Around 1640, Emperor Ferdinand III. commissioned a Latin translation of the lectures of Stephanos of Alexandria. Its result is today’s Codex Vindobonensis 11453, kept in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Stephanos of Alexandria was an alchemist in the 7th century after Christ. Even though his origin is not clear, it is known that he taught in Byzantium during the reign of Herakleios as a polymath. His alchemical ideas deal with the extraction of the soul from matter. For Stephanos, this process was the ennoblement every alchemist should aspire after. Nine treatises from his Greek lectures are preserved in different manuscripts.