Bruce T Moran, Andreas Libavius and the transformation of alchemy: separating chemical cultures with polemical fire, Sagamore Beach, MA, Science History Publications/USA, 2007, pp. viii, 344, $49.95 (hardback 978-0-88135-395-2).

Abstract

Andreas Libavius will be familiar to many through the exposition of his views given in Owen Hannaway's The chemists and the word: the didactic origins of chemistry (1975). In that book, Hannaway tellingly juxtaposed the Paracelsian world-view put forward by Oswald Croll with that of Libavius in his Alchemia and other writings, and illustrated the extent to which it was Libavius who laid the foundations of academic chemistry in the seventeenth century. In pursuit of his overall theme, Hannaway was necessarily selective in his account of Libavius’ voluminous polemical writings, but Bruce Moran has now provided a much more systematic account of these. Indeed, this book represents something of a labour of love in terms of reconstructing the erudite Latinate polemical culture of late sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century Europe: the author deserves considerable gratitude simply for ploughing through these turgid volumes—some of them nearly a thousand pages long—and giving lengthy summaries of them. Moran also quotes from them sufficiently profusely to convey a sense of their vituperative, sometimes downright defamatory, tone; often, he helpfully intersperses his translation with key words from the original. “Oh Hartmann”, Libavius wrote in a characteristic assault on one of his enemies, Johann Hartmann, Professor of Chymiatria at the University of Marburg: “yours is a mental darkness [caligo] stitched together from falsehoods, deceptions, parables and obscure enigmas ... The schools of the entire world and the new and old wisdom alike are a disgrace to you because they will not be gulped down with your Paracelsian muck [stercora tua Paracelsica]” (p. 233). In the course of the book, Moran gives a helpful account of Libavius’ career and he well brings out his intellectual agenda, particularly his insistence on the need for logical precepts and principles and sound method in chemistry as in other disciplines, and his lifelong ambition to bring together the best of old and new knowledge. Libavius believed strongly in humanist linguistic proficiency and analysis, while equally significant is the strong moral dimension that he perceived in the pursuit of true knowledge: such traits are evidence in all the topics on which he wrote so profusely. The coverage of the book extends even to include the religious polemics in which Libavius engaged, though the bulk of it deals with controversies concerning chemistry, medicine and related fields. In these, Libavius’ appetite for syncretism combined with his polemical zeal sometimes led him to some slightly precarious compromises on which his opponents were able to capitalize. Thus in his wish to ensure that the best of all traditions was incorporated into the chemical discipline to which he aspired, he was happy to accept a good deal of the substance of Paracelsian doctrine, though not its interpretative superstructure, and he had to indulge in similar convolutions when he intervened in the Parisian medical debates of the early years of the seventeenth century. Moran divides his subject up into a series of chapters of manageable length, and in each he does justice to the complexities of Libavius’ position on the various issues that he confronted, from the role of transmutation to the validity of the weapon salve. He also comments perceptively on the mutual incomprehension of the two sides in some of the disputes in which Libavius was involved. Occasionally his language and vocabulary betray the influence of his subject—as with the strange usage of “paedagogiarch” on p. 35—and the relentless appetite for polemic on the part of his subject at times becomes almost overbearing. But this is nevertheless a valuable book which throws much light on a significant episode in the evolution of ideas on chemistry and related subjects.