Theodoros Pelecanos of
Corfu
Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...
was a 15th-century Greek scribe who is known only as the creator of a copy of a collection of medieval
alchemical works.
In 1478, Pelecanos produced a manuscript now known as the ''Parisinus graecus 2327'' and held in the
Bibliothèque Nationale
A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...
in France. As well as works of unknown origin, it contains copies of texts from the 11th century, in the time of
Psellus. These sources are believed to include the ''Marcianus Graecus 299'' manuscript of the 6th or 7th centuries, now in the
Biblioteca Marciana
The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark (, but in historical documents commonly referred to as the ) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories for manuscripts in Italy and ...
,
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
.
[Allen G. Debus, ''Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry: Papers from Ambix'', Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2004, , p.34]
The manuscript includes a copy of a lost tract by
Synesius, the ''Synosius'', that contains a well-known drawing of the
Ouroboros
The ouroboros or uroboros (; ) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent symbolism, snake or European dragon, dragon Autocannibalism, eating its own tail. The ouroboros entered Western tradition via Egyptian mythology, ancient Egyptian iconogra ...
, an ancient alchemical symbol which stands for eternity and the circle of life and death.
References
15th-century scholars
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