit, ed. Joachim Telle (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994), 335406, on 384; Paulus, Alstein, Jacob, in Alchemie. Lexikon einer hermetischen
Wissenschaft, ed. Claus Priesner and Karin Figala (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998), 4445.
74
Paulus, Alchemie und Paracelsismus, 384; practically the same wording with 1604 instead of Prague in
Paulus, Alstein, Jacob, 44.
75
Tato knizka De lapide Philosophorum: Darowana gest mi od Adamusa Giskr Bielskeho, M. N. M. P. [Metenna
Novho Mesta Prazskho] na Z dowske zahradie Letha 1604. dwadczateho dne Miesycze Zarzj u Wigilgi S.
Mathau sse: kterauz dostal na Zamku Kru mlowie, z Bibloteky G. M. C. newazaneho Exemplrze kdyz tam prowo-
zowan bl po Pokogich, dokonana Odemne w Hossticzch przelozienim Letha 1605. 21 dne Ledna, Pn Bu h racziz
wtom sstiesti propu gczitj Amen. I: B: B: Rotenperk. Praha, Knihovna Nrodnho muzea, O Kamenu Mudrcu v,
MS III H 20 (alternative call number as a printed book: 23 B 32), 125.
spreading false and insulting gossip about him. Among other interesting details, it
says that Michal Zinzyvoy, counsellor, servant, and Truchsess76 of His Imperial
Majesty had been living in the house of Joannes Barvitius (ca. 15551620) for
more than a year (i.e. from at least 1602) by the order of His Imperial
Majesty.77 This means that Sendivogius almost certainly wrote De lapide philoso-
phorum in the house of Barvitius, the influential private secretary of Rudolf II, a
patron of poets and scholars who was also interested in alchemy.78
Thus, in the light of all the facts and arguments discussed above, there should be
no more doubt that De lapide philosophorum was written by Michael Sendivogius,
who had been called Cosmopolita at least several years earlier; that he most prob-
ably wrote it in the house of Joannes Barvitius near the Royal Castle in Prague; and
that he had it printed anonymously at the Johann Schumann Druckerei in the first
half of 1604, apparently with the knowledge and consent of Rudolf II, at whose
library in C esk Krumlov some of the copies were bound.
This still leaves the question of another possible 1604 edition, often mentioned in
scholarly literature and supposedly published in Frankfurt by Johann Ludwig
Bitsch.79 Didier Kahn has recently argued that the Frankfurt edition is most cer-
tainly fictitious, ascribing the error to Pierre Borel in his highly unreliable Bib-
liotheca chimica.80 But Borel clearly took it from Andreas Libavius, whose own
paraphrase and commentary on Sendivogius opens with some information on edi-
tions published prior to 1613, including the claim that the book was printed by
Bitsch in Frankfurt in the same year as in Prague.81
If this is indeed a ghost edition, then it seems possible that Libavius may have
inadvertently conflated two books, by assuming that the 1604 De lapide philoso-
phico, a book containing two treatises edited by Joachim Tanckius, dedicated to
Bernard Penot and Nicolaus Barnaud, and printed by Matthias Becker (who often
cooperated with Bitsch), was actually an earlier edition of Sendivogiuss work
released under a similar title in Frankfurt in 1606, edited by Martin Ruland and pub-
lished by Zacharias Palthenius. However, Libavius knew that Ruland and Palthenius
had republished the work after two years, so it is difficult to see why he should have
confused the two entirely different works.82 Besides, the name of Bitschius does not
76
Originally the term (dapifer in Latin) designated a high office (similar to High Steward), but in Rudolfs time it
became a courtesy title bestowed upon those permitted easy access to the Emperor.
77
Praha, Archiv hlavnho mesta Prahy, MS 1288, fols. 12021.
78
On Barvitius see Michal ronek, Johann Barvitius als Mzen im rudolfinischen Prag, Studia Rudolphina 8 (2008):
4957.
79
Newman, Gehennical Fire, 6; Daniel Fouke, The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr. Henry More: Religious Meaning
and the Psychology of Delusion (Leiden, New York, Kln: E. J. Brill, 1997), 54; Hirai, Le concept de semence,
352; Prinke, The Twelfth Adept, 161; Bugaj, Micha Sedziwj, 284.
80
Borellius, Bibliotheca chimica, 63: 1604. Pragae Bohemiorum, & Francofurti eodem anno, apud Bitschium; dis-
cussed in Kahn, Le Tractatus de sulphure, 195.
81
1604. Prag Bohemorum typis excusus est liber, cui titulus: De Lapide Philosophorum Tractatus XII. and Idem
liber eodem anno etiam Francofurti prodiit typographia Bitschii. Libavius, Septadis Hermeticae monas septima,
437.
82
[P]ost biennium recusus Palthenio, curante Martino Rulando Caesareo medico, ignorante editiones priores.
234 RAFA T. PRINKE
appear as the publisher on the title page (or anywhere else) in the book edited by
Tanckius.
Another possibility is that the Frankfurt edition did exist, but that no copies
survive. As it happens, the only alchemical book published by Bitschius in 1604
(or, in fact, in any other year) seems to have been the Alchimisten Spiegel, Georg
Beatuss German translation of Theobaldus van Hoghelandes De alchimiae
difficultatibus, of which only two copies are known to survive.83 We cannot reject
the possibility that Bitsch did in fact publish the Frankfurt 1604 ghost edition
of Sendivogius, perhaps with Georg Beatus as editor or German translator, but in
such a small run (like the Alchimisten Spiegel) that no copy survives. For the time
being we must suspend judgement on this, but even if Libavius turns out to have
been correct, it seems that we should also accept his word that Bitschs was the
second edition, preceded by that published in Prague.
Dialogus Mercurii, alchymistae et Naturae

