Petrus Bonus
{{short description|Italian late medieval alchemist}}
Petrus Bonus (Latin for "Peter the Good"; {{langx|it|Pietro Antonio Boni}})see {{cite web |url=http://hdelboy.club.fr/bibliot_phil_chim.html |title=Collections des traités alchimiques - |accessdate=2007-03-15 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070315213608/http://hdelboy.club.fr/bibliot_phil_chim.html |archivedate=2007-03-15 }}. was a late medieval alchemist. He is best known for his Precious Pearl ({{langx|la|Margarita Preciosa}}) or Precious New Pearl ({{lang|la|Margarita Preciosa Novella}}), an influential alchemical text composed sometime between 1330 and 1339.[http://www.levity.com/alchemy/new_pearl.html Aldine edition 1546], edited by Janus Lacinius, a Calabrian. He was said to have been a physician at Ferrara in Italy, causing him to sometimes be known as Petrus Bonus of Ferrara or as Petrus Bonus the Lombard ({{lang|la|Petrus Bonus Lombardus}}). An Introduction to the Divine Art ({{lang|la|Introductio in Divinam Chemicae Artem}}) is also attributed to him but was printed much later, in 1572.
''Pretiosa margarita novella''
The text is primarily a theoretical one. The author admits to having little practical expertise and rather tries to establish alchemy on authentically philosophical grounds and to integrate it into the medieval scientific canon.Didier Kahn, Alchimie et paracelsisme en France à la fin de la Renaissance (1567-1625), Cahiers d'Humanisme et Renaissance (Droz, 2007), 42-45 In contrast to other alchemical texts of the same period, like the Pseudo-Geber's Summa Perfectionnis or pseudo-Lull's Testamentum, which promote a natural and rational vision of alchemy, for Petrus Bonus, alchemy is an art "in part natural and in part divine or super natural."[ars hæc] partim est naturalis, partim divina sive supra naturam ».
A fifteenth-century manuscript copy survives in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena.Modena, Biblioteca Estense MS. latino 299 (Alpha M 8, 16). XV/XVI secolo. 59 folii. Carta Petrus Bonus. Incipit pretiosa et notabilis Margarita Novella et ipsa est quaestio de speculatione et virtute artis alchimie... per magistrum Bonum Ferrariensem scilicet utrum ars alchimie sit omnino vere vel fantastica with an epigram by Lodovico Lazzarelli http://www.levity.com/alchemy/almss22.html
The text was first printed in Venice in 1546 by Giovanni Lacinio under the title Pretiosa margarita novella. This edition included commentary by Janus Lacinius, a Franciscan from Calabria, who added extracts from other alchemical authorities, including Raymond Lull, al-Rasi, Albertus Magnus, Michael Scot, Arnaldus de Villanova.
=Editions=
- Venice: Giovanni Lacinio, 1546. Repr. Nuremberg: Gabriel Hain,The son-in-law of Johann Petreius. 1554.
- Introductio In Divinam Chemicae Artem, integra magistri Boni Lombardi Ferrariensis physici. Edited by Michael Toxites. Basel: Pietro Perna, 1572.
- In Theatrum Chemicum. 1622.
- In Bibliotheca chemica curiosa. 1702.
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- Colasanti, Marina, Bambini e alchimia. Il germoglio psichico nella Margarita Pretiosa Novella. In AA.VV., Agathodaimon. Saggi di psicología analitica. Milano: La biblioteca di Vivarium, 2002.
- Clericuzio, Antonio. "Petrus Bonus." In Alchemie: Lexikon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft, edited by Claus Priesner and Karin Figala, 270f. Beck, 1998.
- {{cite book |author-last=Bono |author-first=Pietro, da Ferrara |editor-last=Crisciani |editor-first=Chiara |date=1976 |title=Preziosa Margarita Novella |others=Edizione del volgarizzamento, introduzione e note |location=Firenze |publisher=La Nuova Italia editrice}}
- Crisciani, Chiara. "The Conception of Alchemy as Expressed in the “Pretiosa Margarita Novella” of Petrus Bonus of Ferrara." Ambix 20 (1973): 165-81.
- Ferguson, John. Bibliotheca Chemica, vol. 1, p. 150f. Glasgow, 1906.
- Peter Bonus, auch Lombardus. In Lexikon bedeutender Chemiker by Winfried Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, and Wolfgang Müller. Harri Deutsch, 1989.
- Ruska, Julius. "L'alchimie à l'époque du Dante." Annales Guébhard-Séverine 10 (1934): 410-17.
- Stillman, J.M. "Petrus Bonus and supposed chemical forgeries." The Scientific Monthly 16 (1923): 318-25.
- Telle, Joachim. "Bonus, Petrus, (Pietro Bono (Buono), Petrus Ferrariensis, Bonus Lombardus Ferrariensis) Mediziner und Alchemist (14. Jahrhundert)." In Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 2. 1983.
External links
- [http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0025/html/OthmerMS3.html Othmer MS 3 Pretiosa margarita novella at OPenn]
- Complete downloadable scan of a [https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/pn89d712c Pretiosa margarita novella manuscript] from the Science History Institute
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Category:14th-century alchemists