‘The Ordinall of Alchimy’ Robert Vaughan

A man sits at a table opposite a set of apothecary scales, looking down at the sun and the moon. Two alchemists, or alchemists' assistants, attend to furances in front of him. The three figures are positioned in between two columns. On top of the left column as viewed is a naked woman, and on top of the right a naked man, possibly Eve and Adam. A thick border of flowers, insects and birds lines the print. Speech scrolls suround all three figures. They are inscribed in Latin: 'Compo ne lapidem absque repug nantia' [...] Figure 3 from Elias Ashmole’s Theatrum chemicum Britannicum: containing severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philospohers…, a compilation of alchemical literature selected and annotated by the author. This figure illustrates Thomas Norton’s poem ‘The Ordinall of Alchimy’, a poetic guide to the precise processes of alchemy, first published in 1477.