Page 9 - Compound of Compounds

alchemical laboratories so as to directly observe the process involved in the formation
and extraction of metals.

I have learned by what I have seen with my own eyes, that a vein flowing
from a single source was in one part pure gold, and in another silver… And
from what miners and smeltermen have told me that what artisans have
learned by experience is also the practice of alchemists, who, if they work
with nature, transform the specific form of one metal into another.

Albertus seems to have followed the idea, common in the thirteenth century and
seemingly derived from arabic alchemy, that metals were composed of sulphur and
mercury. Albertus thus accepts that through this mechanism the transmutation of
metals can take place, though he indicates that he has not actually ever seen this
performed.

The Compositum de compositis is a short work. The earliest manuscript is in the
National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh (Advocates MS 20.8.1) and dates to the
fourteenth century. This manuscript does not mention Albertus, however later
manuscripts in the Bibliotheque National in Paris (MS 7147) and the Vatican (Latinus
4091) clearly attribute the work to Albertus Magnus. In the first chapter of the
Compound of compounds reference is made to “our Treatise on Minerals”. These and
other indications are suggestive (but in no way conclusive) that this work may have
been written by Albertus.

Whoever wrote this work, it was very influential on the later alchemical tradition.
It was included in the Theatrum Chemicum Vol. IV, Ursel, 1602.

In its opening chapter the author articulates and explores the idea that metals are
formed of Sulphur and Mercury and that the work of the alchemist is to purify these
two principles and bring them into a harmonised composition to make a metallic
substance, as does Nature in the mines of the earth. The second short chapter explains
that through fire a body dies and is putrefied, in order that it can proceed to the next
stage of the work. The author then looks at the regimen of the Stone, the rules or
processes necessary to prepare the Stone. He shows us that there are five degrees in
the magistery – these are the classical stages of the alchemical process much explored
in later alchemical books. After developing the theory of the process, the author now
introduces the practical work, which first requires the purification through sublimation
of the mercury.

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