DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15463627
title: Alchemy and Its Genres: Possibilities for the Quantitative Study of Medieval Latin Alchemical Texts [Alchemical dictionary]

description: Latin Alchemical dictionary (conceptual glossary of unigrams)

It explains the complex and symbolic language used by alchemists, primarily during the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. Alchemists often used coded language, metaphors and symbols, and other esoteric means to describe their work, both to protect their practical knowledge and sometimes to express deeper hermetic meanings. Many Arabic and later Greek terms also had an important impact on the formation of the Latin glossary.  This glossary supports the ongoing analysis of Latin alchemical medieval texts and is based on previous secondary literature (mainly analytical works, lexicons, editions and supporting materials), as well as my own textual analysis from lemmatised texts and their frequency dictionnaries.

Technical notes

This is still a work in progress. For now, it contains unigrams, which can have different meanings in different contexts and embeddings. It is planned to expand it with bigrams.

The terms are in NLP lemmatised form via UDPipe and are ready to be imported as a Python v.3+ module.

Warning: Some of them do not conform to typical Latin dictionary forms because the lemmatisation forms provided by this tool can be specific.

Main concept groups




Groups 
Group name
Details


ELE
Elements
Basic elements, or parts of material names


COL
Colors
Basic and advanced colour names connected to stages of alchemical work


MST
Main stages
Actual names of main alchemical stages and their derivations.


OPS
Operations
Working processes and methods


INS
Instruments
Working inventory of main instruments and vessels


MAS
Material substances
Basic ingredients from inorganic (stones, metals, compositions), organic and mythological materials


STO
Scientific concepts
Concepts related to the notion of high "ars" and proto-scientific literary production


TIT
Titulations and roles
Actual role of the persons and authorities in question of alchemical transmission and instruction


AUT
Authorities
Names of alchemical authorities.


MEC
Metaforical concepts
Includes specific cosmogonic and spiritual concepts, and the core concepts of alchemy


SYU
Universal symbolism
Broader than purely alchemical symbolism, based on cultural and anthropologic notions


QAN
Quantifiers
Determinants of quantity.


QAL
Qualifiers
Determinants of quality and specific properties,




 

Secondary literature drafted upon

Analytical works

Crossland, M. P. (1962). Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry. Heinemann.

Holmyard, E. J. (1926). Alchemistische Decknamen. Nature, 177, 155–156.

Karpenko, V., & Norris, J. A. (2002). Vitriol in the History of Chemistry. Chemické Listy, 96, 997–1005.

Lippmann, E. O. von. (1919). Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte. Zweiter Band. Eine Lese- und Nachschlage-Buch. Springer.

Ruska, J., & Wiedemann, E. (1924). Beiträge zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften. LXVII. Alchemistische Decknamen. Sitzungsberichte Der Physikalisch-Medizinischen Sozietät Zu Erlangen, 56–57, 17–36.

Siggel, A. (1951). Decknamen in der arabischen alchemistischen Literatur. Akademie-Verlag.

Lexicons and dictionaries

Abraham, L. (2003). A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery. Cambridge University Press.

Gettings, F. (1981). Dictionary of Occult Hermetic Alchemical Sigils and Symbols. Routledge, Kegan Paul.

Newman, W. (2005, 2025). Index Chemicus: The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Project. https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/indexChemicus.do

Preisner, C., & Figala, K. (Eds.). (2006). Lexikon alchymie a hermetických věd. Vyšehrad.

Editions and supportive glossaries 

Colinet, A. (2020). Les recettes alchimiques du manuscrit Vatican Palatin lat. 978: Étude, édition et traduction. S.É.H.A.; Archè.

Ferrario, G. (2009). Understanding the Language of Alchemy: The Medieval Arabic Alchemical Lexicon in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms Sprenger 1908∗. In Digital Proceedings of the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. http://repository.upenn.edu/ljsproceedings/vol1/iss1/2/

Lacaze, G. (Ed.). (2018). Turba philosophorum: Congrès pythagoricien sur l’art d’Hermès: Edition critique, traduction et présentation. Brill.

Loužecký, L. (2018). Sněm fi losofů: Turba philosophorum (M. Schwingerová, Trans.). Vodnář. [165-169]

Moureau, S. (2016). Le De anima alchimique du pseudo-Avicenne (Vol. 1). SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo. [239-334]

Newman, W. R. (Ed.). (1991). The Summa perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A critical edition, translation and study. E.J. Brill.