In 1607, the second work ascribed to Sendivogius, Dialogus Mercurii, alchymis-
tae et Naturae, was published in Cologne by the newly established printing house
of Servatius Erffens. A satire on amateur alchemists, the dialogue is unique in
being half-serious, half-burlesque, as Didier Kahn put it,84 with an underlying
sense of humour that is still amusing today, while at the same time communicat-
ing the authors alchemical philosophy through a different literary genre. Since it
appeared under the same anagram of the authors name as De lapide philoso-
phorum, Des Noyers assumed that both were by the Englishman, although
Pinocci thought it was neither by him nor by Sendivogius. In the following
year the Dialogus was reprinted and translated into German by Benedictus
Figulus and incorporated into Beguins Latin edition mentioned above. Almost
all later editions contained both texts, and the authorship of the Dialogus is
hardly controversial, especially as that of De lapide philosophorum has now
been established.
One intriguing aspect of its first edition is its subtitle or quasi-dedication, which
was omitted in all later editions and which explains that the Dialogus was written
in gratitude to a friend named Coroades (scriptus in gratiam amici Coroades).
The identity of that person has only recently been suggested,85 as Rudolf Coraduz
(d. 1606), the learned vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, owner of
several thousands of books, who was interested in the Kabbalah and a friend of
alchemy.86 The piece written by Sendivogius was thus a tribute to the recently
83
One of these has only recently emerged from a private collection. It was sold at Auktion 60 by Zisska and Schauer in
2012 (lot no. 444). The other copy is Halle, Universitts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, AB 154308. The
work is not listed by Ferguson, Duveen, or any other bibliography before Brning (no. 0829).
84
Kahn, Le Tractatus de sulphure, 195.
85
Prinke, Nolite de me inquirere, 327.
86
R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History 15761612, 2nd. corrected ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press [Clarendon Press], 1984), 238.
deceased friend who, together with Barvitius, belonged to the close circle of Rudolf
IIs most trusted advisors.
De sulphure
After the publication of Dialogus no other new writings were ascribed to Michael
Sendivogius for nearly ten years. He was certainly not a prolific writer and if we
are to believe his own statement had to be urged by friends to write down his
ideas. In the preface to the Tractatus de sulphure of 1616, the author explains his
attitude to the reader:
[B]elieve me, neither have I any need to write books, because I seek neither profit, nor
vain glory by them; therefore I doe not publish who I am. Those things which I have
now publisht for thy profit, and advantage, seem to mee to be more then enough.
[Y]et by the perswasion of some friends I must needs also write this Treatise of
Sulphur; in which whether it be needfull to adde any thing to what is written before, I
know not. But if neither my writings, nor advise pleaseth thee, then go to other
authors. Wherefore I write not great Volumes that thou maist not lay out too much
money, or time upon them, but maist read them over quickly, and bee at the more
leisure to have recourse to other authors.87
According to Girolamo Pinocci the treatise was published in Cologne in 1613,

