The Alchemical Issue

Description

There isn’t a clear-cut border between esoteric practices and what we now call science but rather a vast grey area filled with ambivalent figures. The same could be said of alchemy and modern chemistry, which owes much to the former: the curiosity, perseverance and technical skill of alchemists paved the way for later studies, both with the advent of laboratory equipment, some of which still in use today, and by making real discoveries. It should therefore come as no surprise that alchemy, with all its mystique, has seduced men of the cloth and profoundly rationalist scientists alike in centuries past. Did you know that Isaac Newton was a great lover of the alchemical arts? Let’s find out together. Giovanni Eccher (Nathan Never, Dylan Dog) and Sergio Ponchione, also the authors of an acclaimed and highly successful parallel between a certain academy for gifted youngsters and Professor Mendeleev’s periodic table (Comics&Science – The Periodic Issue), return to the scene of the crime, but several centuries earlier, to tell us a story about a discipline that could be defined as the progenitor of modern chemistry: alchemy. Of course they do it in their own way, mixing historical truths in an amusing and mysterious way, kind of like alchemists do. What does Giano Lacinio have to do with Professor M? And why does the subtitle ‘Enrico Vasari and the Philosopher’s Stone‘ sound so familiar? To complete the formula, we find, as always, the intelligent and never predictable contributions of Walter Leoni and Davide La Rosa.