"The second half of the 16th century is usually called "the golden age of alchemy". Beside Emperor Rudolf II. von Habsburg, it was Wilhelm von Rosenberg who became the most important Maecenas of the hermetic sciences, especially of alchemy. Around the House of Rosenberg, in fact, arose a second center of hermetic and alchemic activity."


https://encyklopedie.ckrumlov.cz/en/mest...or_alchym/

A look at the history of alchemy and its influence on science:

https://play.acast.com/s/historyofalchemy

https://shows.acast.com/historyofalchemy

This rather engaging engraved frontispiece is found in 

Hermann Fictuld
 
Hermetischer Triumph-bogen, auf zweyen Wunder-Säulen der grossen und kleinen Welt bevestiget; Das ist: Zwey Tractätlein von der wahren und einigen Weisheit zu des Menschen zeitlichem und ewigem Wohlseyn. Das erste, genannt Cabbala Mystica Naturæ, handelnd von dem Feurigen Liebes-Saltze der göttlichen Barmhertzigkeit, sonst gennant Lapis Philosophorum: Und das zweyte, Occulta Occultissime, handelnd von der ersten Materia Lapidis Philosophorum, und von dem Menschen, soderlich aber von ihrer Reinigung, um sie zu dem Endzweck der Weisheit zu befördern. Das erstemal zum Druck herausgegeben von H[ermann] F[ictuld.] 1741.

It contains two interesting texts, the first explores the cabalistic and alchemical imagery in the conventional signs for the numerals.

We can analyse the image as:-

An arch containing the seven planets and the 12 signs of the zodiac, is supported by two square columns. On the top of the left column a black crow perches, while on the right a white swan is seen. The two columns are each divided into five section each depicting items of alchemical apparatus, alembics, furnaces, retorts, pelican flasks, crucibles, etc. Between the columns there is a coat of arms with the symbols of sun and moon, water and fire, sulphur and mercury. On the floor below are two globes, one labelled macrocosmus and the other microcosmus.

   

The Alchymist producing an Aetherial Representation

1796 satirical artwork by James Gillray showing prime minister William Pitt (1759-1806) using a pair of bellows in the shape of a crown to heat a glass distillation vessel containing Parliament. In the steam from the vessel are his subjects prostrating before him. Below the furnace is a pile of gold coins. Note the wildlife suspended from the ceiling.

   

Tim Harding

"It has been claimed by some writers that alchemy was a precursor to chemistry, or that chemistry ‘evolved’ from alchemy. I think this is wrong. Chemistry no more evolved from alchemy than astronomy evolved from astrology. Alchemy was a mystical pseudoscience like astrology, rather than being a protoscience of chemistry."

https://www.academia.edu/38355615/The_Tr..._Chemistry

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/postgradu...t-science/

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/10...t-science/

Art of the Grimoire: An Illustrated History of Magic Books and Spells
Owen Davies
Yale University Press, pp.256


Reviewed here:

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/abiding-charms/

   

Spanish-language alchemy blog by Miguel Lopez Perez with lots of interesting material:


https://www.quaderna-alchimica.info/

Margaret E. Boyle, «Scents and Celestinas: Alchemical Women in Early Modern Spain», en Early Modern Women, Volume 15, Number 2, Spring 2021, pp. 113-120.



https://www.quaderna-alchimica.info/scen...n-spain-2/

Click 'Leer' to read.

This 17th-century engraving is from Thomas Norton's The Ordinall of Alchimy and was made after a 15th-century illuminated manuscript (now preserved in the British Library). Norton, a practicing alchemist, depicts the secrecy with which alchemical knowledge was to be treated. The master abjures the student to "Accept the gift of God under a sacred seal," while the student replies "I shall preserve the secrets of holy alchemy in secrecy."