Aristoteles Chemicus

The Fourth Book of Aristotle's Meteorologica has been defined as a 'Chemical Treatise'. It is the starting point of a long, rich activity of exegesis and appropriation, from later Greek philosophy to Arab and Latin Medieval thought. The papers in this volume take the reader through the fundamental stages of this history of interpretations and show him that in the Middle Ages Aristoteles chemicus was a composite authority which united Aristotelian ideas with spurious interpretations and novitates such as Muslim monistic cosmogonies or the theory of metal transmutation.