NEWTON ISAAC (1642-1727).

Lot 154
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Result : 39 000EUR
NEWTON ISAAC (1642-1727).
Autograph MANUSCRIPT, Notanda Chemica, [1670s]; 8 pages small in-4 format of which 4 are written (dimensions: 20,4 x 15,4 cm), one folded leaf (watermark: cor de postillon HG / MC), the 4 last pages blank; 33 to 36 lines per page, with added interlinear annotations, erasures and corrections ; in Latin, with a paragraph partially in English. Interesting assembly of notes pertaining to Alchemy. It was the sale of Newton’s archives in 1936 that revealed the extent of his interest in alchemy, hermitism and unorthodox theology. A fascinating account of Newton’s careful reading of alchemical literature. This extensive text contains twenty-one paragraphs. The first paragraph begins: “J. Grassaeus materiam suam per sublimationem purgat a faecibus, tunc ex meterria purgata (absque aliarum rerum additione) flores duo paulatim & successive crescent....” [That is, Grassaeus purifies his material from its dregs by sublimation, and then from the purified material and without any addition of other things, grow two flowers little by little and successively]. This paragraph, which has numerous crossings out and additions, gives a summary of Grasshoff’s account of his process, and the second and third paragraphs give confirmatory (“idem regimen”) accounts from Starkey, Ripley, Bernard of Trier (Trevisanus), the “Emerald Table” of Hermes Trismegistus, Maier’s Symbola aureae mensae, and other sources, all with page references. These are followed by a paragraph numbered 2, which gives a method for shortening the process (“abbreviabitur autem opus”), with further citations from Artephius and others. Further paragraphs give summaries from various sources, all of them again carefully identified. There is, for example, an account of how the stone shall be multiplied, with a precise reference to the number of days that “fermentation” will take (33 days), taken from a work by the German alchemist Hadrian MYNSICHT (1603?-1638): Testamentum Hadria
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