Denis Zachaire
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
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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 |