although this seems to be an obvious error since no such copy is known and no
early authors or bibliographers mention it.88 It is therefore prudent to assume
that the editio princeps appeared in 1616 from the thriving publishing house of
Joannes Crithius in Cologne. The choice of Crithius is quite surprising because it
seems that neither he nor his heirs ever published any other book on alchemy.
The authors name was again hidden in an anagram, but this time it was different:
Angelus doce mihi ius. The title page also reports that the treatise on the second prin-
ciple of Nature (Sulphur) is written by the same author who described the first prin-
ciple (Mercury), while the text refers a number of times to the authors own Libellus
12. Tractatuum. After the main text, the author returns to the pseudo-alchemist
described in the Dialogus and appends another dialog featuring the same protago-
nist in conversation with an impersonal Voice. Thus internal evidence suggests
that it is by the author of De lapide philosophorum and Dialogus; an identification
that was accepted by contemporaries so that the work was soon absorbed into the
corpus as part of the Tripus chimicus Sendivogianus, as the German translation of
87
[S]ed crede, nec mihi etiam libros conscribere opus est, quia ex illis nec commodum, nec vanam ostentationem
quaero, ideo nec quis sum, euulgare cupio. Eae quae tuae vtilitati iam inpublicum tradidi, magis quam satis esse
mihi videbatur [A]ttamen hortatu amicorum, & hunc tractatum de Sulphure conscribere debui, in quo an ad
priora addere aliquid opus est, nescio Quod si ver tibi nec mea scripta, nec consilium placet, ad alios Autores
ito. Propterea ego non magna volumina scribo, vt in illa non multum expendas, citoqe perlegere possis; vt tibi sit
ad alios Autores recurrendum tempus. De sulphure (Cologne, 1616), fols. A2r and A4r; New Light (1650), on
7576, 79.
88
It was, nevertheless, accepted by Bugaj, Micha Sedziwj, 246; Bugaj, ed., Micha Sedziwj: Traktat o kamieniu filo-
zoficznym (Warszawa: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1971), 232; Bugaj, Saletra filozofw a odkrycie
tlenu, Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki 31 (1986): 74980, on 756.
236 RAFA T. PRINKE
the three texts was entitled in the 1628 Strasbourg edition by the heirs of Lazarus
Zetzner.
However, this was not convincing to the two mythmakers Des Noyers and
Pinocci who argued that De sulphure had been written by someone other than
the Englishman. Des Noyers pointed out that the example quoted from Albertus
Magnus showed that the author of De sulphure believed common mercury to be the
true matter of metals, contrary to the teachings of De lapide philosophorum. Des
Noyers final verdict was that, unlike the other texts, De sulphure was indeed a
work by the impostor Sendivogius, who also inserted references to Poland in the
second edition of De lapide philosophorum so that his authorship would appear
more credible.
The change that Des Noyers refers to is the replacement of hic quidem (here
indeed) in the phrase Pomorum Arantiorum arbores, hic quidem crescant instar
aliarum arborum of the tenth treatise with in Polonia quidem (Orenge [sic]
trees in Polonia doe indeed flourish as other trees).89 However, the substitution
first appeared in Jean Beguins 1608 Paris edition mentioned above, not in the
second edition, and must have been introduced by the editor or by Jacob Alstein
in order to make the sense clearer for the readers from southern parts of Europe.90
Girolamo Pinocci, on the other hand, thought that neither the Dialogus nor the
De sulphure had been written either by the Englishman or by Sendivogius. He
relied on the testimony of his informant Szymon Piotr Batkowski, who studied
with Johannes Hartmann in Marburg and supposedly obtained this information
from Sendivogius himself during the latters visit there in 1616. That visit is not con-
firmed by any other sources91 but even if it had taken place, the secretive nature of
the Polish alchemist is the obvious explanation for such statements. Neither the
Frenchmans nor the Italians verdicts are sufficient for us to reject Sendivogiuss
authorship of De sulphure.
The promised treatises

