Nine Books on the Nature of Things

Edition Statement

This Diotimos edition presents the complete Nine Books on the Nature of Things, traditionally attributed to Paracelsus, in a fresh English translation of the Latin text printed at Frankfurt in 1605. Latin appears above English in aligned reading passages. The historical title, dedication, all nine books, their internal headings and original marginal notes are included. The dedication bears a date of 1537; that date is reproduced as part of the transmitted text, not adopted as the demonstrated date of the complete compilation.

The governing text occupies printed pages 198–271 of the sixth volume of the Palthenian collected works, in the copy held by the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen. The earlier textual tradition is German. The English here is therefore a new translation of an early Latin witness, rather than a claim to recover Paracelsus’s original German wording. John French’s 1650 English rendering is a historical comparison witness; its sentences have not been used as the reading text for this edition.

The translation and editorial material were prepared with AI assistance for Diotimos Editions in 2026. The historical words are distinguished from modern commentary throughout. The introduction, essays, glossary, contextual lexicon, relations, reading routes, discussion guide, bibliography and index belong to the present edition. The volume is a historical work of natural philosophy, chymistry and the interpretation of signs. Its descriptions of medical effects, artificial generation and character inferred from appearance remain historical claims, and are not presented as established present-day knowledge.