ABSTRACT
In considering the literature of Alchemy as a whole, and in the broad historical sense, it may be said to have four periods: (1) Byzantine Alchemy, (2) Arabian and Syrian Alchemy, (3) Latin Alchemy, and (4) a host of late texts, many of which are negligible, in the vernaculars of various countries. It should be added that the third section merges into the period of the fourth, as Latin continued to be used long after alchemical works began to appear in French, German, English and other living languages. As regards the Latin literature, very little—if anything—that is extant can be placed prior to the twelfth century, most earlier attributions being mythical. The things, for the rest, which pass under the names of Rhasis, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Morien have some roots in preceding cycles. The Turba Philosophorum is earlier, let us say of the eleventh century, perhaps even of the tenth, meaning however in its Latin guise, as it is almost certainly translation from an unknown original which was probably in Arabic, as we shall see at a later stage. 1 The Latin Geber is ascribed to the twelfth or thirteenth century; but the criticism of these important memorials has entered recently on a new and unexpected phase, which is also left over till we come to the consideration at large of the early Latin literature.
