Inside a forgotten 16th Century Alchemy Laboratory

2002 Prague, in the now Czech Republic, was inundated by flood waters. Many people lost their lives. During reconstruction someone found something fascinating behind a collapsed wall in the basement. A laboratory with great historical and scientific significance!

It is believed to have been commissioned under the rule of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Himself a loyal devotee and practitioner of The Occult Sciences. Preoccupied with such, that historians believed that the political disasters under his reign led to the Thirty Years' War.

Rudolf II was a humanist, a botanist, a natural philosopher, a patron and collector of fine arts.

He commissioned decorative objects of all kinds and in particular mechanical moving devices. Ceremonial swords and musical instruments, clocks, water works, astrolabes, compasses, telescopes and other scientific instruments.

He invited to his court men of cutting edge, perhaps getting your head cut off, at the time. It was the Inquisition after all. Some of the names included:

Tycho Brahe, appointed official imperial astronomer to the Court of Rudolf. Along with his assistant Johannes Kepler

John Dee, adviser to Queen Elizibeth I, magician, scryer, diviner, astrologer, Hermetic Philosopher. Along with his companion, intermediary Edward Kelley, in their words, channelled The Enochian Language, or language of the angels.

Botanist and horticulturist Carolus Clusius

Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Rabbi Loew) and his infamous Golem of Prague .

Rudolf II allegedly purchased, an enigma to this day, The Voynich Manuscript.

I find this portrait of Rudolf quite interesting.



I'm sure I have lost a few by now, but I find the history of the building VERY interesting.

It has records dating back to 900 AD and is believed to be the second oldest building in Prague with underground tunnels that connected the three most important places in the city - Prague Castle, the Old Town Hall and Barracks.

It was curiously saved in the destruction of the Jewish Ghetto in Old Town Prague in the 19th century and is now a museum.

Much of the display is recreated....but if walls could talk!

Speculum Alchemiae Prague
IC: 13800825
Address: Haštalská 1, 110 00, Praha 1

That's pretty cool! I'd love to have a basement like that!

whoa

why cant I find an ancient Aztec tunnel to a sacred site, or some cool secret monastery through a trap door, or something cool.

Some have all the alchemical labs and luck.


S&F

Freaking jelly.

Very neat, thank you for sharing this. I love the portrait, it is absolutely fascinating, so very odd. I would love to know more about the Voynich Manuscript and related mysteries, my curiosity kills me sometimes.

a reply to: JustAnObservation

Touche'. The Voynich Manuscript will take you to some really strange places!

Interesting too, the third picture is of a glass blowing furnace! Some will get that one.

originally posted by: timewalker
Interesting too, the third picture is of a glass blowing furnace! Some will get that one.

Not only but refining and forging furnaces, too. "Alchemy" the mystery of producing metal from dirt, fashioning weapons and armor and refining precious metals was a carefully guarded secret. Only royalty and their armies were to wield arms, and control gold and silver coins, the power and money of the realm.

Kind of like today how the gubment wants to control arms and print money. Its all a top down scam, same then as now.

The basements are filled with gold bars, you get fiat currency, the soldiers have automatic weapons and rocket launchers, you get pop guns.

I burned my life, that I might find
A passion wholly of the mind,
Thought divorced from eye and bone,
Ecstasy come to breath alone.
I broke my life, to seek relief

With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.

I had found mysterious flesh --
Not the mind's avid substance -- still
Passionate beyond the will.

Warm me with the sunlight

Burn me with a flame

Sooth me with the rain

the trick this time is mercury

Rubbed in by hand, hand and chalice

Being each others inverted

It goes like this

Bronze bonds first to the quicksilver layer to witch the fuses leaves gold

Rubbed in deeper by a hand

The electrons slip

They orbit to enter another planet

Of multiple order

And the light is power

That matters that we remember

That love quit simply

Turns body to lantern



Now you can see it's a Prague thing

-Alchemist

What a brilliant place! That portrait was a hanging print in the little vegetable grocery store at my local shops when I was a little girl. Flashback!

Anyone ever try sleeping in there?

What a fascinating find! Loved the pics! Thanks for sharing this!

originally posted by: onequestion
Anyone ever try sleeping in there?

???? I doubt that now where is there

I hope people start making sense soon

Please go and have a coffee

I am in my little corner scared if anyone needs me

Most wonderful thread thanks for posting. It gotten me looking into the Voynich manuscript again ! and the life of Roger bacon..

www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

www.crystalinks.com...

a reply to: timewalker

No books?

originally posted by: timewalker
I find this portrait of Rudolf quite interesting.

Obviously, he was a Nym, left over from the Age of Legend.

What a man cave.

That bar needs Needs a card table, foosball table, pool table, and a big screen TV. Alcohol was a part of alchemy.

a reply to: timewalker

S&F very cool! How come I never find cool stuff like this in a basement?

I'd love to set up some equipment to see if any residual fields still exist in the lab.

Great Find!

originally posted by: sycomix
a reply to: timewalker

S&F very cool! How come I never find cool stuff like this in a basement?

You have to go to cities that are 900 years old. Paris with the Catacombs, Trondheim with their warehouses of antiques and cathedrals. Edinburgh with the ghost tours of an underground apartment complex (the city got so crowded that people were renting out basement storage rooms as apartments).

a reply to: intrptr

Yes they were the DARPA of the day!