Summa Perfectionis

Jabir ibn Hayyan.The Summa Perfectionis of pseudo-Geber a critical edition, translation and study by William R. Newman. Edited by William Royall Newman. Leiden, New York Brill, 1991. iv, 785 p. 

Jabir ibn Hayyan. Summa perfectionis collected and digested by William Salmon professor of physick. [Richardson (TX)] R.A.M.S., 1977. l-177p. (Additonal pages 10A, 21 A)... 

Newman, William Royall. "Arabo-Latin forgeries the case of the Summa perfectionis (with the text of Jabir ibn Hayyan s Liber Regni)." In The "Arabick" interest of the natural philosophy in seventeenth-century English, ed. G.A. Russell, 278-296. Leiden Brill, 1994. 

Newman, William Royall. The genesis of the Summa Perfectionis. Arch Int Hist Sci 35, no. 114-115 (1985) 240-302. 

Newman, William Royall. "The "Summa perfectionis" and late medieval alchemy a study of chemical traditions, techniques, and theories in 13th century Italy." PhD thesis, Harvard Univ, 1986. 

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. 

More detailed accounts of alchemy in the middle ages can be found in William R. Newmans work on Geber, The Summa Perfectionis of Psetido-Geber (Leiden Brill, 1991). Excellent readings on the history of distillation can be found in Allen G. Debus, Fire Analysis and the Elements in the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries, Ann. Sci. 23 (1967), 127-147 and in Robert P. Multhauf, The Origins of Chemistry (New York Franklin Watts, 1967). 

On medieval Latin alchemy, see Holmyard, Alchemy, 105-52. See also Bernhard Dietrich Haage, Alchemie im Mittelalter Ideen und Bilder von Zosimos bis Paracelsus (Zurich Artemis. Winkler, 1996) and Newman, "Technology and the Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages," and The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber. 

William Newman has identified the author as Paul of Taranto. William R. Newman, ed., The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber A Critical Edition, Translation and Study (Leiden E. J. Brill, 1991), 634.1 have taken all quotes here from Newman s translation and critical edition of the Summa perfectionis. 

Newman, Summa perfectionis, 51 Hec compositio in aliam mutari non poterit com-positionem nisi forte in primam reducatur materiam, et sic in aliud quam prius erat permute-tur. ... 

William R. Newman, New Light on the Identity of Geber, SudhoffsArchtvfiirdie Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, 69(1985), 76—90 and Newman, The Genesis of the Summa perfectionis, Les archives internationales dhistoire des sciences 35(1985), 240—302. 

Like Boyle, Geber views gold as belonging to a species that is defined by its known qualities—yellowness, heaviness, absence of ringing when struck, brilliance, malleability, fusibility, and ability to withstand decomposition by the assaying tests of cupellation and cementation. If anyone should be able to induce these qualities in a given parcel of matter, then let him call that matter gold. There is no mention here of a substantial form, and the term is similarly absent from the remainder of the Summa perfectionis. 

Newman, William R. The Summa perfectionis and Late Medieval Alchemy A Study of Chemical Traditions, Techniques, and Theories in Thirteenth-Century Italy. 4 vols. Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986. 

Ts An T ung Ch i Summa Perfectionis Book of the Secret of Secrets Book of The Remedy Libellus de Alchimia Opus Maius A Treatise on the... 

Newman, William R. (1991). The Summa Perfectionis of Psettdo-Geber. A Critical Edition, Translation and Study. Leiden E. J. Brill. 

The process of assaying gold was current from early times and in the thirteenth century it was clearly described in the Summa perfectionis magisterii (ascribed to Geber). This also described the preparation of aqua fortis (nitric acid), which was known to dissolve silver but not gold, and aqua regia, prepared from a mixture of nitric acid with ammonium chloride, which... 

Few of these alchemical texts were directly heretical in any case. For example, Gerber, who was Jabir ibn Hayyan, wrote the world s oldest book on chemistry called Summa Perfectionis or Summit of Perfection. It is so incomprehensible that its author s name gave rise to the word gibberish. 

Paul of Taranto, Theorica et practica, in Newman, The Summa perfectionis vol. 3, 38. 

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