Johan
Isaaci Hollandus (active 1572-1610?)
In the fourteenth century lived the two Isaacs Hollandus, father
and son, Dutch adepts, who wrote ‘De Triplici Ordinari Exiliris
et Lapidis Theoria’ and ‘Mineralia Opera Sue de Lapide
Philosophico.’ The details of their operations on metals
are the most explicit that have been given, and because of this
very lucidity have been discounted. John Read, for instance, Professor
of Chemistry, in his ‘ Prelude to Chemistry, an Outline
of Alchemy,’ dismisses the writing of the Hollandus pair
in a few words, possibly because their clarity of detail led him
to suspect a blind. Alas, how blind sometimes are our experts
themselves ALCHEMY REDISCOVERED AND RESTORED By Archibald Cockren.
Brief Bibliography:
"Certaine
secrets of Isacke Hollandus.", 1596.
Opera Mineralia, sive de Lapide Philosophico, omnia, duobus libris
comprehensa. 1600.
Viri in philosophia. Arnheim, 1616.
De lapide vegetabili ex vino, 1650.
A Work of Saturn, 1670.
Hand of the Philosophers (17th-century manuscript, England)
De urinis.(?)
Little is known about Johannes Isaac Hollandus (active 1572-1610?),
but the Görlitz astronomer Bartholomeus Scultetus had a German
manuscript of some of his treatises on mineralogy that survives
in the form of a copy made in Prague in 1572 (Royal Library, Copenhagen,
MS. 1762), and Ben Jonson’s 1610 play The Alchemists refers
to him apparently as still living. His name suggests he was a
Dutchman living abroad, but if his father was called Isaac Hollandus,
as has been claimed, he may have been born abroad in a Dutch family.
