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Libra Esoterica

The mirror of alchimy

Also known as Speculum alchemiae. English

by Roger Bacon

  • First published:
  • 16th century
  • Language: English
  • Content type: Primary source
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Description

Description from Project Gutenberg (opens in a new tab)

"The Mirror of Alchimy" by Roger Bacon is an alchemical manual translated in 1597. This compact treatise claims to reveal the secrets of creating the Elixir, a mysterious substance capable of perfecting base metals. Through seven brief chapters, the text guides readers through alchemical principles, mineral properties, and the precise methods for transmutation. As only the second alchemical work printed in English, it emerged during an era of intense fascination with magic and transformation, shaping popular understanding of alchemy as a science of material perfection. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism.

  • Alchemy and Hermeticism

    Controlled discovery queries from internet-archive, online-books-page, openlibrary-historical, and project-gutenberg matched “Alchemy” and “alchemy”. Retained metadata contains “Alchemy” in the description and “Alchemy” in the subject metadata.

    • “Alchemy”· via Internet Archive
    • “Alchemy”· via The Online Books Page
    • “Alchemy”· via Open Library
    • “alchemy”· via Project Gutenberg
    • “Alchemy”· in description
    • “Alchemy”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

Read & download

Free, public copies reported by our sources. Links open the source directly.

marks a direct file download. Rights vary by country; each source states its own terms.

Buy or borrow

No ISBN on record, so the Amazon link searches by title and author. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

4 editions cataloged here.

The Online Books Page curated catalog record

with additional treatises credited to Bacon or others (one of which is sometimes attributed to Simon of Cologne); London: Printed by for R. Oliue, 1597

1597———Source listed online copy

Internet Archive institutional pre-1900 scan

1597London : Printed for Richard Oliue; Printed for Richard OliueEnglish—Public

Open Library record

1597[Richard Oliue]English—No ebook

Subjects

4 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Cataloging notes

  • Contributing institution: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
  • Contributors: Khālid ibn Yazīd al-Umawī, active 7th century|* Khālid ibn Yazīd al-Umawī; Simon, of Cologne, -1442?|* Simon of Cologne
  • Digitization sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School
  • Discovery required Internet Archive search metadata to report a PDF format; the exact direct-file URL is added only after the item's file listing confirms an unrestricted PDF filename.
  • Internet Archive institutional collection: americana; medicalheritagelibrary
  • Open Library reports 2 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
  • Original print publication date and source edition are absent from Project Gutenberg metadata.
  • Scanner: scribe8.boston.archive.org
  • Source-listed Library of Congress call number(s): QD25 .B33613 1597
  • The Online Books Page bibliographic note: with additional treatises credited to Bacon or others (one of which is sometimes attributed to Simon of Cologne); London: Printed by for R. Oliue, 1597
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL16245529W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved