AUGURELLO Giovanni Aurelio Les trois livres de la Chrysopée, c’est à dire L’art de faire l’Or, contenants plusieurs choses naturelles…

Ferguson I, 56 ; see Neville, I, p. 49 for le Latin edition, Basel, 1518, and Caillet, I, 535, for an 18th century Latin edition; also see Thorndike, V, 535 ; not in  Guaïta, Mellon and Hall.

First edition of the translation of this alchemical poem by François Habert, known as Habert de Berry (1520-1574).

Augurello (1454-1537) was a poet and alchemist from Rimini. It is said that after dedicating this book to Pope Leo X, the latter offered him a large empty purse, saying that a gold-maker would not be embarrassed to fill it.

“An alchemical poem which was composed in the early years of the sixteenth century… Pavanello, who has given an analysis of its quotations, is of the opinion that Augurellus began it about 1500, and there are references in it to the siege of Padua in 1509. The first edition, however, was at Venice in 1515. Three years later Froben issued another at Basel. The poem was dedicated to Pope Leo X, whose Maecenate in Medicean Rome extended to alchemy as well as poetry” (Lynn Thorndike). 

Title printed within decorative woodcut border.

 Some light waterstaining, else a good copy.