Latin West

By the end of the seventeenth century, the old traditional elements from Aristotle had been either abandoned by the new Paracelsian iatrochymists or absorbed under new terminology. Paracelsus tria prima of mercury, SULPHUR, and salt became the new set of elements or principles, each more narrowly focused on a single property than had been the four elements of Aristotle. Yet the tria prima clearly derived from the older tradition. Salt assumed the role of the Aristotelian earth, while sulphur took that of FIRE. The mercury of Paracelsus rather absorbed the characteristics of both AIR and water, becoming the carrier of all spiritual, i.e., volatile qualities of the products of fire analysis. Mercury also carried the basic metallic properties from the mercury/sulphur theory of metals brought to the Latin West from Arabic alchemy. 

Before passing to the Latin West, we must consider yet another antial-chemical attack stemming from the Arabs. The great Aristotelian commentator of the twelfth century, Averroes, although a vehement opponent of Avicenna in many areas, shared the Persian philosopher s distrust of alchemy. In his commentary to the first book of Aristotle s De genemtione... 

Hasse, Dag Nikolaus. Avicenna s De Anima in the Latin West The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul 1160-1300. London The Warburg Institute Turin Nino Aragno Editore, 2000. 

One caimot demonstrate that the Venetians modeled the music program at the Pieta on the ancient tradition of the Orphanotropheion at Constantinople, nor that they imitated some Western institution closer to home, such as the Schola Cantorum of medieval Rome. Rather, the Pieta emerged fi om a strong Christian tradition of group homes that had emphasized music as part of the educational program in the Byzantine East as well as the Latin West from at least the fifth century. 

MiUer, Timothy S. "The Knights of Saint John and the Hospitals of the Latin West. Spectdum 53 (1978) 709-33. 

Arabic alchemy was unknown in the west until the eleventh century when the first translations from Arabic into Latin were made. Two Arab alchemists were especially well known and widely read Jabir ibn Hayyan, known to Europeans as Geber, and Abu Bakr ibn Zakariyya al-Razi, known as Rhazes. Of more than 2,000 pieces of writing attributed to Jabir, most were compiled by a Muslim religious sect called the Faithful Brethren or Brethren of Purity after he died. The works are written in different styles, which would indicate that they were penned by different authors. The compilation was completed around the year 1000, more than a hundred years after Jabir died. However, it has been established that the work translated into Latin under the title Summa Perfectionis was based on translations of Jabir s writing. Thus, although little is known about his life, we know something about the role Jabir played in the evolution of alchemical theory. 

Despite, or maybe because of, its obscurity, the Emerald Tablet circulated widely, and was known in Syriac, Greek, Arabic and Latin versions. Although when it was introduced to the West in the Middle Ages it was erroneously believed to be as old as history itself, it nevertheless retains something of the quality of an ur-text all alchemists would have known it by heart. Its meaning was not necessarily to be explained rationally rather its secrets could only be learned experientially. 

Christian hermit and alchemist who was said to have taught Prince Khalid ibnYazid, the first Muslim alchemist. His Book of the Composition of Alchemy was the first alchemical tract to appear in the West, translated into Latin in 1144 by Robert of Chester. 

The abuse of the drag is noted among the Latin-American or Spanish-speaking population. The sale of cannabis cigarettes occurs to a considerable degree in States along the Mexican border and in cities of the Southwest and West, as well as in New York, and, in fact, wherever there are settlements of Latin Americans. 

The theories ofthe Arabs were now passe4 on to the West. A large number of Arabic alchemical manuscripts weretranslate4 to Latin. Western Europe now took over as the chief centre for alchemy. 

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