This week, I got the chance to visit two special exhibits: the Getty Museum has an exhibit on the alchemy of color and the Getty Research Institute has one on art depicting alchemy. From antiquity to ...

In the dim illumination of a library devoted to protecting ancient books from light degradation, James R. Voelkel gingerly picks up a nearly 600-year-old alchemy text. Written by hand sometime around ...

In a quiet corner of a European museum, a set of stained crucibles and dusty glassware has forced historians to redraw the timeline of chemistry. When scientists analyzed this medieval alchemist’s kit ...

Medieval alchemy dreamed of transforming metals into gold. Today, modern science has accomplished this feat, but at what price? Medieval alchemists desperately sought to create gold from common metals ...