"In 1593 the Irishman, Richard Stanyhurst, one of the most controversial figures of Elizabethan letters, wrote to his friend Sir Francis Englefield from the town of El Escorial near Madrid, commenting on his activities at the court of the elderly Philip II. The letter, dated 2 August, begins with various personal matters before moving on to a more detailed description of the work he had been called upon to do for the Spanish monarch."
"C. F. Wenzel was a chemist and an alchemist. He had deep knowledge of acids, bases and salts, and he was credited with the first formulation of the Law of Mass Action. Yet he was also an alchemist, who on the eve of the Chemical Revolution published his beliefs in transmutation and in the division of metals into their constituents, for which he was rewarded with the gold medal of the Royal Danish Academy of the Sciences. His promoter, Professor C. G. Kratzenstein, was himself a believer in transmutation, even if he voiced some reservations."
How the Inquisition censored an encyclopedia of natural history.
"Nothing is censored in passages about seemingly more disturbing anomalies and monsters, such as sirens, flying dragons, the monacus marinus (half-fish, half-monk), or the draconpedes (half human, half-snake). The image of a woman eating living toads is a case in point. Censorship overlooked it, as if this was compatible with religious orthodoxy. Maybe it was perceived as some kind of innocuous fantasy. By contrast, “Alchemy was one of the sept ars demonials [sic], for the aid of Satan was necessary to the transmutation of metals, and the Philosopher’s Stone”."
by Lanuza-Navarro, Tayra M.C.
The UNESCO courier, Jan.-Mar. 2011, p. 13, illus.
"In 1603, Giraldo Paris had already been living in Madrid for 33 years, as advisor to Philippe II on Flemish affairs. He had grown up in Anvers and made his fortune in the spice trade. He entertained all the Flemings at the Spanish court, surrounding himself with ambassadors and dignitaries, as well as pharmacists, doctors and scholars. Having retired from commerce with an immense fortune, Paris maintained a passion for alchemy. He was interested in the skills and knowledge of diamond cutters, apothecaries, distillers and herbalists."
John Hudson gives a talk on alchemy and the attempts by alchemists to make gold from base metals, presented on 18 January 2022. This is part of a series of online talks produced by the RSC Historical Group.
"Our archival researches at the Royal Society reveal that a small envelope attached to a 1675 letter from an Antwerp apothecary, A. Boutens, contained a sample of the ‘Ludus’ prepared as a remedy for the ‘stone disease’ then sweeping through Europe, which was first announced in J. B. van Helmont's De lithiasi (1644)."
Joseph Leopold Ratinckx (Antwerp, 9 January 1860 - Berchem, 17 November 1937) was a Belgian painter.
His father wanted him to be trained as a typographer after primary school and thus refused his son's request to attend the courses at the Academy of Fine Arts. As a result, Jos ended up in the studio of the Ratinckx brothers, cousins of his father, as an apprentice printer. However, it was his employer who was able to persuade the father to give his son a chance as a lithographer. For nine years, he then took drawing and painting lessons under the guidance of well-known professors and artists, including Nicaise De Keyser and Karel Verlat.
In the meantime, he became proficient in lithography but this profession no longer fascinated him. He wanted to fully indulge himself as a painter. Although he was known as a skilled watercolourist, he preferred oil painting. He was elected to the municipal council on 17 November 1895, but left the council upon his appointment as director and teacher at the municipal drawing school.
