Catalogue Entry: ALCH00133

Part of a treatise on transmutation

Author: Isaac Newton

Source: Location Unknown

Custodial History

Bought at the 1936 Sotheby sale by Emmanuel Fabius for £10.10s. Sold as Lot 509 at the New York Sotheby sale of 3 December 2004 to an unknown buyer for $467,200.

Sotheby Lot

SL109

Contents

An incomplete, untitled text in Latin with English captions for the illustrations. Unusually for Newton's alchemical writings, it includes no source references, though this by no means proves that it is Newton's own composition. It appears to be largely based on the writings of the fifteenth-century English alchemist George Ripley, particularly his famous illuminated scrolls. It includes a full-page drawing in Newton's hand entitled 'Liber septem sigillorum' ('The Book with Seven Seals'), copied from a Ripley scroll (or from a reproduction of one), and numerous smaller diagrams and illustrations.

Many alchemical verse compositions by Ripley are included in Elias Ashmole's Theatrum chemicum britannicum (London, 1652: H93). Newton also owned a Latin edition of Ripley's complete works (Kassel, 1649: H1405) and 'Eirenenæus Philalethes'' (i.e. George Starkey's) exposition of his works, Ripley Reviv'd (London, 1677-8: H1407).

© 2024 The Newton Project

Professor Rob Iliffe
Director, AHRC Newton Papers Project

Scott Mandelbrote,
Fellow & Perne librarian, Peterhouse, Cambridge

Faculty of History, George Street, Oxford, OX1 2RL - newtonproject@history.ox.ac.uk

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