A Bibliographical Framework for Citation Analysis of Isaac Newton’s Alchemical Manuscripts

Since 2005, the Chymistry of Isaac Newton project has encoded digital editions of Newton’s alchemical manuscripts in Text Encoding Initiative-XML (TEI-XML). While encoding, team members have traced Newton’s numerous citations to alchemical sources to learn more about how Newton used sources and to date his manuscripts. This article compares the old and new frameworks for encoding these citations to demonstrate the need for a bibliographically informed approach to encoding. The new framework accounts for the complexities in the publication histories of alchemical sources and Newton’s own inconsistencies and errors in citations which enables the terminus post quem dating of manuscripts as well as the analysis of Newton’s use of sources. Preliminary analyses of Newton’s alchemical studies based on the encoded citations reveal insights into the development of his notetaking habits, the incorporation of sources into his corpus, and patterns in his reliance on specific sources over time.