Alchemy, Sources, and Digital Exploring at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel

Abstract

The Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (also known as the Bibliotheca Augusta) has long been considered one of the most important research locations for projects focused on medieval and early modern European studies. Founded and enlarged by the German princes Julius (1528–1589), Heinrich Julius (1568– 1613), and Augustus (1579–1666) of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the library today emphasises the collection of manuscripts and early modern printed works and welcomes researchers from numerous disciplines. Among its holdings, the Herzog August Bibliothek possesses, for the period from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, around a hundred manuscripts and more than 2,000 printed works related to alchemy, and those sources have helped establish the library as one of the most important centres for alchemical research. Thirty-eight years ago the library hosted its first major symposium focused on historical alchemy under the umbrella of the Sixteenth Wolfenbüttel Symposium (1984). The meeting, international in scope, was organised by Christoph Meinel, who edited the significant volume to follow, Die Alchemie in der europäischen Kulturund Wissenschaftsgeschichte. In his introduction to that volume, Meinel reflected on the rallying appeal of Wilhelm Ganzenmüller (1882–1955) in 1953, i.e. more than thirty years earlier, to organise an international effort in order to respond to what Ganzenmüller viewed as the most glaring desiderata affecting alchemical research in historical context. Most pressing was the need for cataloguing all known alchemical manuscripts. This should be accompanied by a list of incipits of the texts themselves, linking them to neighbouring natural-philosophical and technical literature. There should be a catalogue of images and a historical dictionary describing the etymology of alchemical terminology, and one should also build a bibliography of source materials supplemented by a bibliography of research literature, including contributions from literary, artistic, religious, and technological