Liber de compositione alchemiae

The Liber de compositione alchemiae ("Book on the Composition of Alchemy"), also known as the Testamentum Morieni ("Testament of Morienus"), the Morienus, or by its Arabic title Masāʾil Khālid li-Maryānus al-rāhib ("Khalid's Questions to the Monk Maryanos"), is a work on alchemy falsely attributed to the Umayyad prince Khalid ibn Yazid (c. 668 – c. 704).[1] It is generally considered to be the first Latin translation of an Arabic work on alchemy into Latin, completed on 11 February 1144 by the English Arabist Robert of Chester.[2][a]

The work takes the form of a dialogue between Khalid ibn Yazid and his purported alchemical master,[3] the Byzantine monk Morienus (Arabic مريانس, Maryānus, perhaps from Greek Μαριανός, Marianos),[4] himself supposedly a pupil of the philosopher Stephanus of Alexandria (fl. early seventh century).[5] Widely popular among later alchemists, the work is extant in many manuscripts and has been printed and translated into vernacular languages several times since the sixteenth century.[6]

  1. ^ For Testamentum Morieni see Forster 2017, p. 461; for Morienus see Stavenhagen 1970 and Halleux 1996, p. 889; for the Arabic title, see Forster 2017, p. 461 and Dapsens 2021. On Khalid ibn Yazid, see Forster 2021.
  2. ^ Halleux 1996, pp. 889–890.
  3. ^ On the literary form of the work as a dialogue, see Forster 2017, p. 521, s.v. Masāʾil Ḫālid li-Maryānus ar-rāhib.
  4. ^ Dapsens 2016, p. 121.
  5. ^ Ruska 1924, pp. 41–42, 51; Halleux 1996, p. 889.
  6. ^ Dapsens 2016, p. 121. Ullmann 1978, p. 183, note 9 refers to a partial German translation by Goethe.


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