In the treatise on sulphur, Sendivogius announced his plans to write two more
works. One of these was intended to complete the tria prima trilogy and was provi-
sionally entitled De sale (On Salt). Sendivogius refers to this in four places as the
work where he would expand on matters that were only briefly mentioned in De sul-
phure, namely: special cases of imbalance between sperm and seed and their conse-
quences,92 extracting the soul of metals, the falsity of the claim that the extracted
89
De lapide philosophorum (1604), 66; New Light (1650), 29.
90
Holmyard added further confusion by stating that the alteration was introduced into De sulphure, which was
repeated by other authors; Alchemy, 231.
91
Wodzimierz Hubicki searched for such confirmation in the archives of Marburg and Kassel in the 1960s but did not
find it: Hubicki, Uczniowie z Polski na studiach chymiatrii w Marburgu w latach 16091620, Studia i Materiay z
Dziejw Nauki Polskiej 12 (1968): 70103, on 100. Bruce Moran kindly informed me that he had not found any
such confirmation, either.
92
De sulphure (1616), 5 [=6]; New Light (1650), 8586.
[Metallick] soul bee able in a Sophisticall way to tinge another Metall,93 and the
practical preparation of sulphur.94
According to the anonymous but well informed Vita Sendivogii Poloni, published
by Pierre Borel together with Des Noyers letter, the treatise had been written but
was to be published only after the authors death:
Sendivogius wrote and completed A Treatise on the Third Principle of Things, namely
Salt, and gave it to his major domo [Jan Budowski] to read, a man to whom he confided
everything because of his candour and sincerity, and under whose name he had written
the preface. Sendivogius had given him instructions that the major domo was to publish
the said treatise only after his death, because he did not want it to be printed while he was
still alive. This was because of the excessive freedom of philosophical speculation he had
used in it, and he did not want to give his enemies any further opportunity of investi-
gating him. Unfortunately, however, it happened that the said major domo was in
Hamburg at the time of Sendivogiuss death, and so Sendivogius entrusted to his daugh-
ter the Treatise on Salt, closed and sealed with his signet. He made her swear she would
not hand it over to any other human being except the major domo. But he died in Prussia
on his return journey home.95
Whether or not this story is true, Borel gave it wider circulation by repeating it in his
Bibliotheca chimica and adding that the tract survived in the possession of Sendivo-
giuss daughter in Poland (actually Bohemian Silesia), who claimed to have written it
herself, together with the other treatise promised in De sulphure.96
That second treatise was to be entitled Harmonia and devoted to all natural
phenomena,97 as well as prophetic, historical, and religious issues. It is mentioned
in six places in De sulphure and its planned content is described in somewhat
greater detail than that of De sale. Particular topics to be covered include the chrono-
logical epochs or the four Monarchies;98 the magnetic vertue and how to
93
De sulphure (1616), 57; New Light (1650), 125.
94
95
Scripsit & absolvit tractatum illum tertij principij rerum de Sale, eumque legendum dedit suo Oeconomo, viro, cui
considebat omnia, ob candorem & sinceritatem, cujus nomine quoque iam prafationem fecerat, eique mandauerat, vt
post mortem ejus ederet tractatum dictum, quoniam noluit, vt eo viuente imprimeretur, ob nimiam, quam ibi exer-
cuissset philosophandi libaralitatem, ne eo ipso inimicis suis daret ampliorem occasionem in ipsum inquirendi.
Verum contigit infortunate, vt dictus Oeconomus tempore mortis Sendiuogij esset Hamburgi, ideo filia sua recom-
mendauit tractatum de Sale, suo signaculo clausum & sigillatum, accepto iuramento, ne alicui mortalium alio,
quam suo Oeconomo illum de manu in manum traderet, qui cum in itinere redeundi esset, obiit in Prussia.
Pierre Borel, Trsor de Recherches et Antiquitez, 478; English translation from P. G. Maxell-Stuart, ed., The
Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History (New York: St Martins Press, 1999), 214 (with one
word changed); another English translation from the version reprinted in Lenglet Du Fresnoys Histoire de la philo-
sophie hermtique with his commentary: Life of Sendivogius, in Michael Sendivogius, The New Chemical Light II.
Treatise on Sulphur, ed. Patrick J. Smith (Edmonds, WA: The Alchemical Press/Holmes Publishing Group, 1998), 45
46.
96
Librum etiam de Sulphure et Dialogum Mercurii composuit, qui extant, at non promissi libri de Sale, nec de Har-
monia mundi, audio tamen extare in Polonia, apud Sendiuogii Filiam qui veri Authoris haeres fuit, sibique eius
scripta tribuit. Borel, Bibliotheca chimica, 64; the same in the first 1654 edition, 67.
97
[D]e rebus naturalibus copios proposui; [D]e naturalibus copiosius relinquemus. De sulphure (1616), fol. A2 r,
37; New Light (1650), 75, 110.
98
De sulphure (1616), fol. A4 r; New Light (1650), 79.
238 RAFA T. PRINKE
