Hiro Hirai | Into the Forger’s Library: The Genesis of a Pseudo-Paracelsian Treatise in Publication History

A strange treatise, On the Nature of Things (De natura rerum), was one of the most popular writings ascribed to the German physician Paracelsus (ca. 1493–1541). It was first presented to readers when the movement of forgery production reached its climax in 1572, through the multiple editions of Paracelsus’s genuine treatise Archidoxis. In this talk, Hirai will place the genesis of De natura rerum in the context of publication history. He will first reconstruct a “library” by surveying the works ascribed to Paracelsus which could serve as instruments for the “author” of De natura rerum. Then he will analyze the evolution of this forgery production by focusing on the divergent editions of Archidoxis from 1569 to 1572.


Hiro Hirai is a Research Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. He received a PhD in philosophy and history of science from the University of Lille III (Lille, France) in 1999. His main areas of interest are early modern medicine, chymistry (alchemy/chemistry) and natural philosophy.











When: Wed., Sep. 18, 2019 at 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Where: Columbia University
116th St. & Broadway
212-854-1754
Price: Free
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A strange treatise, On the Nature of Things (De natura rerum), was one of the most popular writings ascribed to the German physician Paracelsus (ca. 1493–1541). It was first presented to readers when the movement of forgery production reached its climax in 1572, through the multiple editions of Paracelsus’s genuine treatise Archidoxis. In this talk, Hirai will place the genesis of De natura rerum in the context of publication history. He will first reconstruct a “library” by surveying the works ascribed to Paracelsus which could serve as instruments for the “author” of De natura rerum. Then he will analyze the evolution of this forgery production by focusing on the divergent editions of Archidoxis from 1569 to 1572.


Hiro Hirai is a Research Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. He received a PhD in philosophy and history of science from the University of Lille III (Lille, France) in 1999. His main areas of interest are early modern medicine, chymistry (alchemy/chemistry) and natural philosophy.

Buy tickets/get more info now