Gerhard Dorn
Gerhard Dorn (* around 1530 in Mechelen ; † after 1584 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a doctor , alchemist , translator and editor, especially of Paracelsus , whom he translated into Latin and thus made accessible to European scholars.
He was born between 1530 and 1535 in Mechelen ( Burgundy Netherlands ). At the end of the 50s of the 16th century, he probably studied medicine at the University of Tübingen and possibly obtained a doctorate there (details of a degree are not known). In 1565 he wrote the first handwritten version of the alchemical script "Clavis totius Philosophiae Chymisticae" in Besançon , for which he would later become famous, and dedicated it to Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle . During a stay in Lyon he may have met Adam von Bodenstein , who had Dorn's manuscript printed in 1567 (another edition appeared in Strasbourg in 1607) and made him familiar with the teachings of Paracelsus , which he had already studied in Besançon. From 1568 to 1578 Dorn stayed in Basel and edited the "Philosophia magna" by Paracelsus, which he dedicated to Margrave Karl von Baden . He also worked as a translator for the Basel publisher Peter Perna , in particular of Paracelsus' works into Latin. In 1572/73 he fell out with Perna. He was friends with the French ambassador Pierre de Grantrye in Basel and through him came into contact with the brother of the French king François de Valois, who also financed the translation of Paracelsus. Dorn dedicated his translation of a pseudo-Paracelsian work Aurora Philosophorum (1577) to him. After that he was in France, but nothing is known about that.
In 1581 he moved to Frankfurt am Main . In the years up to his death around 1584 he published other writings by Paracelsus, which he often dedicated to his friend Samuel Eisenmenger (Siderocrates). In 1602, some tracts ascribed to Dorn appeared posthumously in the first volume of the “ Theatrum Chemicum ” . With around 400 pages, they take up almost half.
As a follower of Paracelsus, he looks down on the traditional medicine of his time. He doesn't think much of gold making either, but often deals with the transmutation of metals in his works. With him there are beginnings of the alchemical interpretation of ancient mythology. He was influenced by Johannes Trithemius and, according to Didier Kahn, pioneer of theosophical alchemists of the early modern period ( Heinrich Khunrath , Jakob Böhme ).
literature
- Carlos Gilly : Dorn, Gerhard. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland ., 2004
- Rudolf Werner Soukup: Chemistry in Austria: from the beginnings to the end of the 18th century , Vienna 2007, p. 277.
- August Hirsch: Dorn, Gerhard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 351.
- Didier Kahn: Gerhard Horn, in: Claus Priesner , Karin Figala : Alchemie. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science, Beck 1998, pp. 112-114
- Didier Kahn: Le debuts de Gerard Dorn d'apres le manuscrit autographe de sa "Clavis totius Philosophiae Chymisticae" (1565) , in Telle (Ed.), Analecta Paracelsica, Heidelberg Studies on Natural History of the Early Modern Age, Volume 4, Stuttgart 1994, Pp. 59-126
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dorn, Gerhard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Dorn, Gerard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Medic, alchemist, translator and editor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1530 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mechelen |
| DATE OF DEATH | around 1584 |
| Place of death | Frankfurt am Main |