Black madonna: a country doctor -- The metal makers: learning the arts -- The universal scholar: a Renaissance education -- The staff and the snake: healing in the early renaissance -- Intellectual vagabonds: walking the pages of the book of nature -- A new religion: the trials of reformation -- Revolution under the sign of the shoe: sedition in Salzburg -- Transmutation at Ingolstadt: making gold -- Elixir and quintessence: a chemical medicine -- Bitter medicine: Paracelsus among the humanists -- The battle of Basle: how Paracelsus left town -- Against the grain: quicksilver and wood -- The alchemist inside: an hermetic biology -- Beyond wonders: the matrix of the world -- Star and ascendant: a science of prophesy -- Demons of the mind: invisible diseases -- The little man: animating the earth -- The white horse: death in Salzburg -- Work with fire: the chemical legacy of Paracelsus -- Philosopher's gold: the last of the chemical magicians.