Meteorology is not one of the most discussed topics in Paracelsus studies, although it is closely linked to both Paracelsus’ medicine and cosmology. Furthermore, it appears to be at the very core of Paracelsus’ famous matter theory of three chymical principles, mercury, sulphur and salt, known as the tria prima. By discussing prominent examples of Paracelsus’ explanations on how the tria prima operate within the stars, this article shows how the Swiss physician conceived meteorology within his own body of knowledge, (...) obviously constructed in opposition to the Aristotelian-scholastic tradition, how he based it on a peculiar interpretation of the Biblical creation story, and made it the proper laboratory of his chymical matter theory, applying it first systematically to the field of natural philosophy, especially to celestial phenomena, even before using it for his medical theory in his later writings. (shrink)

Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493–1541), colloquially known as Paracelsus, emerges as a pivotal figure in the transition from medieval to early modern scientific paradigms. Within the realm...

The cosmological-meteorological writings of Paracelsus (1493-1541), presented here for the first time in the most reliable German versions with facing-page translations and thorough text-based and historical commentary, are essential documents of the transition from the medieval to the modern era.

We study here the reception by their contemporaries of Antoine de Villon's and étienne de Clave's anti-Aristotelian, almost materialistic and atomistic theses, which they intended to support publicly in Paris in 1624, using chemical experiments to this purpose. After surveying the intellectual context which could have then nourished an atomism based upon chemical experiments, we go on to show how these theses, far from having been perceived as prominently atomistic, were condemned by the contemporaries above all because of the theological (...) implications of their provocative anti-Aristotelism. Alchemy itself was not directly implicated in the case of the theses. On the contrary, the theses were perceived as an alien body within the alchemical tradition. (shrink)

We study here the reception by their contemporaries of Antoine de Villon's and étienne de Clave's anti-Aristotelian, almost materialistic and atomistic theses, which they intended to support publicly in Paris in 1624, using (al)chemical experiments to this purpose. After surveying the intellectual context which could have then nourished an atomism based upon (al)chemical experiments, we go on to show how these theses, far from having been perceived as prominently atomistic, were condemned by the contemporaries above all because of the theological (...) implications of their provocative anti-Aristotelism. Alchemy itself was not directly implicated in the case of the theses. On the contrary, the theses were perceived as an alien body within the alchemical tradition. (shrink)