De signaturis internis rerum: das lateinische Editio princeps (1609) und die deutsche Erstubersetzung (1623) (review)

Those familiar with Oswald Croll’s Basilica chymica will usually think of a work structured in three parts: a theoretical introduction, the “Praefatio admonitoria,” which offers a synthesis of Paracelsian-Hermetic medical philosophy; the practical chemiatrical recipes and chemical techniques of the “Basilica” itself; and finally, a treatise on the doctrine of signatures called “De signaturis.” However, as Kühlmann and Telle make clear, many early modern printings of the work consisted of only two main parts, the “Basilica” and “De signaturis.” Perhaps for this reason the editors have dedicated the first volume of the “Selected Works” of Oswald Croll to republishing the first Latin edition (1609) and the first German translation (1623) of Croll’s De signaturis internis rerum.

As important as Croll’s work is to the cultural and medical history of Germany, a tally of early editions and manuscript sources suggests a wide influence transcending western European borders. From 1609 to 1690 there appeared sixteen Latin editions. Six German translations were published between 1623 and 1705. Translations also appeared in French (1624) and English (1657). In addition, manuscript translations have surfaced in Dutch, Spanish, and Russian; and, according to the testimony of the seventeenth-century physician S̄a lih ibn Nasr All̄ah ibn Sall̄um, a copy of the “Basilica” found its way into Arabic. The “Respublica spagyrica” comprised a vast area, and Croll’s text succeeded in being represented in much of its domain.

In his “De signaturis” Croll reconciled the theory of signatures to medical goals. The treatise aimed at teaching physicians to read the book of nature with inner eyes, and rested upon an epistemology connected to traditions of Renaissance Neoplatonism, “hermetic” philosophy, and heterodox religious views—especially the belief that the epoch of “Elias Artista” would restore to human beings an original Adamic knowledge leading to the regeneration of natural powers and a perfect knowledge of natural things. Human beings were considered to possess an epistemological and genetic centrality among all things in nature, joining in themselves the visible and invisible realms of creation. A knowledge of signatures or signs allowed one to recognize, through the observation of visible external characteristics, the invisible inner powers and virtues of things. Croll did not teach how one should diagnose illnesses, but he did establish the analogies relating certain plants to particular parts of the human body. He also determined the characteristics of medicines that corresponded to the treatment of specific illnesses, so that the physician could bring about cures according to the principle of “similia-similibus.”

That Croll had something else in mind other than simply recommending the general observation of plants is clear at the outset of the treatise, where he castigates the “Botanici” of his time who constructed only a nomenclature for the outer appearances of plants, and who lacked the knowledge of an inner Form. Nor were they able to understand how the objects of their study might be of service to medicine. To read the signs and to discern the inner power of plants, one must possess the means of tying together parts of learned and lay, ancient and modern, medical experience. A synthesis of roles linking the theologian and philosopher (i.e., alchemical physician), and an altered medical ethic offering pharmaceutical equality to rich and poor alike, is the promised result.

There are numerous references to both the theory of signatures and the Basilica chymica in the history of medicine. However, Kühlmann and Telle have begun an ambitious and much-needed editorial project. In the process they are bringing to us a greater degree of precision—especially about Croll’s personal history, the sources of his ideas, and the variations of the text for which he is best known. For those who wish to study the writings of...