Catalogue Entry: ALCH00086
Excerpts (probably made in the 1690s) from the correspondence between Edmund Dickinson and Theodorus Mundanus published by the former. In Latin.
Custodial History
Bought at the Sotheby sale by 'Ulysses' (Jacob Schwartz?) for £6.10s. Appeared as lot 717 in the Sotheby sale of 1 August 1939 but what happened to it after that and how it reached Texas is unclear.
Sotheby Lot
SL15Contents
f. 1r 'Ex Epist. Edmundi Dickenson ad Theodorum Mundanum. Dat Londini prid. Cal. Aug. [i.e. 31 July] 1683 edit 1686': this includes a list of eleven questions about alchemical terminology which are answered by Mundanus in the rest of the document, as follows:
f. 1v 'Ex Theodori Mundani Responso Dat. Parisijs 10 Cal. Octob. [i.e. 20 September] 1684'
f. 2v 'De materia lapidis'
f. 3r 'De Mercurio Philosophorum'
f. 4v 'De Philosophorum auro'
f. 5r 'De Monte Philosophorum'
'De Philosophorum Mari'
f. 5v 'De Philosophorum aqua vitæ'
'De Philosophorum Diana'
f. 7v 'De secreto Philosophorum igne'
f. 8v 'De medicamento Vniversali'
'De Patriarcharum longævitate'
Notes
Described as c. 2,500 words in both the Sotheby and Hary Ransom catalogues, but this seems a very conservative estimate.
Related Material
H513 is Newton's copy of Dickinson's Epistola Edmundi Dickinson M.D. & Medica Regii ad Theodorum Mundanum Philosophum Adeptum. De Quintessentia Philosophorum et De Vera Physiologia. [...] His Accedunt Mundani responsa (1686). Newton seems to have thought highly of this work and cited or referred to it frequently in his alchemical compilations of the 1690s (see Westfall, Never at Rest, 290-91, n. 32, and Dobbs, 'Newton's Copy of "Secrets Reveal'd"', 157 and n. 64). See also Keynes Ms. 26 for Newton's later alchemical discussions with a friend of Dickinson and Boyle.
