L’Alchimista antico is a timely survey of Greek alchemical treatises composed between the first and the ninth century CE. It follows on a new wave of research and editorial work inaugurated by the Alchimistes grecs collection in the early 1980s and continued by Matteo Martelli with his own edition of the Four Books attributed to Democritus. Unlike most other introductions to Greek alchemy, Martelli’s book brings textual evidence into clear focus and avoids making conjectures on the purported unity of ancient alchemical theories.
The first chapter deals with definitions. Martelli first reassesses two influential historical models. Working on a universal definition of alchemy, Joseph Needham hypothesized a distinction between aurifiction (the production of imitation gold) and aurifaction (the creation of gold). As Martelli points out, Needham’s neat dichotomy cannot explain how certain Greek alchemical recipes were described by expressions like chrusou poiēsis (“gold-making”) while referring to obvious processes of coloration...
University of California Press