FR EN
1 / 2
an old book sitting on top of a white surfacean old book with a picture of a man and a woman on it
ALDE

93 - FABRE (Pierre-Jean). Alchymista christianus, in which God, t…
See original version (French)

Estimate €1,000 - €1,200
Sale commission
Description
FABRE (Pierre-Jean). Alchymista christianus, in which God, the creator of all things, and many mysteries of the Christian faith are explained through chemical analogies and figures, whilst the orthodox doctrine, life and integrity of Christians are clearly demonstrated through the art of alchemy. Toulouse, Pierre Bosc, 1632. In-8, soft vellum, smooth spine with title in ink (contemporary binding). An extremely rare first edition of the most curious work by P.-J. Fabre (1588–1658), a physician and alchemist from Castelnaudary, in which he highlights the initiatory aspects and correspondences between Christian doctrine and alchemy, and demonstrates that the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Redemption are the mystical archetypes of Hermetic practice. *The Christian Alchemist* was republished in 2001 by the Society for the Study of the History of Alchemy, featuring an 18th-century French translation attributed to G.-F. de La Croix de Chevrières de Sayve. The treatise had not been reprinted in the collected edition of Fabre’s works published in Frankfurt in 1656. Bookmark of the Toulouse bookseller Pierre Bosc on the title page. Copy in its original contemporary vellum binding. Handwritten ex-libris from a religious college on the title page, ‘ad usum R.P. Bernardini Alexii’. From the Hermetic library of Albert Poisson (1868–1894), known as Philophotes, the author of *Théorie et symboles des alchimistes* (1891), who died of tuberculosis at the age of 25, with bookplate. Some pages are foxed and 3 ff. are slightly stained (pp. 67–72). Caillet, no. 3759 – Dorbon, no. 1569 – Duveen, 202 – Ferguson, I, 260 – Krivatsy, no. 3791 – A. G. Debus, *The French Paracelsians*, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 75–76.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale Antique books – Alchemy & the occult sciences
Auction location
Auction time 11/04/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits:
ALDE
See original version (French)
You may also like