An Early Renaissance Hebrew Alchemical Treatise in French Translation (ca. 1540)?

What is it about?

A manuscript, bearing the title Petit traicté de alkimie tourné de langue hebraique en langue francoyse, containing a collection of technical and alchemical recipes allegedly translated from Hebrew, was once donated by the Connétable Anne of Montmorency to his master, the French King François I. Our purpose is to examine whether or not the text indeed goes back to a Hebrew original. We first summarize the manuscript’s history, then examine the modern attribution of the text to Paul Paradis (or Paolo Canossa, 1511–1549), a well-known Hebraist appointed Royal Lecturer in 1530 by King François I. We finally turn to the contents of the Petit traicté de alkimie, and offer our conclusions as to its alleged Hebrew original. In an Appendix we offer a transcription of the entire text of the Petit traicté de alkimie.

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