The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony

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FIGURE 133. A table of Chimical Characters in Le Fevre s 1670 edition of A Corn-pleat Body of Chymistry. 

Antimony was one of the nine elements known to the ancients, It was found as the ore stibnite (Sb2S3), and this black sulfide was used by women as an eye cosmetic in biblical times. An early means for obtaining the metal was to roast the ore on charcoal heated to incandescence. Later methods involved heat ing stibnite with tartar and nitre or with iron. The resulting lead was used to fashion a Chaldean vase of pure antimony around 4000 B,c,  

Fevre was much taken with medicinal antimony and particularly with its purification and fixation (as the calx) by the sun. He too noted the increase in weight upon calcination. The book Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, first published in 1604 and attributed to the legendary Benedictine Monk, Basil Valentine, used this flashy, Hollywood-like title to strike a blow for antimony in this long and passionate debate. For a modern encore, we eagerly await the movie version starring Charlton Heston as the chariot-driver. 

It is worthwhile recognizing that modem anticancer agents poison normal cells, but are greater poisons to cancerous cells that multiply much more rapidly. Thus, the Paracelsian view is vindicated in this case but not in neutralizing stomach acid. 

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Valentine, Basil.The triumphal chariot of antimony / Basil Valentine with the commentary of Theodore Kerckringius. Edited by Arthur Edward Waite and Joseph Bouleur. Edmonds (WA) Alchemical Press, 1992. 105p. 

Valentine, Basil. The triumphal chariot of Antimony by Basilius Valentinus. [Richardson (TX)] R.A.M.S., n.d. 177p. 

I would like to make a comment about the Vinegar of Sb2S3 The experiment procedure that was chosen is found on page 171 of Waite s translation of The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony"... 

Basil Valentine, The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony (Leipzig, 1604 English translation, 1660, The British Library Collection). 

Valentine, Basil. The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. London, 1685. Vallee, Jacques. The Invisible College. New York Dutton, 1975. 

Sasilius Valentinus. Although the collection of chemical writings attributed to the fifteenth-century Benedictine monk, Basilius Valentinus, contains this alleged portrait, there is no conclusive evidence that such a person ever lived. Although the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony and other writings commonly attributed to him are much too modem for the fifteenth century, they are nevertheless of great historical value. 

Since the alchemists considered natural antimony minerals to be the most suitable raw material for the transmutation of metals into gold, alchemical literature abounds in references to antimony (65). The most famous of the early monographs on this element is the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, which first appeared in 1604, in German. Johann Tholde, operator of a saltworks in Frankenhausen, Thuringia, the editor of this work, claimed that it had been written by a fifteenth-century Benedictine monk, Basilius Valentinus (3, 6). Since no conclusive evidence of the existence of this monk has been unearthed, and since the literary style... 

The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony by Pseudo-Basilius Valentinus is published. 

Cockren had read The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony by Basil Valentine, a strange figure whose true identity lies hidden in the alchemical legends of the 15lh and 16th centuries. Valentine is credited with the discovery of the element anti-... 

In his book entitled The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony Basil gives instructions for the preparation of the Fire-stone, an inferior type of Philosopher s stone which would transmute silver into gold, but could not change iron or copper, whereas the true Philosopher s stone was all-powerful. After devoting several pages to the process he naively ends up by the words I have tola you enough and if, after all that has been said, you do not discover the secret, it will not be my fault. To use an army term, Basil was an adept at passing the buck . 

J This book has been translated into English The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, by Basilius Valentinus, traiislateil by Theo. Kerckringius James Elliot Sc Co., London, 1893. It has also been trauslati-d into Latin by an unknown author under tlie title Currus trhmphalis antimonii. 

A more specialized textbook was produced in 1604 by a German publisher named Johaim Tholde (concerning whom nothing is otherwise known). He ascribed the book to a medieval monk named Basil Valentine, but it seems almost certain that the name was a pseudonym for himself. The book, entitled The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, dealt with the medicinal uses of this metal and the compounds derived from it. 

Paracelsus s works began to appear in print about 20 years after his death, and other authors soon produced iatrochemical texts. Probably the most famous such author was Basil Valentine, although it is now believed that no such person existed and that his books were probably the work of the publisher, Johann Tholde. The most famous book attributed to Valentine is the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. This work gave clear directions for the preparation of a number of antimony salts and their use in medicine. 

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