Medical Alchemy in Renaissance Florence Transforming Materials at Palazzo Vecchio and the Casino di San Marco. Online lecture. Georgiana Hedesan.

13 April 2022 – 3 PM (CET).

Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance. Domvs Comeliana via Pietro Maffi 48, 56126, Pisa.

Presentation: This lecture will revolve around a painting of an alchemical laboratory created by Johannes Stradanus (1523-1605), a Flemish-born artist settled in Florence. In 1570, Stradanus, who was at the time part of the workshop of Giorgio Vasari, was commissioned for two paintings meant to adorn the Studiolo of Francesco I de’ Medici (1541-1587). The best one is known as The Alchemist’s Laboratory, and was a depiction of the distillation works in Palazzo Vecchio. I will be discussing what this image and connected information might tell us about the Palazzo Vecchio laboratory and princely alchemy at the Medici court. The laboratory was set up by Cosimo I (1519-1574), the first Grand Duke of Tuscany; he was known to dabble into alchemy himself. His son Francesco was even more enthusiastic: Stradanus’s painting portrays the prince working on the premises amongst other artisans. It seems that the primary purpose of the laboratory was focussed toward making practical medicines. Yet the laboratory was relatively short lived. Just as Stradanus was painting The Alchemist’s Laboratory, Francesco was commissioning a new palace in the Giardino di San Marco. Once the Casino di San Marco was finished in 1575, Francesco relocated the majority of the alchemical works there, hence creating one of the first purpose-built scientific institutions in the world. A large number of documents from this laboratory survive, and my talk will end with a later depiction of it, which provides an interesting counterpoint to the Stradanus piece.

Georgiana Hedesan is a Departmental Lecturer in History of Science in the History Faculty at the University of Oxford. Prior to this she has been the recipient of a Wellcome Trust Research Postdoctoral Fellowship in Medical History and Humanities at the University of Oxford (2013-2017). Her first book, An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The ‘Christian Philosophy’ of Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579-1644) was published in 2016 by Routledge. A co-edited book (with Tim Rudbøg, University of Copenhagen), Innovation in Esotericism from the Renaissance to the Present, was published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan. |Her research covers history of science and medicine, intellectual history and history of esotericism, with a concentration on early modern Europe with an emphasis on the history of alchemy and alchemical medicine. She is particularly interested in uncovering the importance of alchemical thought and practice to the pre-modern period.

Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy. Warburg Institute, podcast series.

Niccolò Guicciardini (University of Bergamo), author of ‘Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy’, in conversation with John Tresch (Warburg Institute), and François Quiviger (Warburg Institute).

Isaac Newton is one of the greatest scientists in history, yet the spectrum of his interests was much broader than that of most contemporary scientists. In fact, Newton would have defined himself not as a scientist, but as a natural philosopher. He was deeply involved in alchemical, religious, and biblical studies, and in the later part of his life he played a prominent role in British politics, economics, and the promotion of scientific research. Newton’s pivotal work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which sets out his laws of universal gravitation and motion, is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science.

Niccolò Guicciardini teaches history of science at the University of Bergamo, Italy. He is the author of Reading the Principia: The Debate on Newton’s Mathematical Methods for Natural Philosophy from 1687 to 1736 and Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method.

John Tresch is Mellon Professor in Art History, History of Science and Folk Practice last the Warburg Institute.

Renaissance Lives is a series of biographies published by Reaktion Books as well as a series of conversations discussing the ways in which individuals transmitted or changed the lives of traditions, ideas and images.

This event took place on 16 June 2022.

Paracelsus: an Alchemical Life. Warburg Institute, podcast series.

Throughout his controversial life, the alchemist, physician, and social-religious radical known as Paracelsus combined traditions that were magical and empirical, scholarly and folk, learned and artisanal. He read ancient texts and then burned “the best” of them. He endorsed both Catholic and Reformation beliefs, but he also believed devoutly in a female deity. He traveled constantly, learning and teaching a new form of medicine based on the experience of miners, bathers, alchemists, midwives, and barber-surgeons. He argued for changes in the way the body was understood, how disease was defined, and how treatments were created, but he was also moved by mystical speculations, an alchemical view of nature, and an intriguing concept of creation.

Bringing to light the ideas, diverse works, and major texts of this important Renaissance figure, Bruce T. Moran tells the story of how alchemy refashioned medical practice, showing how Paracelsus’s tenacity and endurance changed the medical world for the better and brought new perspectives to the study of nature in his book titled ‘Paracelsus: an Alchemical Life’.

Bruce T. Moran is professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the author of Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry and the Scientific Revolution and Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy. He is also the editor of Ambix: The Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.

Speakers:

• Bruce Moran (University of Nevada, Reno)
• Tillmann Taape (Frances Yates Long-Term Research Fellow, Warburg Institute)
• François Quiviger (Warburg Institute)

This event took place on 17 February 2022.

La Campana Alquímica

Hace años compré en Viena una reproducción exacta de la campana alquímica construida por el orfebre praguense Hans de Bull (Hans Bulla) para el emperador Rodolfo II en torno al año 1600. Hoy la tengo expuesta entre los libros de mi despacho. Es una pieza muy bonita y elegante.

Está hecha de una aleación, bañada en oro y con un badajo de hierro. Tiene unas medidas de 7,8 cm × 6,3 cm y se conserva en el Kunsthistorisches Museum Viena, bajo la referencia Inv. n^o. Kunstkammer, 5969.

