Denis Zachaire

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Denis Zachaire also Denys Zecaire (* 1510 in the Duchy of Guienne , today Aquitaine ; † 1556 ) was a French alchemist . Zachaire spent his life searching for the Philosopher's Stone and the water of life .

Life

Zachaire was born in 1510 into a noble family in the Duchy of Guienne in what is now Aquitaine . He called himself maître D. Zachaire, gentilhomme et philosophe guiennois. Around 1545 he was summoned to the French court by Henry II of Navarre to convert cinnabar into silver for a fee of 4,000 écus .

His opus magnum Opuscule très excellent de la vraye philosophie naturelle des métaux (1567) tells in a novel-like manner of the life and activities of an alchemist. In it he claims that at Easter 1550 he succeeded in transmutation , the transformation of silver into gold: ... I saw [...] the true and perfect experiment of silver heated strongly in a crucible, which finally took less than an hour before mine Eyes turned to gold.

Fonts

  • Opuscule très excellent de la vraye philosophie naturelle des métaux (1567, 1ère éd. 1583) online at books.google.fr
The text was translated into Latin by Gerhard Dorn in 1583 and included in the first volume of Lazarus Zetzner's Compendium Theatrum Chemicum (1602–1661).
  • Denis Zecaire: Opuscule tres-eccelent de la vraye philosophie naturelle des metaulx , Édition critique, introduction et notes par Renan Crouvizier, Chrysopoeia, Collège de France, 1999, in-8 ° de 208 p.
  • Vie de Denys Zecaire, alchimiste, ecrite par lui-même , Ed. Albert-Marie Schmidt. In: Mesures , No. 4, Oct. 15, 1936, p. 151 ff.

literature

  • Tenney L. Davis: The Autobiography of Denis Zachaire . In Isis , Nov. 1925, Vol. 8, 2nd pp. 287-299.
  • EJ Holmyard: L'Alchimie , Trad. Arthaud, 1979. pp. 264-270.
  • Armand Lattes: Un alchimiste gascon: Denis Zachaire (1510-1556) . Académie des Sciences, Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Toulouse. Series 18, Vol. 5, Vol. 166, 2004. pp. 25-28.
  • Renan Crouvizier: L'authenticité de l'opuscule attribué à maistre D. Zecaire , Chrysopoeia . Collège de France, 1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ French = Maitre Denis Zachaire, nobleman and philosopher from Gascony. According to the English science historian Eric John Holmyard , this could be both a family name and a nickname. According to Holmyard, his autobiography is in many respects similar to the one attributed to Bernhardus Trevisanus , so that doubts are appropriate as to whether Zachaire is a fictional or historical person. Eric John Holmyard, L'Alchimie , trad. Arthaud, 1979, p. 264, 272.
  2. ↑ French = j'en vis la vraie et parfaite expérience sur l'argent vif échauffé dedans un creuset, lequel se convertit en fin or devant mes yeux à moins d'une heure
personal data
SURNAME Zachaire, Denis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zecaire, Denys
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH 1510
PLACE OF BIRTH Duchy of Guienne , now Aquitaine
DATE OF DEATH 1556