Reproducibi l i ty and the Language of A lchemy

Jennifer M. Rampling Princeton University

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, MS Mellon 41

Johannes Stradanus, Nova reperta, title page (1580)

Lauren Kassell, “Secrets Revealed: Alchemical Books in Early-Modern England,” History of Science, 49 (2011): 61–87, on 61.

Replication or Monopoly?

Galileo’s primary worry, I argue, was not that some people might reject his claims, but rather that those able to replicate them could too easily proceed to make further discoveries on their own and deprive him of future credit. He tried to slow down potential replicators to prevent them from becoming competitors. He did so by not providing other practitioners access to high-power telescopes and by withholding detailed information about how to build them.

Mario Biagioli, Instruments of Credit: Telescopes, Images, Secrecy

(Chicago and London, 2006), 79.

Replication or Monopoly?

Galileo’s primary worry, I argue, was not that some people might reject his claims, but rather that those able to replicate them could too easily proceed to make further discoveries on their own and deprive him of future credit. He tried to slow down potential replicators to prevent them from becoming competitors. He did so by not providing other practitioners access to high-power telescopes and by withholding detailed information about how to build them.

Mario Biagioli, Instruments of Credit: Telescopes, Images, Secrecy

(Chicago and London, 2006), 79.

Biringuccio, Pirotechnia (1540) [W]e do not know how to proceed in administering heats that are identical with natural ones, and […] we do not have the means of providing remedies for the infinite number of hindrances that occur unexpectedly during the long and difficult process of such an undertaking. For if there are many such in any process they are excessive in this one [i.e. alchemy], since such an art is forced to use many different methods, as, for instance, evenly regulated fires, provided they can be made, and special furnaces and vessels […] If by chance a curcurbit should break or the fires should not be as constant as is necessary, or should not be diminished or increased at opportune times, [7v] or perhaps if the things taken as a basis should lack their proper quality, then the results would lack perfection. It seems to me impossible that there should be no defects, for it would not be human to be able to do all these things without some mishap.

The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and

Metallurgy, trans. and ed. Cyril Stanley Smith & Martha Teach Gnudi (The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1959; repr. New York: Dover, 1990), p. 41.

Biringuccio, Pirotechnia (1540) [W]e do not know how to proceed in administering heats that are identical with natural ones, and […] we do not have the means of providing remedies for the infinite number of hindrances that occur unexpectedly during the long and difficult process of such an undertaking. For if there are many such in any process they are excessive in this one [i.e. alchemy], since such an art is forced to use many different methods, as, for instance, evenly regulated fires, provided they can be made, and special furnaces and vessels […] If by chance a curcurbit should break or the fires should not be as constant as is necessary, or should not be diminished or increased at opportune times, [7v] or perhaps if the things taken as a basis should lack their proper quality, then the results would lack perfection. It seems to me impossible that there should be no defects, for it would not be human to be able to do all these things without some mishap.

The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and

Metallurgy, trans. and ed. Cyril Stanley Smith & Martha Teach Gnudi (The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1959; repr. New York: Dover, 1990), p. 41.

Biringuccio, Pirotechnia (1540) [W]e do not know how to proceed in administering heats that are identical with natural ones, and […] we do not have the means of providing remedies for the infinite number of hindrances that occur unexpectedly during the long and difficult process of such an undertaking. For if there are many such in any process they are excessive in this one [i.e. alchemy], since such an art is forced to use many different methods, as, for instance, evenly regulated fires, provided they can be made, and special furnaces and vessels […] If by chance a curcurbit should break or the fires should not be as constant as is necessary, or should not be diminished or increased at opportune times, [7v] or perhaps if the things taken as a basis should lack their proper quality, then the results would lack perfection. It seems to me impossible that there should be no defects, for it would not be human to be able to do all these things without some mishap.

The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and

Metallurgy, trans. and ed. Cyril Stanley Smith & Martha Teach Gnudi (The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1959; repr. New York: Dover, 1990), p. 41.

The marriage of the alchemical king and queen:

Sulphur and Mercury (sometimes Gold and Silver)

Rosarium philosophorum (Frankfurt, 1550)

Dissolution

The king and queen are combined into one body , but it is dead – the soul departs from the body

The purified soul returns to reanimate the body of

its parents

The body is resurrected in a glorified form as the

Philosophers’ Stone – an analogy with the resurrection

of Christ

In the Rosary fig: 2 the king & Queene hold betweene them our true Lunary, bearing 8 flowers yet without a root a flying bird betwixt them (☿) holding a flower in her beak, & with a starr on her tayle (which denots ☿ & the starry earth joyned, till both do fly) the King hold one flower the Queene another.

In the Rosary fig: 2 the king & Queene hold betweene them our true Lunary, bearing 8 flowers yet without a root a flying bird betwixt them (☿) holding a flower in her beak, & with a starr on her tayle (which denots ☿ & the starry earth joyned, till both do fly) the King hold one flower the Queene another. Isaac Newton

National Library of Israel, MS Var. 259, fol. 7.2v (www.chymistry.org)

In the Rosary fig: 2 the king & Queene hold betweene them our true Lunary, bearing 8 flowers yet without a root a flying bird betwixt them (☿) holding a flower in her beak, & with a starr on her tayle (which denots ☿ & the starry earth joyned, till both do fly) the King hold one flower the Queene another. Isaac Newton

National Library of Israel, MS Var. 259, fol. 7.2v (www.chymistry.org)

In the Rosary fig: 2 the king & Queene hold betweene them our true Lunary, bearing 8 flowers yet without a root a flying bird betwixt them (☿) holding a flower in her beak, & with a starr on her tayle (which denots ☿ & the starry earth joyned, till both do fly) the King hold one flower the Queene another. Isaac Newton

National Library of Israel, MS Var. 259, fol. 7.2v (www.chymistry.org)

The “beautiful moon”…

Coptic alchemical recipe, translated by Prof. Sebastian Richter and reconstructed by Prof. Lawrence Principe at The Johns Hopkins University.