understand the Loadstone;99 and the creation of Paradise, which without all
doubt God created for men only and where it is now.100 The work would
also discuss how the microcosm (man) is a reflection of the macrocosm (the uni-
verse), which would be included in a separate Chapter of Astronomy.101
All these questions which Sendivogius promised to discuss at length in the two
additional treatises should be regarded as indications for identifying any rediscov-
ered text as genuine. At the same time, their presence alone would be insufficient to
confirm Sendivogiuss authorship, since any would-be pseudepigrapher might have
easily used the clues about them left in De sulphure. As we will see, his followers
soon started composing works of their own in place of the missing writings of
their master.
De sale
The excitement and great expectations generated by the promises of Sendivogius
were certainly followed by disappointment among European alchemists when the
two treatises were not published. Once it became obvious that the missing work
on the third principle of Nature was not forthcoming, spurious versions were sup-
plied by other resourceful authors, two of whom explicitly presented their works
as the completion of the Cosmopolites exposition of the tria prima. One of these
texts was Der verlangete dritte Anfang der mineralischen Dinge, oder vom Philoso-
phischen Saltz by Sohn Sendivogii, genant I. F. H. S. This desired third begin-
ning first appeared in Amsterdam in 1656 and was so successful that the
publisher (Christoph Luycken) reissued it the following year. A year later an aug-
mented and revised Latin translation followed, entitled Lucerna salis philoso-
phorum, again signed Filius Sendivogii, and published by Henricus Betkius,
also in Amsterdam. The German version was later appended to the 1681 reprint
of Michaelis Sendivogii Chymisches Kleynod, thus forming the expanded col-
lected works. The authors initials were resolved in a note in Lucerna salis
(p. 194) as Iosaphat Fridericus Heutnortton, which was later shown to be a
cover name of Johann Fortitudino Hartprecht, active in the chymical circles of
Johann Rudolph Glauber and Samuel Hartlib.102
99
[De] vi magnetica (quamuis de magnete facil is poterit, cui natura metallorum coggnita[!] est). De sulphure
(1616), 21; New Light (1650), 98.
100
[P]aradisum hunc pro hominibus dumtaxat Deus sine dubio creauit & vbi sit. De sulphure (1616), 33; New
Light (1650), 107.
101
102
This identification was confirmed by Joachim Telle, while John Young found Hartprechts letters among Hartlib
Papers signed with the middle name Fortitudino and an additional surname Starck(e), as well as the Filius Sendivo-
gii pseudonym: Joachim Telle, Zum Filius Sendivogii Johann Hartprecht, in Die Alchemie in der europischen
Kultur- und Wissenschaftgeschichte, ed. Christoph Meinel (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 11936; John
T. Young, Faith, Medical Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the
Hartlib Circle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 16162, 20406. Hartprecht is also discussed in the correspondence of
a Polish Jesuit Adam Adamandy Kochanski with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Bogdan Lisiak, SJ, and Ludwik
Grzebien, SJ, eds., Korespondencja Adama Adamandego Kochanskiego SJ (16571699) (Krakw: Wydawnictwo
WAM, 2005), 373, 382, 383 (Starckius); 390, 392 (Harprechtius).
Even without that identification, internal evidence shows that this could not have
been a genuine work of Sendivogius. The Polish alchemist is mentioned in the
preface several times as someone other than the author, and the names of Sendivogius
and Cosmopolita are also referred to in the main text of Dritter Anfang, while in the
expanded Lucerna salis the son of Sendivogius explains that his nationality is
German.103 In the German original he also announced his intention to produce a
replacement for the missing Harmonia. Although not stated explicitly, this was prob-
ably realised as the Auctoritates philosophorum harmonicae added to Lucerna salis
(pp. 73174), a lengthy florilegium of quotations from a paralysing variety of
alchemical works, as Joachim Telle put it.104 Needless to say, this collection did
not reflect the plan and proposed topics of the work outlined by the Polish author.
The questions that were to have been discussed in De sale are likewise hard to find
in Lucerna salis a short, enigmatic paragraph on sulphur, on p. 42, surely cannot
be accepted as expounding the praxis of preparing it, as promised by Sendivogius.
In the additional notes to Lucerna salis its author explains that he assumed the pseu-
donym only to demonstrate his allegiance to the teachings of Sendivogius, because
[f]rom this great Author, by the miraculously descending grace of God, this knowl-
edge flowed to me through his disciples in oral tradition, without which I could
hardly find any truth in any book.105 Hartprecht relies heavily on numerous auth-
orities (a technique conspicuously absent in Sendivogius) and represents the
theo-alchemical current, linking practical chymistry with Jakob Bhmes mysticism.106
