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The nature and role of the philosophers’ stone in the Pretiosa margarita novella by Petrus Bonus
Snježana Paušek-Baždar
; Zavod za povijest i filozofiju znanosti HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
While employed as a town doctor in Pula around 1330, Petrus Bonus wrote his famous work Pretiosa margarita novella (1330), first printed in Venice in 1546. Although some historians of science (C. Crisciani, D. Grdenić) and C. G. Jung have dealt with the role and significance of Bonus’s work within the scope of European science, to date it has not been fully interpreted nor evaluated. Based on the interpretation of the mentioned authors, Petrus Bonus has been traditionally considered as the first alchemist who opened a religious, Christian approach to alchemy. Moreover, the statement according to which Bonus identified the nature and role of Jesus Christ with that of the philosophers’ stone became widely accepted. But the analysis of Bonus’s work shows that this argument is groundless, and that it was Bonus who made a clear-cut distinction between the nature and role of Jesus Christ and that of the philosophers’ stone, mainly in the light of of Aristotelianism. According to Bonus, the philosophers’ stone is solidified mercury which contains a conversion agent, i.e. a special kind of sulphur that corresponds to the concept of heat.
It has been shown that a novelty in Bonus’s text, among other things, is his search for the definition of the structure of matter. Into the already established sulphurmercury theory he introduced several types of sulphur, of which two types into the composition of imperfect metals, and a specific type into the composition of noble gold. This specific type of sulphur, which Bonus calls ‘sulphur oil’ (oleum sulphuris), is defined as a creative fire within the philosophers’ stone, and thus acts as an agent of the transmutation of metals on their path to a perfect purpose, noble gold. It has been shown that Bonus’s ‘sulphur oil’ or creative fire represents an inner heat or a fire principle of the material, inorganic substances. In the later chemical theories of the structure of matter this notion developed into phlogiston, a hypothetical substance, and in the 19th century into the concept of energy.
Bonus did not neglect the interest of alchemy in the heavenly, immaterial world. Yet he warns that the understanding of matter is a prerequisite for the understanding of the entire cosmos. Man should first understand the matter “truly and flawlessly,” and only then will he be able “to truly grasp all the other causes.”
Ključne riječi
Petrus Bonus; alchemy of 14th century; philosophers’ stone; sulphur; quicksilver; gold; transmutation of metals
Hrčak ID:
154507
URI
Datum izdavanja:
18.2.2016.
Posjeta: 1.338 *