Penn Library’s Ms. Codex 1646 – Estado astrologico (Video Orientation)

Video Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library’s Ms. Codex 1646, the first part of a four-part poem in octaves on the monarchy of Portugal, with allusions to astrology, alchemy, and cabala. The manuscript contains a copy of the edition printed in Lisbon in 1624 in 131 octaves, with its accompanying annotations on selected octaves, followed by another copy of the work, copied from an edition printed in Hamburg in 1644 in 133 octaves; 20 aphorisms of Bocarro from 1626; summaries of 3 documents (dated 1659, 1640, and 1668) related to Manoel Bocarro; and a list of dias aziagos (fateful days) for a particular year, date not given. The list of fateful days is probably from another manuscript, being written in different hand and foliated (f. 59), unlike the rest of this manuscript.

Digital copies and a full record are available through Franklin: https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962584303503681

See More at Penn in Hand

http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/6258430

Link to OPENN

https://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0002/html/mscodex1646.html

Penn Library’s Ms. Codex 1664 – [Compendium alchimiae]. (Video Orientation)

Video Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library’s Ms. Codex 1664, an alchemical treatise attributed to John of Garland concerning minerals, elixirs, the Smaragdine Tablet, a popular piece of Hermetica that was reputed to contain the secret to the creation of the philosopher’s stone, and an alphabetical list of alchemical synonyms. Includes occasional references to works by other authors such as the 16th-century alchemist Isabella Cortese and the Dominican friar Vincent of Beauvais (p. 4) and a list of contents (p. ii). Written in Italy in the second half of the 18th century.

Part of the Charles Rainsford Collection of Alchemical and Occult Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania).

Digital copies and a full record are available through Franklin: https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962935933503681

Link to OPENN

https://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0002/html/mscodex1664.html

Penn Library’s Ms. Codex 1672 – [Alchemical treatise]. (Video Orientation)

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Video Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library’s Ms. Codex 1672, an alchemical treatise concerning the creation of the philosopher’s stone (p. 72) and on transmutation of metals such as gold, silver, lead, and mercury. Written in Italy in the second half of the 18th century.

Part of the Charles Rainsford Collection of Alchemical and Occult Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania)

Digital copies and a full record are available through Franklin: https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962935313503681

Link to OPENN

https://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0002/html/mscodex1672.html

Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary.

Furnace and Fugue brings to life in digital form an enigmatic seventeenth-century text, Michael Maier’s alchemical emblem book Atalanta fugiens. This intriguing and complex text from 1618 reinterprets Ovid’s legend of Atalanta as an alchemical allegory in a series of fifty emblems, each of which contains text, image, and a musical score for three voices.

Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak: “Tear the Books Apart: Atalanta fugiens in a Digital Age”.

On Thursday, April 21, 2016, at 12 p.m. in the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library, scholars Tara Nummedal and Donna Bilak will speak about their digital publication, Project Atalanta. This event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the talk.

Recently chosen as one of two pilot projects for Brown’s Mellon-funded digital publishing initiative, Nummedal and Bilak’s publication will bring a multimedia seventeenth century text to life in digital form. The digital publication will produce a dynamic, enhanced digital edition of Michael Maier’s extraordinary text, Atalanta fugiens (1617/18). An alchemical emblem book, Maier’s Atalanta fugiens re-casts the myth of Atalanta—the fleet-footed virgin—as a series of fifty emblems that outline the creation of the philosopher’s stone. With its combination of text, image, and music, the Atalanta fugiens represents an early multimedia work. In Project Atalanta, this historic text will be represented in dynamic digital form and be accompanied by newly written scholarship that will help elucidate the Atalanta fugiens’ many layers. 

In this lunchtime talk, Nummedal and Bilak will discuss their work-in-progress, share insight into the world of seventeenth century emblem culture, and help build a foundation for an open dialogue about the processes, opportunities, and challenges of producing digitally rich scholarly products. 

Word/Image/Text: Reading for the Philosophers’ Stone in Atalanta fugiens

The Library welcomes visitors to a Commencement Forum on Saturday, May 28, 2016 at 11 a.m. in the Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab and Sidney E. Frank Digital Studio at the Rockefeller Library. As part of Brown University’s new Digital Publishing Initiative, Professor Tara Nummedal will present on her upcoming publishing project. Project Atalanta will bring a multimedia seventeenth century text to life in digital form. This innovative digital publication will produce a dynamic, enhanced digital edition of Michael Maier’s extraordinary text, Atalanta fugiens (1617/18): an alchemical emblem book that re-casts the myth of Atalanta—the fleet-footed virgin—as a series of fifty emblems. Comprised of text, image, and music, each individual emblem engages sound, sight, and intellect; read together, these emblems serve as an interlocking guide to alchemical theory and the production of the philosophers’ stone.

As a pilot project of the Digital Publishing Initiative, Project Atalanta seeks to bridge the gaps between the readers of today and their seventeenth century counterparts. By transforming the Atalanta fugiens into a dynamic digital object through the collaboration of historians, musicians, rare book curators, linguists, scientists, artists, and other scholars Project Atalanta reflects a dynamic, emergent form of interdisciplinary scholarship. The University Library invites visitors to come and hear about this unique multimedia text, and explore along with Professor Nummedal the implications of reading across time, cultures, and technologies.