Editors: Didier Kahn (CNRS – Sorbonne University) & Hiro Hirai (Columbia University)
Publisher: Brill, 2021
The production of forgeries under the name of the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493/94-1541) was an integral part of the diffusion of the Paracelsian movement in early modern Europe. Many of these texts were widely read and extremely influential. The inability of most readers of the time to distinguish the genuine from the fake amid the flood of publications contributed much to the emergence of Paracelsus’ legendary image as the patron of alchemy and occult philosophy. Innovative studies on largely overlooked aspects of Paracelsianism along with an extensive catalogue of Paracelsian forgeries make this volume an essential resource for future studies.
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Illustrations
Introduction – Didier Kahn and Hiro Hirai
The Authenticity of Paracelsus’ Astronomia Magna and Brief an die Wittenberger Theologen: Towards a Diagnostic Rubric Clarifying Authentic and Spurious Elements in Paracelsus’ Oeuvre on the Basis of Theological Motifs – Dane T. Daniel
The Philosophia ad Athenienses in the Light of Genuine Paracelsian Cosmology – Didier Kahn
Genealogy of Knowledge and Delegitimization of Universities: The Pseudo-Paracelsian Aurora Philosophorum – Tobias Bulang
Into the Forger’s Library: The Genesis of De natura rerum in Publication History – Hiro Hirai
Paracelsus, the Plague, and De Pestilitate – Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr.
The Astronomia Olympi novi and the Theologia Cabalistica: Two Pseudo-Paracelsian Works of the Philosophia Mystica (1618) – Martin Žemla
The Development of the Basil Valentine Corpus and Biography: Pseudepigraphic Corpora and Paracelsian Ideas – Lawrence M. Principe
Appendix: A Catalogue raisonné of Pseudo-Paracelsian Writings: Texts Attributed to Paracelsus and Paracelsian Writings of Doubtful Authenticity – Julian Paulus
Index Nominum
Indices to the Appendix