Waite, Arthur Edward (ed). THE HERMETIC MUSEUM: CONTAINING 22 MOST CELEBRATED CHEMICAL TRACTS

Description

Waite, Arthur Edward (ed). THE HERMETIC MUSEUM: CONTAINING 22 MOST CELEBRATED CHEMICAL TRACTS. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1990.

1st Weiser edition.  Fine in like d.j.

THE HERMETIC MUSEUM RESTORED AND ENLARGED was published in Latin at Frankfort, in the year 1678, and, as its title implies, it was an enlarged form of an anterior work which, appearing in 1625, is more scarce, but, intrinsically, of less value. Its design was apparently to supply in a compact form a representative collection of the more brief and less ancient alchemical writers; in this respect, it may be regarded as a supplement to those large storehouses of Hermetic learning such as the Theatrum Chemicum, and that scarcely less colossal of Mangetus, the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, which are largely concerned with the cream of the archaic literature, with the works of Geber and the adepts of the school of Arabia, with the writings attributed to Hermes, with those of Raymond Lully, Arnold de Villa Nova, Bernard Trevisan, and others.