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Hosted by: Kislak Center
Medieval alchemical manuscripts can present numerous problems for the researcher. One of the most pressing is the authenticity of a given manuscript. In this talk, I will present a case study – the questionable authenticity of a work often attributed to Roger Bacon – the Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae et de nullitate magiae. This work, which consists of 11 chapters, supposedly details Bacon’s thoughts on the ability of art to perfect nature in many forms, including the creation of machines, the prolongation of human life, and, of course, the creation of the philosophers’ egg and the ability of man to transmute metals. Numerous arguments have been provided for its provenance. I will describe the paleographical approaches that I have taken in examining the manuscripts to argue that there is no overwhelming reason to discount its authenticity, and that for the present, it should continue to remain a part of Bacon’s oeuvre.
The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies Online Lecture Series presents regularly scheduled lectures related to the study of premodern manuscript books and global manuscript culture.
Meagan Allen is a historian of medieval science and currently a Cain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia. Her research focuses on the intersection of alchemy and medicine, particularly in the writings of the Franciscan Roger Bacon (d.1292). She has held visiting fellowships at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. She has published several articles on the history of alchemy, the most recent of which appears in The Philosophy and Science of Roger Bacon: Studies in Honour of Jeremiah Hackett (Routledge, 2021). Her first monograph, Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, 1220–1292: Alchemy, Pharmacology, and the Desire to Prolong Life (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022), was published at end of 2022.
Top Image: Roger Bacon presenting the work to a patron, from a 15th-century copy of De retardatione accidentium senectutis (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Bodl. 211, fol. 1r).