Green Stone and Sanguine Essence

Use in the book

Page 68 distinguishes this preparation from volatile salt of tartar and associates it with the purest fixed salt. The primary margin adds that much wonder lies in this green stone. Khunrath therefore singles it out favourably even while discussing the family of ordinary metallic preparations whose universal pretensions he will deny.

The list’s conclusion on page 70 matters especially here. An enthusiastic marginal statement about a material’s properties is not a disclosure that it is the universal Magnesia. The preparations remain, in the author’s account, possible medicines rather than the requisite first matter. The neighbouring discussion of misleading colours similarly warns against taking visual richness as sufficient proof of the philosophical work.

A textual caution further limits the inference. The supplied editor prints fusi, read as molten, while recording uncertainty in the word between Lapidis and viridantis. The article retains that editorial state rather than pretending to settle the underlying types. The more secure facts are that the body relates a sanguine essence to fixed tartar salt and a greening stone, and that the margin praises the green stone.

This name is consequently valuable as evidence of Khunrath’s discriminating laboratory interests, but inadequate as a key to the hidden subject or as a basis for rebuilding an operation.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 68The sanguine essence is named in the fixed tartar-salt phrase.
2. 1599 p. 68 · marginThe green stone is said to contain much wonder.
3. 1599 p. 70The catalogue’s products are denied first-matter status despite conceded value.
4. 1599 p. 72Colours alone are rejected as sufficient proof of the right philosophical road.

Translation in this edition

“Green” and “sanguine” are retained as distinct colour-terms. The word fusi follows the supplied edition’s uncertain reading and is not independently re-collated here. No modern salt or dye is asserted to be the intended material.