REUSNER, Hieronymus (b. 1558)

Pandora , Das ist, Die Edleste Gab Gottes, oder Der werde unnd heilsamme Stein der Weysen, mit welchem die alten Philosophi, auch Theophrastus Paracelsus, die unvolkom[m]ene Metallen, durch gewalt des Fewrs verbessert: sampt allerlen schädliche und unheilsame Kranckheiten, innerlich und eusserlich haben vertrieben. Ein Guldener Schatz, welcher durch einen Liebhaber diser Kunst, von seinem Untergang errettet ist worden, unnd zu nutz allen Menschen, sürnem[m]lich den Liebhabern der Paracelsischen Artzney, erst jetz in Truck verfertiget. Getruckt zu Basel. Anno M. D. LXXXII. [Colophon:] Getruc...

Basle: Samuel Apiarius, 1582.
8vo: (:)8 A--T8 V2, 162 leaves, pp. [16] 309 (i.e. 307) [1] (lastpage blank). Gothic letter. Woodcut illustrations including 17 full page. Leaf size and condition: 150 x 95mm. Headlines cropped, leaves with full page illustrations 104mm wide and folded in to preserve images; margins of several leaves at the beginning and end restored; some isolated browning and staining but on the whole a good copy. Binding: Nineteenth-century quarter morocco Provenance and annotation: Fourteen word annotation on p. 258; Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864--1958) with his bookplate with initials 'D. P.'; Walter Pagel (1896--1983), undated signature; B. E. J. Pagel (1930--2007). References: Ferguson, ii, p. 258; Duveen p. 504; VD16 R1362; Sudhoff, Paracelsus, pp. 334--5.
First edition. Reprinted in 1588 and 1598. Duveen mentions a 1595 edition, reissued in 1609 and 1706 with the woodcuts replaced with engravings, but I cannot now trace any copies of these editions; there was also an edition printed at Hamburg 1727.
§ This is one of the rarest books in the history of Alchemy, celebrated for its remarkably illustrations combining Christian symbolism with alchemical operations. It is based on one of the earliest German alchemical manuscripts, 'Der buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit' (the text of which has apparently never been printed), of which the earliest copies have been dated to 1415-16. Alchemical emblems only began to appear in manuscripts around 1400. Reusner, a native of Lemberg in Silesia, gained his MD at Basle and became town physician to Hof in Vogtland and then at Nördlingen. He was apparently only the editor of the book, whose real authorship is obscure and contested (Ferguson). Duveen calls Pandora 'one of the rarest and most interesting alchemical books'. It is celebrated for the extraordinary symbolical illustrations. '[The illustrations] originated in a work which has apparently never been printed, The Book of the Holy Trinity. Four fifteenth-century manuscripts of this work exist (or rather existed) in Germany ... [It] contains the earliest known representation of a Hermaphrodite and makes a very large use of Christian symbolism by comparing chemical operations with the Passion of Christ. This is highly reminsicent of the tract De secreto naturae, usually ascribed to Arnaldus de Villanova. We find the fall of mankind symbolizing the destruction of the impure metals: this is also frequently found in the English alchemist George Ripley's works. Sublimation is symbolized by the Ascension and the idea that the Philosopher's Stone is composed of body, soul, and Sprit leads to a comparison with the Holy Trinity and gives the work its name. These last ideas frequently meet in later alchemists, e.g. Petrus Bonus.' (Duveen, 1946, p. 58.) In his Bibliotheca Alchemica et Chemica (1949, p. 504) Duveen calls Pandora 'An extremely rare book and of very great interest for the symbolical pictures it contains' and draws attention to the long list of alchemical terms explained in German printed at the end. Provenance: One of the most important collectors of printed books and manuscripts of the twentieth-century, Dyson Perrins sold most of his early printed books after World War II to re-finance one of the family businesses, the Royal Worcester Porcelain Factory. For this, a series of sales at Sothebys took place in 1946 and 1947; his illuminated manuscripts and some remaining printed books were sold after his death in sales from 1958 to 1960. Perrins' name is still familiar from another family business, Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. Literature: Denis Duveen, 'Notes on Some Alchemical Books (Reusner, Khunrath, Kertzenmacher)', The Library, 5th Series, I (1947) 56--61.

• GBP 12,000.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: 19757

• bookseller: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)