Bonus | Pretiosa margarita novella de thesauro, Venice, Aldus, 1546, modern leather

Bonus, Petrus

Pretiosa margarita novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum lapide. (Venice): Aldus (sons of Aldus), 1546

8vo (148 x 95mm.), woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso (otherwise blank), woodcut illustrations, modern leather tooled in period style, lacking **1, quire *** misbound, section of title-page repaired with washed library stamp, marginal wormhole in third leaf only of quires E-N, occasional light foxing

FIRST EDITION of this compilation of alchemical writings, edited by Giano Lacinio. The New Pearl of Great Price is usually attributed to the fourteenth-century writer Petrus Bonus of Ferrara, though this compilation also includes the writings of Arnaldus of Villanova, Raymund Llull, Albertus Magnus, Rhasis and Michael Scotus; Bonus also drew on earlier writings such as those of Geber.

Bonus was a physician so he viewed alchemy as a science, part natural and part divine. He also saw a connection between prophecy and alchemy, and indeed between alchemical and Christian truths.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 26961; Mellon 17; Renouard 135/6; UCLA 352