Welcome again to our series of posts exploring the Maddison Collection, brought to you by our summer interns Philip and Janee!
Today, we’re going to take a look at a particularly curious story about the philosopher’s stone… (No, not the Harry Potter one.) (But inspiration has to come from somewhere, right?!…)
Our edition of this book is in Latin, so our rough translations of this come from the Archive.org version of the text in English, which is held in California. The text describes how to make base metals, but there’s a particularly curious story about how to extract elements…:
Step one: The King sits on his throne ignoring requests from his sons and servants to share power.
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step two: the son, incited by the servants, kills the King.
Step three: the son catches the King’s blood on his robes.
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step four: dig a grave in the furnace room.
Step five: the son throws his father, the King, into the grave – but oh no! He falls in too!
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step six: the son tries to escape but is prevented from doing so.
Step seven: the son and King’s ashes putrefy.
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step eight: The putrified ashes are inspected.
Step nine: the bones are taken from the tomb.
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
![Step ten: [Complex instructions for turning bones into purified water, involving subjecting some to heat until they turn black and repeating this until water is acquired] From 'Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide' by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)](http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/specialcollections/files/2018/07/F10528400f.jpg)
Step ten: [Complex instructions for turning bones into purified water, involving subjecting some to heat until they turn black and repeating this until water is acquired]
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step eleven: an angel is sent, and the servants pray for the return of their King.
Step twelve: a second angel places the bones on the earth until they are all thickened.
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step thirteen: the King rises from his tomb!
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Step fourteen: the newly humbled King decides to share his power with his sons and servants. The end.
From ‘Pretiosa margarita : novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide’ by Giano Lacinio, 1546, Venice. (Maddison Collection 2B7, F10528400)
Like what you see here? Books from the Maddison Collection can be requested through LibrarySearch (for internal University of Kent members only) or by contacting us (for everyone).
This blog post is part three of an ongoing summer series exploring our Maddison Collection; more in depth posts will be coming soon. See here for part one, here for part two and here for part three!