“ye perfecte makyng of ye fyre agaynste nature after Raymond”

take j li of vitriall 8 oz of salpeter 1 li of vermilon 4 oz of salt burnyd distill water there of but caste awaye ye faynt water & reseve ye rede spryte which dissoluythe all bodyes except gollde but yff you put a lyttell sall armonyac sublymyd from hys feacis which \then/ dyssoluethe gollde & all bodyes.

Rychard Walton, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1479

“Fire against nature”

Let us therefore disclose somewhat more of this fire against nature, which is a mineral water, most strong and mortal, which serves to that elixir. And this water is drawn by elemental fire from a certain stinking menstruum compounded of four things, as Raymond says in the Epistola accurtationis. And it is the strongest water in the world, whose spirit alone augments and multiplies the tincture of the ferment.

George Ripley, Medulla alchimiae (my translation)

“Fire against nature”

Let us therefore disclose somewhat more of this fire against nature, which is a mineral water, most strong and mortal, which serves to that elixir. And this water is drawn by elemental fire from a certain stinking menstruum compounded of four things, as Raymond says in the Epistola accurtationis. And it is the strongest water in the world, whose spirit alone augments and multiplies the tincture of the ferment.

George Ripley, Medulla alchimiae (my translation)

“ye perfecte makyng of ye fyre agaynste nature after Raymond”

take j li of vitriall 8 oz of salpeter 1 li of vermilon 4 oz of salt burnyd distill water there of but caste awaye ye faynt water & reseve ye rede spryte which dissoluythe all bodyes except gollde but yff you put a lyttell sall armonyac sublymyd from hys feacis which \then/ dyssoluethe gollde & all bodyes.

Rychard Walton, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1479

“ye perfecte makyng of ye fyre agaynste nature after Raymond”

take j li of vitriall 8 oz of salpeter 1 li of vermilon 4 oz of salt burnyd distill water there of but caste awaye ye faynt water & reseve ye rede spryte which dissoluythe all bodyes except gollde but yff you put a lyttell sall armonyac sublymyd from hys feacis which \then/ dyssoluethe gollde & all bodyes.

Rychard Walton, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1479

“ye perfecte makyng of ye fyre agaynste nature after Raymond”

vse thes 3 to mak ye [conney?] sort of ye makyng of ye fyre agaynst nature but leave ye sallte for salte wyll hurte your work for salt wylbe salt do what you cane.

Rychard Walton, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1479

British Library, MS Harley 2411

When our menstrual “mercury” ascends from the sericon by the violence of the fire, a certain part of it is found cleaving to the side of the flask after the complete distillation and cooling of the glass, like salt and of crystalline appearance. ... And the form of this earth is like mercury sublimed, and therefore shines brightly ... This secret I learned through practice: G[eorge] R[ipley], as God is my witness.

British Library, MS Harley 2411

When our menstrual “mercury” ascends from the sericon by the violence of the fire, a certain part of it is found cleaving to the side of the flask after the complete distillation and cooling of the glass, like salt and of crystalline appearance. ... And the form of this earth is like mercury sublimed, and therefore shines brightly ... This secret I learned through practice: G[eorge] R[ipley], as God is my witness.

The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley, Canon of Bridlington (London: William Cooper, 1683)

The Calcination of the black Feces called our black Dragon.

Then take all the rest of the aforesaid black Feces or black Dragon, and spread them somewhat thin upon a clean Marble, or other fit Stone, and put into the one side thereof a burning Coal, and the Fire will glide through the Feces within half an Hour, and Calcyne them into a Citrine Colour, very glorious to behold.

The Solution of the said Feces.

Then dissolve those Citrine Feces in such distilled Vinegar, as you did before, and then filter it likewise, three times as before, and after make or evaporate it to a Gum again, and then draw out of it more of our Menstruum, called now, Dragons Blood [...]

The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley, Canon of Bridlington (London: William Cooper, 1683)

The Calcination of the black Feces called our black Dragon.

Then take all the rest of the aforesaid black Feces or black Dragon, and spread them somewhat thin upon a clean Marble, or other fit Stone, and put into the one side thereof a burning Coal, and the Fire will glide through the Feces within half an Hour, and Calcyne them into a Citrine Colour, very glorious to behold.

The Solution of the said Feces.

Then dissolve those Citrine Feces in such distilled Vinegar, as you did before, and then filter it likewise, three times as before, and after make or evaporate it to a Gum again, and then draw out of it more of our Menstruum, called now, Dragons Blood [...]

Clip from the BBC4 documentary, “History of Art in Three Colours: Gold.” This can be viewed online at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSHcj6PXPqk (12:58 to 13:50) This is my reconstruction of a late fifteenth-century alchemical recipe, hosted by Dr Peter Wothers at the Chemistry Department, University of Cambridge, and filmed by BBC4.

Thank you!