Skip to content Alchemy manuscript depicts an owl and antimony. Owls were considered the symbol of wisdom and darkness, while antimony was thought of as the mother of all metals, circa 17th century.
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European alchemists and scholars spent centuries studying, translating and interpreting Arabic alchemical texts. Eventually, university and Christian theological scholars linked the philosopher’s stone to Jesus’s death. “They believed that he died for our sins, and in the process of being tortured, dying and reborn, he redeemed humanity,” says Nummedal. “So they thought that if they took nature, put it in the fire, tortured it, dissolved it and put it back together, what would emerge is the philosopher’s stone, and the stone could redeem metals like Christ redeemed humans.”
In the 15th and 16th centuries, speculation over the power of the philosopher’s stone spread across Europe due to the invention of the printing press and increased literacy across the continent. When pharmacists, miners and other people who worked with nature and metals learned about the philosopher’s stone, they began to experiment with alchemy.
Nummedal believes most of them just wanted to create “good medicine” that could elongate lifespans, rather than immortality. “Plus, there was this idea that if you could discover how nature worked, you had some insight into God, because nature was a gift of God,” she says.
Wealthy princes, emperors and patrons commissioned alchemists to try to find the philosopher’s stone, eager to get “more gold, have more productive minds and live as long as they could,” says Nummedal. “It’s really in the 16th century that the market for alchemical expertise developed.”
