PLANIS CAMPY, David de.

by David de Planis Campy

£1,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

Very rare first edition of this most interesting medical work based on astrology and alchemy, beautifully printed with a fine engraved portrait of the author and hermetic title, with an additional beautifully engraved alchemical title. An author who deserves greater attention than he has received is David de Planis Campy (1589-ca.1644), who produced ten works on medical chemistry and traditional alchemy. He was a councillor and Chirurgien ordinaire to Louis XIII, and his works were collected and published in a folio volume in 1646. He wrote that alchemy is a science that teaches the means of separating the elements of each mixed body produced by nature and of separating the pure from the impure. A. G. Debus, The French Paracelsians . Planis Campy wrote on phlebotomy, musket wounds, the plague, and mineral and chemical remedies. He made several references to Dee s Monas in his works. The engraved title page flatteringly presents King Louis XIII as the French Hercules . At the foot of the pedestal on the left there is a round diagram representing the principles of the Great Work with the Hebrew word Yah , at the centre, which corresponds to the divine, heavenly principle. On the opposite side are the sun, moon and mercury, within a mountain or the philosophers stone. The portrait of the author is also very fine. The circular French inscription gives his name and states that here, in 1627, he is in his 38th year and is surgeon to the French King. It refers to him as L Edelphe a

• Binding: Hardcover

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