In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the recipe for an extraordinary substance she called the lion's b

In 1524, Pope Clement VII gave two condemned criminals to his physician to test a promising new antidote. After each convict ate a marzipan cake poisoned with d

In this study the author approaches the realm of 'private religion' in Egypt some 3,300 years ago. The two broad research questions that frame this study are: W

What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men—and occasionally women—who made a living