Synopses & Reviews
What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common menand#8212;and occasionally womenand#8212;who made a living as alchemists in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire. As purveyors of practical techniques, inventions, and cures, these entrepreneurs were prized by princely patrons, who relied upon alchemists to bolster their political fortunes. At the same time, satirists, artists, and other commentators used the figure of the alchemist as a symbol for Europeand#8217;s social and economic ills.
Drawing on criminal trial records, contracts, laboratory inventories, satires, and vernacular alchemical treatises, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire situates the everyday alchemists, largely invisible to modern scholars until now, at the center of the development of early modern science and commerce. Reconstructing the workaday world of entrepreneurial alchemists, Tara Nummedal shows how allegations of fraud shaped their practices and prospects. These debates not only reveal enormously diverse understandings of what the and#8220;realand#8221; alchemy was and who could practice it; they also connect a set of little-known practitioners to the largest questions about commerce, trust, and intellectual authority in early modern Europe.
Review
"Nummedaland#8217;s
Alchemy and Authority should be read not just by historians of science but also by historians interested in court culture. Her work offers a new look at the dynamic relationship between the construction of natural knowledge and political authority that many historians will benefit from reading."
Review
"Alchemy and Authority does for the history of alchemy what the literature on quacks has done for the history of medicine: it approaches the blurry boundaries that define an individualand#8217;s success or downfall in a profession and in society. By asking, reconsidering, and answering the questions posed here, Nummedal speaks to historians of alchemy and science as well as to anyone intrigued by history and the mechanisms of economic systems, power, and authority. . . . . Her style is refreshingly concise and engaging. She is one of only a few academic authors who manage to confine and cionsistently pursue their argument . . . and yet manage to write beautiful, effortless prose."
Review
"Alchemy and Authority makes a significant contribution to the history of early modern science, and also provides some valuable material for the study of early modern state-building and court culture. . . . This extremely readable and enjoyable book has much to offer historians and literary scholars of a variety of backgrounds."
Review
"This is a terrific study, accessible, based in concrete archival research, and well connected to contemporary discussions. It gives new direction to thinking about the role of alchemy in the social and cultural life of early modern Europe. By diffracting the light usually focused on prominent alchemical figures in the history of science and medicine, Nummedal adds a much needed cultural dimension to the understanding of how alchemical identities were shaped in early modern Europe and to how they in turn influenced the social and intellectual world around them."
About the Author
Tara Nummedal is assistant professor of history at Brown University
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Figures and#160;
Acknowledgments and#160;
Note on Early Modern Weights and Measures and#160;
Abbreviations and#160;
and#160;
Introduction and#160;1
1. Assembling Expertise and#160;
2. The Alchemistand#8217;s Personae and#160;
3. Entrepreneurial Alchemy and#160;
4. Contracting the Philosophersand#8217; Stone and#160;
5. Laboratories, Space, and Secrecy and#160;
6. Betrand#252;ger on Trial and#160;
Conclusion: The Problem of Authority and#160;
and#160;
Notes and#160;
Selected Bibliography and#160;
Index and#160;