The editor of Azogue.

José Rodríguez Guerrero, BSc, MSc. (Madrid, 1974)
Estafeta Vieja, 23
45200 Illescas
E-mail: joserodriguez@revistaazogue.com
 

Research interest:

History of Alchemy and related fields such as hermeticism, rosicrucianism, paracelsism. (1st – 20th centuries)
History of Chemistry and Chemical Technology (Late Middle Ages – Early Modern Times)
History of Pharmacy (Late Middle Ages – Early Modern Times).

Notices about alchemical texts of all Ages produced in Spanish territories are welcomed, because I try to create a research library on this topic. I am mainly interested in manuscripts and old printed books.
 

Current research activities:

2017-2020: The Origin of the pseudo-arnaldian alchemical corpus.
I will focus my research on alchemical writings produced in the Kingdom of Aragon and Southern France (Occitania) during the 14th century. Many of these treatises are unprinted or distributed as pseudoepigraphical works, so their authors remain for the most part forgotten: Jacme de Sant Sernin, Ramon of Lerida, Jacme Lustrac, Johan of Rodes, Bernat Peire, Bernat de Grave, Ramon of Termes, Philip Elephant, etc.

I am particularly interested in the life and works of Pierre-Arnauld de Villeneuve (Occitan: Pčire Arnaut de Vilanova), who wrote a large alchemical compendia entitled Rosarium philosophorum. This work was composed in several stages from 1316 to 1340: first in three books, to which he later added a fourth. It is entirely different to other alchemical treatises under the same title. The text can be considered a transitional work between the 13th century collections of alchemical recipes explaining how to manufacture particular “elixirs” (De anima in arte alchemiae, Epistola de re recta, Liber septuaginta, De aluminibus et salibus, De perfecto magisterio, Lumen luminum, etc.) and the 14th century texts devoted to a universal and unique elixir that could transmute base metals into gold (e.g. the main part of the pseudo-Lullian and pseudo-Arnaldian corpus).

I would like to prepare an edition that could make available that hitherto unknown Rosarium, because it seems to be a key text in the history of medieval science, particularly the history of “Arnaldism”. In fact, the Rosarium composed by Pierre-Arnauld is a crucially important source for understanding the origin of the alchemical corpus falsely attributed to the medieval physician Arnold of Vilanova.

Alternative research activities:

The Origin of the pseudo-lulian alchemical corpus / The identity of the magister testamenti.
The identity of Bernard de Treves.
The identity and the alchemical corpus of John Dastin.
Establish a chronology of alchemical texts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

 

Professional memberships:

Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (UK)
History of Science Society (USA)
British Society for the History of Science (UK)
 

Languajes:

Spanish (native); English (fluent); French, Italian, German and Latin (fluent in reading and comprehension).

 


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