In the dim illumination of a library devoted to protecting ancient books from light degradation, James R. Voelkel gingerly picks up a nearly 600-year-old alchemy text. Written by hand sometime around ...

Jacques Lagniet, “Recueil des plus illustres proverbes, divises en trois livres…” (1657-1663), engraving, on view in The Art of Alchemy (courtesy the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles) The “Great ...

In a quiet corner of a European museum, a set of stained crucibles and dusty glassware has forced historians to redraw the timeline of chemistry. When scientists analyzed this medieval alchemist’s kit ...

Medieval alchemy dreamed of transforming metals into gold. Today, modern science has accomplished this feat, but at what price? Medieval alchemists desperately sought to create gold from common metals ...

Tracy Johnson and her husband Scott took over Alchemy, which is inside the Apothecary Building in the Haymarket, at the ...