In the opinion of Telle, there is an underlying layer of a highly syncretic and eclectic
system of Salzalchemie,107 but it is far removed from Sendivogiuss natural philos-
ophy and literary style. Moreover, the poems scattered throughout the text were not
written by Hartprecht but are versions of much earlier German Lehrdichtungen,108
which makes the whole work a quasi-compilation that cannot seriously be attributed
to Sendivogius. Johann Hartprechts success was so great that Johann Jacob Heilmann
dedicated (again as J. F. H. S. Filius Sendivogii) the sixth volume of Theatrum chemi-
cum to him, as the anonymous disciple of Chortolasseus [Johann Grasse] (fol. *4r),
and again identified him as the author of Lucerna salis.109
In spite of all this, the new French translation of the collected works of the
Cosmopolite, which was first published in 1669 to replace that of Millet de
Bosnay, incorporated Hartprechts treatise in its longer version, Lucerna salis,
103
[M]agnus ille ex superiore Alsatia oriundus noster Con Germanus Philosophus Basilius Valentinus, (qui ante sesqui-
seculum in patria mea vixit). Johann Harprecht, Lucerna Salis Philosophorum (Amsterdam: Betkius, 1658), 30.
104
Telle, Zum Filius Sendivogii, 130.
105
Ab hoc magno Auctore, Dei mirabiliter declinante gratia, haec scientia ad me defluxit per ejus discipuli oralem trad-
itionem, sine qua vix aliquid veri ex ullo libro potuissem scire. Harprecht, Lucerna Salis, 191.
106
107
108
109
In the title of the preface written by Hartprecht to his own Mysterium occultae naturae in Theatri chemici volumen
sextum, ed. Johann Jacob Heilmann (Strasbourg: Haeredes Eberhardi Zetzneri, 1661), 52326: Praefatio ad pium
lectorem filii Sendivogii I.F.H.S. Lucernae salis et Sudi philosophici authoris, et mysterii hermetici possessoris (on
523).
240 RAFA T. PRINKE
as a genuine work by the author of the Novum lumen chymicum. It was repub-
lished with Les uvres du Cosmopolite in 1691 and 1723, and this whole
extended corpus was translated from French into English by John Digby and pub-
lished in 1723 as A Philosophical Account of Nature in General. In order to
make it more credible that the Trait du [vray] sel was indeed an authentic
text of the Cosmopolite, newly brought to light, the French editors did not
include the original preface or the explanatory notes from the Latin version,
which would have made its true authorship apparent. They retained a reference
to the writings of Sendivogius as the most important preparatory reading in
chapter one, but silently (and illogically) removed the name of Cosmopolita
from the citation of his maxim in another place, implicitly suggesting that the
text was indeed written by him.110
Sendivogiuss authorship of Lucerna salis was explicitly rejected by Roman
Bugaj111 and implicitly by Wodzimierz Hubicki.112 Also most of the earlier histor-
ians of alchemy, starting with Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy,113 did not accept it as a
genuine Sendivogian treatise. More recently, however, Zbigniew Szydo has pro-
posed that it was in fact written by Sendivogius, despite quoting from Telles
article. Early in the book he states: I have also analysed part of the Treatise on
Salt and have included it in the Sendivogian corpus for the first time.114 He
then relates much of the known evidence, all of which contradicts his thesis.115
His crucial arguments are drawn from the English version of the mutilated
French translation of the much expanded Latin edition, rather than from the
first German printing, the only version which might have come, even in principle,
from the pen of Sendivogius. Thus the works attribution to Sendivogius does not
stand up to scrutiny and cannot be accepted. It would be interesting, however, to
investigate why and to what extent the marketing trick applied by the works later
publishers made the attribution acceptable to French, German, and English
readers.
Harmonia
The second of the two intended replacements for Sendivogiuss missing De sale was
the Traittez de lharmonie et constitution generalle du vray sel, written by Clovis
Hesteau de Nuysement and first published in Paris in 1621.116 As in Hartprechts
work, the subtitle announced that the treatise followed the third principle of the
110
The application of this editorial device can be easily seen by comparing relevant quotations from the original and the
successive translations: Dritter Anfang (1656, on 32), Lucerna salis (1658, on 180), Cosmopolite (1669, on 72), Phi-
losophical Account (1722) in modernised spelling: Franzesca G. Ewart, ed., Sendivogius: A Treatise on Salt
(Glasgow: Adam McLean, 2002), 3839.
111
Bugaj, Micha Sedziwj, 275.
112
Hubicki, Sendivogius, Michael, 30608.
113
Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy, Histoire de la philosophie hermtique, 3 vols. (Paris: Gosse, 1742), vol. 3, 331.
114
Szydo, Water Which Does Not Wet Hands, 47.
115
116
The ghost editions of 1618 and 1620 listed in some bibliographies are perpetuated errors.
Cosmopolite (suivant le troisime Principe du Cosmopolite) but in no way

