09-24-2026, 09:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-24-2026, 09:48 AM by Paul Ferguson.)
MS Reg.lat.1200 (Reginenses Latini 1200) in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana is an alchemical and philosophical manuscript containing a text concerning the philosopher's stone (De lapide philosophorum). It belongs to the Reginenses Latini (Reg. lat.) collection, which originates primarily from the personal library of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689). After her death in Rome, her collection passed through the hands of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (future Pope Alexander VIII) before being acquired by the Vatican Library in the mid-18th century. A comprehensive standalone translation of the text does not appear to be available.
See the MS here:
https://tinyurl.com/y8npjev5
The text begins with the words Opus Mulierum et Ludus Puerorum ("Women's work and children's play") often assigned to alchemical work.
Queen Christina of Sweden collected alchemical manuscripts through a mixture of massive military spoils and targeted agent purchases, driven by a lifelong obsession with universal knowledge and practical laboratory experimentation. Her pursuit of alchemical knowledge was not an unusual quirk for a 17th-century monarch, but rather a central pillar of her broader philosophical quest.
Queen Christina built her world-class library through two primary methods:
1) The Looting of Prague (1648): At the end of the Thirty Years' War, Swedish troops sacked Prague Castle. They seized the legendary esoteric library of Emperor Rudolf II, Europe's premier patron of the occult, hermeticism, and alchemy. Christina personally ordered these manuscripts to be sent straight to Stockholm. Interestingly, because she found the Czech and German scripts of Rudolf's operational alchemical notebooks difficult to read, she later gifted a massive batch of them to her librarian Isaac Vossius. These survive today as the Codices Vossiani Chymici at Leiden University:
https://tinyurl.com/4rjaujt2
2) A Network of European Book Hunters: Christina used her immense wealth to employ agents, like Vossius and the French physician Jean Bourdelot, to scour Europe for rare materials. They purchased vast private libraries, such as the renowned French collection of Alexandre Petau, which was loaded with medieval texts on natural philosophy and the transmutation of metals.
See the MS here:
https://tinyurl.com/y8npjev5
The text begins with the words Opus Mulierum et Ludus Puerorum ("Women's work and children's play") often assigned to alchemical work.
Queen Christina of Sweden collected alchemical manuscripts through a mixture of massive military spoils and targeted agent purchases, driven by a lifelong obsession with universal knowledge and practical laboratory experimentation. Her pursuit of alchemical knowledge was not an unusual quirk for a 17th-century monarch, but rather a central pillar of her broader philosophical quest.
Queen Christina built her world-class library through two primary methods:
1) The Looting of Prague (1648): At the end of the Thirty Years' War, Swedish troops sacked Prague Castle. They seized the legendary esoteric library of Emperor Rudolf II, Europe's premier patron of the occult, hermeticism, and alchemy. Christina personally ordered these manuscripts to be sent straight to Stockholm. Interestingly, because she found the Czech and German scripts of Rudolf's operational alchemical notebooks difficult to read, she later gifted a massive batch of them to her librarian Isaac Vossius. These survive today as the Codices Vossiani Chymici at Leiden University:
https://tinyurl.com/4rjaujt2
2) A Network of European Book Hunters: Christina used her immense wealth to employ agents, like Vossius and the French physician Jean Bourdelot, to scour Europe for rare materials. They purchased vast private libraries, such as the renowned French collection of Alexandre Petau, which was loaded with medieval texts on natural philosophy and the transmutation of metals.