The “Ingendred” Stone: The Ripley Scrolls and the Generative Science of Alchemy

Acquired at auction in 1958 from the library of C. W. Dyson Perrins, the Huntington Library’s Ripley scroll (HM 30313) is one of the most ornate and esoteric illuminated manuscripts of early modern England. Much remains unknown about the iconology and historical context of the Ripley scrolls, of which approximately twenty remain worldwide. The self-consciously archaic scroll at the Huntington draws on a range of contemporary sources, including emblem books, heraldic imagery, and illuminated alchemical manuscripts from the fifteenth century, such as the Rosarium philosophorum and the Aurora consurgens. Aaron Kitch situates the Ripley scrolls in the context of English alchemy in the sixteenth century, especially the tradition of emblematic alchemy and John Dee’s efforts to establish George Ripley as England’s chief alchemical authority. He analyzes the pattern of imagery on the scrolls in relation to the ancient and early modern philosophy of generation, which focused on questions about sexual reproduction and the emergence of new matter in nature.