The Transmutations of Chymistry
Wilhelm Homberg and the Académie Royale des Sciences
504 pages
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16 halftones, 6 line drawings
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6 x 9
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© 2020
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. A Merchant of the Marvelous
Chapter 2. A Batavian in Paris
Chapter 3. Essaying Chymistry
Chapter 4. A New Chymical Light
Chapter 5. Chrysopoeia at the Académie and the Palais Royal
Chapter 6. Chymistry in Homberg’s Later Years: Practices, Promises, Poisons, and Prisons
Chapter 7. Homberg’s Legacy
Epilogue: Homberg and the Transmutations of Chymistry at the Académie
Note on Sources
Sources Cited
Index
Sources Cited
Index
Review Quotes
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne
"Telling three stories in one volume is the great achievement of this fascinating and erudite book. The biography of a dedicated savant who managed to engage the Duc d’Orléans in his laboratory work, interwoven with the story of the prestigious French Academy of Sciences, provides a vivid snapshot of the long history of chemistry: a unique moment when the alchemical quest for gold merged with the ambition to establish chemistry on the sound theoretical foundations of natural philosophy. With its punning title, this book undoubtedly transmutes the old clichés about the death of alchemy and the birth of modern chemistry."
Seymour Mauskopf, Duke University
"This is a fascinating study of the improbable life of a great but comparatively unheralded chemist: Guillaume Homberg. The book traces the continuing influence of Homberg in eighteenth-century French chemistry through two focal interests: his concern to raise chemistry above the artisanal level to that of a true natural science, and his interest and even passion for chrysopoeia, alchemical metallic transmutation. Through Principe’s biographical details of Homberg’s peregrinations, his interactions with chemists and natural philosophers throughout Europe, and his own research and writings, the reader is fully immersed in European chemical thought and practice of the year 1700."
William R. Newman, author of Newton the Alchemist
"Wilhelm Homberg has long been known as an important figure in the history of chemistry. By examining Homberg’s alchemical preoccupations and those of his contemporaries, Principe not only manages to throw a brilliant new light on this Enlightenment thinker, but to reveal a rich alchemical subtext underlying eighteenth-century chemistry in general."
Patrice Bret, Centre Alexandre-Koyré
"With his peerless knowledge of the archives and obvious taste and talent for unraveling the arcana of the complex social relations and challenges of science at the turn of the eighteenth century, Principe keeps readers on tenterhooks in his study of the three lives—human, disciplinary, and institutional—of German chemist Wilhelm Homberg. He renders the full measure of this atypical figure, revealing him as a key player in the world of chemistry at the Académie Royale des Sciences. This masterful study offers a chance to reassess Homberg’s place within and influence on French chemistry in the Enlightenment."
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