In 1570, Johannes Stradanus (1523–1605), a Flemish-born artist settled in Florence, produced two paintings meant to adorn the new Studiolo of Prince Francesco I de’ Medici (1541–87). The best-known painting is The Alchemist’s Laboratory, a depiction of the laboratory then existing at the Palazzo Vecchio. The laboratory was set up by Cosimo I (1519–74), the first grand duke of Tuscany. His son Francesco was also enthusiastic about it: Stradanus’s painting portrays the prince working on the premises amongst other artisans. This paper will present the laboratory, instruments and practices by linking them with a specific form of alchemy popular in the period, quintessence alchemy. I will also discuss the extent to which Stradanus’s depiction may be deemed ‘realistic’, relating it to its underlying ideology as well as other contemporary representations.

English-language alchemical manuscript texts remain under-studied despite their potential for providing new insights into the textual histories of alchemy. In this article, I use close reading of one such Middle English alchemical text, which I name The Gracious Work, to examine how its alchemical metaphors create cohesion among a fragmented whole. This nameless and previously unstudied work, formerly attributed to Roger Bacon (c.1214–92?), is extant in four English-language manuscript witnesses. Three of them are from the late fifteenth century (Cambridge, University Library MS Dd.4.45; Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.14.45; Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1451) and one is from the seventeenth century (MS Ashmole 1452). On the surface, The Gracious Work looks like a typically ‘incoherent’ alchemical text; indeed, although exploring this work’s textual history is beyond the scope of this article, it was probably compiled from several sources. However, the coherence in The Gracious Work comes from its central metaphors – core alchemical metaphors drawn from family life. Metaphors linking alchemical processes and substances to concepts of daily life such as weddings and parenthood ease information transmission in this fragmentary work; in addition, the vagueness of the language acts as a marker of in-group language use.

This paper addresses the links between alchemy, mining and religion in the early modern alchemical iconography of the German mining theorist Martin Sturtz. He created a special version of the prayer Vaterunser (Our Father) for miners and metallurgists and used the images from Christian and alchemical iconography to demonstrate the history of the creation of metals and how they grow inside the Earth. In one of his images, the Saviour is crucified against the background of coloured strips or stripes, symbolizing the seven metals inside a sedimentary complex. In another miniature, the blood spilling from his wound gives rise to ore veins in which metals ripen. These and the other iconographical and textual examples from Sturtz’s treatises show the attempt to connect the mining process with alchemical theory and Christian religion. This paper will shed light on the origins of this unusual alchemical imagery and its connection with other alchemical and theological works, especially those by Paul Lautensack.

This paper investigates a rather unexpected connection between the alchemy of vermilion, mercury sulphide (HgS), and the primary red highlighted in a colour theory that emerged in the late fifteenth century: trichromacy of colour mixtures. Some early supporters of trichromacy indeed identified the hue of vermilion as the ideal simple red they discussed in their books. The colours observed during the manufacturing of this pigment led to the alchemical colour sequence described in texts and images about the sulphur–mercury theory, and they are in some recipes the same primary colours of trichromatists. This paper also shows that the era of vermilion lasted until the late eighteenth century, when vermilion was finally rejected by other trichromatists.