Grasshoff, Johann

Aperta Arca Arcani Artificiosissimi, or the Chest open and opened by the Great and Little Bauer. Of the greatest and most secret Mysteries of Nature, together with the right and veritable Physica Naturalis Rotunda, and thus made completly intelligible by the Chemico-Cabalistical Figure. Also: Cautions and Warning-Instructions and Proofs against all those who falsely persuade other people that they are able to prepare the Aurum Potabile without the Tincture of the Universal Lapis Philosophorum in less time by itself. Hamburg & Stockholm. 1687. With other Alchemical extracts. Pp. 3-18 of the Extracts-which start at the other end of the volume-are wanting, and pp. 93-118 are dropped, though the text is apparently complete. The work at the beginning of the volume is dated 'London 1847'. The 'Extracts' have their own title-page, which reads: 'Monuments of Wisdom: that is Records of Ancient Chymical Writings and of Philosophical Works not taken out of Books, but being Old Monuments collected 1680. Translated from the German by Dr. the Revd. N. and C. W. H. Surgeon. 1846.' Johann Grasshoff's 'Aperta Arca' seems first to have been published under the title of 'Der Kleine Baur' in a slightly different version, at Frankfort in 1617. It was included in Zetzner's 'Theatrum chemicum' 1661, Vol. VI, pp. 294-392 in Latin. He also wrote other alchemical tracts under the pseudonyms of Johannes Chortalasseus and Hermannus Condeesyanus [cf. Ferguson 'Bibliotheca Chemica', Vol. I, pp. 338-341]. The 'Cautions' were published originally as 'Warnung' at Cologne in 1607, and were possibly written by a certain Franz Krelle [ibid. Vol. II, pp. 529, 530]. Of the two translators and transcribers whose initials are given on the title of the 'Extracts', the first is the Rev. William Alexander Ayton [1817-1909] of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, who was ordained in 1843, and died at Saffron Walden at the age of 92. MS. 1027 contains other transcripts of alchemical works by him, and MSS. Nos. 1737 [Colonne], 4317 [Ruesenstein], and 4369 [Saulnier are also associated with Ayton and/or his fellow-devotees of alchemy. C.W.H., who is Charles William Hoyland [1807-1889], Surgeon to Queen Adelaide's Lying-in Hospital, was elected F.R.C.S. in 1855. He was Superintendent of the Seamen's Hospital at Constantinople [cf. MS. No. 2592], and died at South Norwood. Produced in London.

1846

1 volume 8 ll. (last 4 bl.). + 184 pp. + 130 pp. 4to. 191/2 × 16 cm. Original vellum binding.

Purchased 1931.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).