The Transmutations of Chymistry

"This book resurrects science history between Robert Boyle and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier by telling the story of a remarkable genius who devised an innovative, comprehensive, and experimentally based theory of alchemy/chemistry (called chymistry) that was widely celebrated and adopted both in his own time and after. Wilhelm Homberg (1653-1715) is a bridge between traditions: he held an expansive vision for chymistry as a natural philosophical discipline while at the same time continued to pursue metallic transmutation, only lightly veiled in his official publications. In Lawrence M. Principe's hands, Holmberg's life and work, particularly at the Acadâemie Royale, provide new insights on several of the significant changes that chymistry underwent during and immediately after his lifetime. This new biography radically revises what was previously known about the contours of chymistry and scientific institutions in the early eighteenth century"--