ALCHEMY - TWELVE KEYS - KING - QUEEN - WOLF The Second Key of Basil Valentine, from Practica cum Duodecim Clavibus in the Tripus Aureus of Michael Maier, 1618. This plate sets out the conditions surrounding the purification of Mercury. Mercury holds in each hand a caduceus, to indicate that he is a Twofold Mercury (one of the names for Philosophic Mercury - the Mercury used by alchemists). The man to the left symbolizes the Fixity of the Dissolvent (confirmed by the snake, curled around the sharp sword), while the man to the right symbolizes, power of Volatilization (the rapid flight of the Eagle towards the Sun - the animus of alchemy, and the Gold of the spagyric search). The identity of Basil Valentine is not known, though he tells us in one of his works that he comes from the Rhineland, and spent some of his youth in England and Belgium. He was a Benedictine monk in the monastery of St. Peter at Erfurt - some records refer to him being in that monastery in 1413. His name is said to be a play on the Greek Basileus (King) and the Latin Valens (Powerful), which is in turn a play on one of the alchemical names for the Lapis, or Stone of the Philosophers, which is the powerful stone of kings.