This review is meant for those who are active, that is, for those who are working in a laboratory as well as for those who love reading about Alchemy and ancient pharmacopoeia, those who appreciate the very spirit of Alchemy, that is, the philosophical hermetic thought deriving from Ptolemaic Egypt, the Courts of Alfonso X El Sabio of Castile and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, the neo-platonic Academy in Florence and then Francesco I De Medici—the Alchemist Grand Duke—the Court of the Gonzaga, Malatesta, and Christina of Sweden in Rome. But Hermetism is everywhere, in every culture and time, as a way of being able to create metaphors, tales, symbols evoking operation and, above all, archetypes.
In fact, this publication of ours will undoubtedly show that Alchemy itself is the root of Europe and Western spirit, thanks to a reverse prophecy going from our times to the ancient ones, where you recognize previous facts in something — although repressed — that has now taken shape and still points to necessary and unavoidable futures. The Alchemist — without any naivety — already knows that this new era will be neither heaven nor hell.
