Art and Artisanship in Early Modern Alchemy

Abstract

What some in the early modern era called the ars chymistica and others called alchemy involved a great deal more than chrysopoeia or gold making. “He who turns what is found in nature into something useful for human beings . . . he is an alchemist,” wrote the 16th‐century physician and alchemist Paracelsus (ca. 1493–1541). With that definition, alchemy embraced the efforts of numerous artists and artisans whose knowledge of procedural operations and materials allowed them to make a variety of desired objects and useful substances, including medicines. The Italian polymath Hieronymus Cardanus (1501–76) made a list of what its practitioners knew how to produce. Some things, he wrote, were admirable; some worthless, and some beautiful; some aided health, some were otherwise efficacious, and some were divine. Focusing on the work of the German alchemist and self‐trained physician Leonhard Thurneisser (ca. 1531–96), the essay explores the relationship between art, craft, and medicine in the 16th century, as alchemy and artisanal culture worked together to unlock nature's secrets, and intertwine artisanal know‐how and private curiosities with desires for profit, the creation of pleasing objects, and the delight of spectacle.