This large folio leaf comes from the first volume of the 1616 collected German works of Paracelsus, the towering figure at the root of the Western occult and alchemical tradition. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, who took the name Paracelsus, was an alchemist and hermetic philosopher before he was anything else, and it was alchemy that shaped his whole vision of nature: a living cosmos in which the human body is a microcosm answering to the stars and the greater world, all things composed of his three first principles, the Tria Prima of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, and the true physician working as a spagyrist who separates, purifies, and recombines the hidden virtues, the arcana, of matter. Out of this alchemical worldview he built a new medicine, throwing out the inherited dogma of Galen in favor of observation, experience, and the laboratory, and founding what would become iatrochemistry.
The volume these leaves come from is the great monument of Paracelsian scholarship. Its editor, Johannes Huser, spent years hunting down Paracelsus's scattered and often unpublished manuscripts, rendering the Latin into German where he had to, and arranging the whole into a coherent body of work, first at Basel in 1589 to 1591 and then in this handsome folio issued at Strasbourg by the heirs of Lazarus Zetzner. This first tome gathers the writings in which alchemy and healing are inseparable, the part of Paracelsus that made him a lodestar for every later student of the hermetic arts. A leaf like this is a page of that argument in its original German type, printed large in the generous folio format, without a woodcut or device but carrying the plain working prose that made the reputation.
This is an uncommon and affordable way to own an original leaf from one of the foundational books of Western alchemy and occult medicine, at a small fraction of the cost of a complete folio.
PARACELSUS (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493/94–1541). Opera. Bücher und Schrifften, so viel deren zur Handt gebracht... [the Medical Works]. Edited by Johannes Huser. Strasbourg: In Verlegung Lazari Zetzners Seeligen Erben [Heirs of Lazarus Zetzner], 1616. Second folio (Huser) edition; Tomus 1 (of 2/3), here dispersed as individual leaves. Folio.
Physical Description: A single original printed folio leaf, German text in gothic (Fraktur) type. Drawn from the first, medical volume of the collected works. Approx. 12.5 x 7.5 in. / 32 x 20 cm.
Binding: None; issued as a disbound single leaf.
Condition: Age-toning, scattered foxing and light soiling, edges as issued with occasional wear or short tears consistent with a volume that did not survive intact (see note below). Text clear and legible. Sold individually; each leaf will vary and is chosen from the plainer pages of the volume. Additional shipping and handling charges apply.
Sadly, many antiquarian volumes simply do not survive the ravages of time. This is especially true for works of esoterica, which are so often hunted, smuggled, or made to endure life in an alchemical lab, and a great many have been destroyed outright in the persecution of occult knowledge.
These volumes reached us in a state in which preservation of the entire book was simply not possible: destroyed internal structure, failed binding, a great many missing pages, and otherwise orphaned, among many other catastrophic faults. Put simply, they have come to us either as individual leaves or in a condition beyond saving as intact, singular books.
After consulting several experts in the field, we have opted to make individual leaves of these important volumes in esoteric history available. This is a rare opportunity to own a piece of occult history for a fraction of the price of a complete antiquarian volume. This listing is for our more plain pages, still extraordinary refugees from the earliest days of esoteric printing. Pages featuring printer's devices, woodcuts, or other extraordinary elements are offered separately.
This large folio leaf comes from the first volume of the 1616 collected German works of Paracelsus, the towering figure at the root of the Western occult and alchemical tradition. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, who took the name Paracelsus, was an alchemist and hermetic philosopher before he was anything else, and it was alchemy that shaped his whole vision of nature: a living cosmos in which the human body is a microcosm answering to the stars and the greater world, all things composed of his three first principles, the Tria Prima of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, and the true physician working as a spagyrist who separates, purifies, and recombines the hidden virtues, the arcana, of matter. Out of this alchemical worldview he built a new medicine, throwing out the inherited dogma of Galen in favor of observation, experience, and the laboratory, and founding what would become iatrochemistry.
The volume these leaves come from is the great monument of Paracelsian scholarship. Its editor, Johannes Huser, spent years hunting down Paracelsus's scattered and often unpublished manuscripts, rendering the Latin into German where he had to, and arranging the whole into a coherent body of work, first at Basel in 1589 to 1591 and then in this handsome folio issued at Strasbourg by the heirs of Lazarus Zetzner. This first tome gathers the writings in which alchemy and healing are inseparable, the part of Paracelsus that made him a lodestar for every later student of the hermetic arts. A leaf like this is a page of that argument in its original German type, printed large in the generous folio format, without a woodcut or device but carrying the plain working prose that made the reputation.
This is an uncommon and affordable way to own an original leaf from one of the foundational books of Western alchemy and occult medicine, at a small fraction of the cost of a complete folio.
PARACELSUS (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493/94–1541). Opera. Bücher und Schrifften, so viel deren zur Handt gebracht... [the Medical Works]. Edited by Johannes Huser. Strasbourg: In Verlegung Lazari Zetzners Seeligen Erben [Heirs of Lazarus Zetzner], 1616. Second folio (Huser) edition; Tomus 1 (of 2/3), here dispersed as individual leaves. Folio.
Physical Description: A single original printed folio leaf, German text in gothic (Fraktur) type. Drawn from the first, medical volume of the collected works. Approx. 12.5 x 7.5 in. / 32 x 20 cm.
Binding: None; issued as a disbound single leaf.
Condition: Age-toning, scattered foxing and light soiling, edges as issued with occasional wear or short tears consistent with a volume that did not survive intact (see note below). Text clear and legible. Sold individually; each leaf will vary and is chosen from the plainer pages of the volume. Additional shipping and handling charges apply.
Sadly, many antiquarian volumes simply do not survive the ravages of time. This is especially true for works of esoterica, which are so often hunted, smuggled, or made to endure life in an alchemical lab, and a great many have been destroyed outright in the persecution of occult knowledge.
These volumes reached us in a state in which preservation of the entire book was simply not possible: destroyed internal structure, failed binding, a great many missing pages, and otherwise orphaned, among many other catastrophic faults. Put simply, they have come to us either as individual leaves or in a condition beyond saving as intact, singular books.
After consulting several experts in the field, we have opted to make individual leaves of these important volumes in esoteric history available. This is a rare opportunity to own a piece of occult history for a fraction of the price of a complete antiquarian volume. This listing is for our more plain pages, still extraordinary refugees from the earliest days of esoteric printing. Pages featuring printer's devices, woodcuts, or other extraordinary elements are offered separately.
