Alchemy Theory

[BessAgritianin]

However, AFAIK the name "Alchemists' Herbal" is a modern invention, a nickname assigned to a certain family of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. derived from some unidentified Italian original.  While the herbs seem to be invented and are claimed to have fantastic powers, AFAIK there is nothing in those manuscripts that definitely connects them to alchemy.  Isn't that so?

All the best, --stolfi

 You are right that the term alchemist plants maybe comes from 16 century - Ulisse Aldrovani's " Planti del Alchemisti". 

The few herbal texts I have translated are purely medicinal- they describe particular remedies for specific ailments.
However the alchemical content is present elsewhere in the manuscript. Go to pharma pages and astrology section and you will find a lot of processes of transformation mixing etc.
Also some of the plant roots are there too.

While, there were scoundrels in alchemy - who promised kings mountains of gold and elexirs, while quietly emptying the royal treasury (they gave the alchemy the bad name); there were ones, who worked in laboratories, made experiments and recorded their results- like in Voynich manuscript. 
So the alchemy is the mother of todays metallurgy, chemistry, pharmacy, painting etc.