The science and chemistry of the Middle Ages, popularly known for the search for a means of turning base metal into gold, and also for an elixir of life. It was a resource of great knowledge of metals, allied with a belief that a perfectly pure substance could purify what was base by contact. Dante placed alchemists in the eighth circle of the Inferno with all other falsifiers. [< Ar. al-kimiya = art of transmuting metals]
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Christopher Coredon with Ann Williams.