suggested that it was authored by him. It also enjoyed considerable success with
three Latin editions (1651, 1672, and 1716), three in German (1667, 1757, and
1787), and one translation into English (1657). The Latin translation by Ludwig
Combach expanded the subtitle with an explanation that the book was first
written in French, to supplement the long desired third principle of the Cosmopolite,
or, as commonly believed, Michael Sendivogius the Pole, who promised [to write
a treatise] on salt.117 The German version prepared by the still unidentified Vig-
ilantius de Monte Cubiti is practically identical, stating plainly that it was intended
to complement (Zu ergntzung) the treatises of Sendivogius. It would seem, there-
fore, that no one should suspect it was a lost treatise by the Polish alchemical
philosopher.
Most historians did not even consider such a hypothesis, and both Lenglet Du
Fresnoy and Roman Bugaj rejected it explicitly along with Hartprechts treatise.
Later, however, Bugaj decided that this work may have been the lost Harmonia of Sen-
divogius, plagiarised by Nuysement. His arguments were based on the information
from the pseudepigraphic Apographum epistolarum, where the author (nominally
Sendivogius writing from Brussels) states that he had already handed his Harmonia
to the publisher (so possibly in Belgium or France); and on the opinion of Lenglet
Du Fresnoy and Carl Schmieder that Nuysement was a plagiarist and compiler.118
Bugaj had the text translated from the German edition and intended to publish it,
but eventually decided he was not fully convinced about the truth of his hypothesis.119
It was, however, accepted by Szydo, who repeated Bugajs argument that the title
page of the first edition contains a reference to Le Cosmopolite, i.e. Sendivogius120
and that the 1651 Combach translation bore the correct name of the Polish
alchemist.121 All of this is quite surprising, as the references on the title pages
clearly suggest otherwise, while the opinions of Du Fresnoy and Schmieder
cannot be relied upon. In this case, however, their description of Nuysement as a
plagiarist proved to be correct but the work he appropriated was not Sendivo-
giuss Harmonia.
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement is one of the best-researched French alchemical
writers.122 The influence of Sendivogius on the French poet is obvious and he may
117
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, Tractatus de Vero Sale Secreto Philosophorum, et de universali Mundi Spiritu. Gallice
primo scriptus in supplementum diu desiderati tertii principii Cosmopolitae, sive, ut vulgo creditur, Michaelis Sendi-
vogii Poloni, quod de Sale promisit. Liber non minus curiosus quam proficuus, ut pote tractans de cognitione verae
Medicinae Chemicae. Nunc simplicissimo stylo Latine versus a Ludovico Combachio (Kassel: Jacob Gentsch, Sebald
Koehler, 1651).
118
Bugaj, Saletra filozofw, 757; also private communication from Roman Bugaj.
119
Roman Bugaj kindly presented me with a copy of the typescript of that translation (by Michalina Jakubowska).
120
121
Bugaj, Saletra filozofw, 757; compare: Szydo, Water Which Does Not Wet Hands, 279.
122
His life and work are exhaustively discussed in Wallace Kirsop, Clovis Hesteau, sieur de Nuysement, et la littrature
alchimique en France la fin du XVIe et au dbut du XVIIe sicle (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Universit de
Paris, 1960); Didier Kahn, Alchimie et paracelsisme en France la fin de la Renaissance (15671625) (Geneva:
Librairie Droz, 2007), 2, n. 7. For critical editions of his works, see Roland Guillot, ed., Clovis Hesteau de Nuyse-
ment: Les uvres potiques. Edition critique, 3 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 19941996); Sylvain Matton, ed., Clovis
242 RAFA T. PRINKE
even have met the Polish alchemist.123 However, this is not enough to suggest that the
Cosmopolite was the true author of the treatise in question. As Sylvain Matton and
Didier Kahn have shown, Nuysements Traittez was indeed plagiarised not from Sen-
divogiuss lost Harmonia, but from an anonymous treatise known from several manu-
scripts, Trois livres des lments chimiques et spagyriques, dated to circa 1580.124
These findings effectively rule out any possibility that Sendivogius may have written
it after 1616. Finally, the Traittez de lharmonie does not discuss any of the points
planned by Sendivogius, so Bugajs and Szydos hypothesis may safely be rejected.
Conclusion
In this paper I have presented new research on the authorship of some of the most
important alchemical writings of the early seventeenth century, usually attributed
to the Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius. The reason for undertaking such a
task was the fact that Sendivogiuss authorship was questioned soon after his death
