Pseudo-Paracelsus

Forgery and Early Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-50337-3
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 494 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 862 g

The production of forgeries under the name of the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493/94-1541) was an integral part of the diffusion of the Paracelsian movement in early modern Europe. Many of these texts were widely read and extremely influential. The inability of most readers of the time to distinguish the genuine from the fake amid the flood of publications contributed much to the emergence of Paracelsus’ legendary image as the patron of alchemy and occult philosophy. Innovative studies on largely overlooked aspects of Paracelsianism along with an extensive catalogue of Paracelsian forgeries make this volume an essential resource for future studies.

Contributors are Tobias Bulang, Dane T. Daniel, Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr., Hiro Hirai, Didier Kahn, Julian Paulus, Lawrence M. Principe, and Martin Žemla.

Originally published as Special Issue of the journal Early Science and Medicine, volume 24 (2019), no. 5-6 (published February 2020), with a revised Introduction and a new Appendix by Julian Paulus, entitled “A Catalogue Raisonné of Pseudo-Paracelsian Writings: Texts Attributed to Paracelsus and Paracelsian Writings of Doubtful Authenticity,” has been added.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kahn, Didier

Hirai, Hiro

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Notes on Contributors

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Didier Kahn and Hiro Hirai

The Authenticity of Paracelsus’ Astronomia Magna and Brief an die Wittenberger Theologen: Towards a Diagnostic Rubric Clarifying Authentic and Spurious Elements in Paracelsus’ Oeuvre on the Basis of Theological Motifs

Dane T. Daniel

The Philosophia ad Athenienses in the Light of Genuine Paracelsian Cosmology

Didier Kahn

Genealogy of Knowledge and Delegitimization of Universities: The Pseudo-Paracelsian Aurora Philosophorum

Tobias Bulang

Into the Forger’s Library: The Genesis of De natura rerum in Publication History

Hiro Hirai

Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate

Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr.

The Astronomia Olympi novi and the Theologia Cabalistica: Two Pseudo-Paracelsian Works of the Philosophia Mystica (1618)

Martin Žemla

The Development of the Basil Valentine Corpus and Biography: Pseudepigraphic Corpora and Paracelsian Ideas

Lawrence M. Principe

Appendix: A Catalogue raisonné of Pseudo-Paracelsian Writings: Texts Attributed to Paracelsus and Paracelsian Writings of Doubtful Authenticity

Julian Paulus

Index Nominum

Indices to the Appendix

Über Autor(innen)

Didier Kahn, Ph.D. (1998, University of Paris IV, Sorbonne), is Senior Researcher at the CNRS, Cellf 16-18 (Sorbonne). He has published extensively in the history of alchemy, science, medicine and literature, including Alchimie et paracelsisme en France (Droz, 2007), La Messe alchimique attribuée à Melchior de Sibiu (Classiques Garnier, 2015) and Le Fixe et le volatil. Chimie et alchimie, de Paracelse à Lavoisier (CNRS Editions, 2016). In 2010 he published a heavily annotated edition of Montfaucon de Villars’ witty dialogue Le Comte de Gabalis (1670). He is also involved in the edition of Denis Diderot’s Œuvres complètes (currently published by Hermann).

Hiro Hirai, Ph.D. (1999, University of Lille III, France), is Research Associate at the Center for Science and Society, Columbia University. He has published widely in Renaissance philosophy, medicine and alchemy, including Le Concept de semence dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance, de Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi (Brepols, 2005), and Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy (Brill, 2011).