and some modern historians have accepted the alternative view. I have argued that
the three works (or four, counting the Parabola) first published under the anagram-
matised name of Michael Sendivogius in 1604, 1607, and 1616, which later achieved
tremendous fame,125 were indeed written by him not by other Cosmopolites
such as Alexander Seton or Edward Kelley. On the other hand, attempts to trace
two additional treatises which Sendivogius had promised to write after 1616 have
proved unsuccessful, and none of the candidates proposed so far can be accepted
as genuine texts from the pen of the Polish alchemist. Besides proving these points,
the information gleaned from archival sources and early editions of the treatises dis-
cussed above has uncovered many important details from the life of Sendivogius, his
position at the Imperial court in Prague, the intellectual and political milieu in which
he moved, and even some traits of his character. Following the travels of his corpus
around Europe also sheds new light truly, a novum lumen chymicum on several
figures who are otherwise relatively little known to the historiography of alchemy.
Acknowledgements
I want to express my grateful thanks to the indefatigable editor, Jennifer
M. Rampling, for the enormous amount of work and expertise she put into
122
Continued
Hesteau de Nuysement: Les visions hermtiques et autres pomes alchimiques suivis des Traictez du vray sel secret
des Philosophes et de lEspirit gnral du monde (Paris: Culture, Art, Loisirs, 1974).
123
Matton, Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement: Les visions hermtiques, 381: [E]t du Cracovitain;/ Qui se masquant du
nom de Cosmopolitain/ Voyage par le monde, avec suitte honorable:/ Et pour montrer que luvre est sienne, et veri-
table:/ Joint aux effects divins les sublimes discours/ Quil vou aux curieux qui en lart font leur cours?
124
See Sylvain Matton, La figure de Dmogorgon dans la littrature alchimique, in Alchimie: Art, histoire et mythes,
ed. Didier Kahn and Sylvain Matton (Paris and Milan: SEHA/Arch, 1995), 265346; Didier Kahn, La Facult de
mdecine de Paris en chec face au paracelsisme: Enjeux et dnouement rels du procs de Roch Le Baillif, in Para-
celsus und seine internationale Rezeption in der frhen Neuzeit, ed. Ilana Zinguer and Heinz Schott (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1998), 146221.
125
Newman, Gehennical Fire, 6.
editing my paper. I am also indebted to the anonymous reviewer for his/her engage-
ment and valuable suggestions. My acknowledgements of the help I received from
other colleagues in the field are incorporated in the footnotes.
Notes on contributor
Rafa T. Prinke holds a Ph.D. in History (2000) from Adam Mickiewicz University
in Poznan. In 2015 he received the doctor habilitatus (dr hab.) degree from the Insti-
tute of the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences. He is the chair of the
Department of Tourism Economics and Informatics at the Faculty of Tourism at
Eugeniusz Piasecki University in Poznan. His other areas of scholarly interest
include history of science, intellectual history and history of esoteric currents,
with special interest in alchemy, as well as genealogy and heraldry. His most
recent major work is a 900-page book, Zwodniczy ogrd bed w. Pismiennictwo
alchemiczne do konca XVIII wieku [The Deceptive Garden of Errors. Alchemical
Writings until the End of the Eighteenth Century] (2014). Address: Rafa
T. Prinke, Wydzia Turystyki i Rekreacji, Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego im.
Eugeniusza Piaseckiego, ul. Krlowej Jadwigi 27/39, 61-871 Poznan, Poland.
Email: rafalp@amu.edu.pl; prinke@awf.poznan.pl

New Light On Sendivogius

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ISSN: 0002-6980 (Print) 1745-8234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yamb20

New Light on the Alchemical Writings of Michael

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New Light on the Alchemical Writings of

decades they have preferred to suspend judgement or to accept Sendivogius as the

writings were translated and published in a number of editions which greatly

subject, Mniovsk added some comments, apparently as arguments to make Fer-

me the right/law/justice/duty). Both anagrams were soon resolved by knowledge-

published in 1669 as an appendix to Cosmopolite ou Nouuelle Lumiere Chemi-

De lapide philosophorum (Novum lumen chymicum)

This little book De lapide Philosophorum was presented to me by Adam Jiskra

Dialogus Mercurii, alchymistae et Naturae

According to Girolamo Pinocci the treatise was published in Cologne in 1613,

The promised treatises

Cosmopolite (suivant le troisime Principe du Cosmopolite) but in no way

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