The Alchemist s Illustrator

by CAROLINE KARPINSKI

The study of alchemy followed the same ter- restrial course from country to country as did the identification of Jupiter, Mars, Luna, Sol, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury with seven metals.

The worship of the planets and their associa- tion with metals was originally Babylonian. The Greeks substituted for the Babylonian deity officiating over each planet a Greek god who resembled him. Further, they adopted the cor- respondence with metals. This identification was accomplished in the fifth century before Christ, and was probably the work of the Pythagoreans.

The metals were said by Aristotle to originate from the four elements-earth, air, fire, and water-which were endowed with properties of dampness, dryness, heat, and cold. When these elements were transmuted in the earth they pro- duced a damp "exhalation," as it was called, which formed into metals. An elaboration of the Aristotelian theory was the idea of a primordial matter from which all bodies were created and into which they might again be resolved.

The Egyptians had long made artificial gems and observed the color changes of metals under- going alloying. When the Greeks settled in Alexandria in the fourth century B.C. they fur- nished the Egyptians with a philosophy for these changes: they assumed they had transmuted matter. And in the early centuries of the Chris- tian era, there arose the concept of an agent capable of transmuting one kind of material into another, which came to be known as the Great Work of Alchemy, or the philosophers' stone.

Geber, a Mohammedan alchemist of the eighth or ninth century, introduced a refinement of Aristotle's theory by postulating sulphur and mercury instead of Aristotle's four elements as the elemental substances of metals. According to this theory impure sulphur and mercury when

Curatorial Assistant, Print Department

conjoined led to the formation of base metals. Sulphur and mercury of ordinary purity pro- duced gold; and philosophic or "sophic" sulphur and mercury gave rise to a superfine gold which was the philosophers' stone.

With the spread of the Islamic empire, Arabic knowledge of astrology and alchemy, with its heritage from Babylonia and Greece, was dif- fused through Spain and Sicily into the rest of Europe. Astrology and alchemy received a new impetus. Into the sixteenth century, dominion of the heavenly bodies over earthly things was re- garded in most quarters as natural law.

During the first half of that century, the painter Domenico Beccafumi flourished in Siena where he designed part of the celebrated marble pavement in the cathedral. He also produced a set of woodcuts referred to by Vasari as being alchemical in subject. The sequence and mean- ing of the series, however, have never been adequately discussed. It has been suggested that they were intended to illustrate the Pirotechnia, a book of practical metallurgical instruction pub- lished in 1540 by the Sienese Vanno Biringuccio. Instead, it seems more likely that they were in- tended as illustrations for an alchemical text.

The two groups of speculators on the behavior of metals-the practical craftsmen and the al- chemists-held many theories in common about the origin and refining of metals. Both were disinclined to reveal their secrets. Whereas the alchemists were graphomaniacs, veiling their knowledge however in "mistie speach" to keep it from the vulgar, the craftsmen simply re- frained from writing: there is not one original text on metallurgy in the fifteenth century, and little enough thereafter.

That a practical tradition did exist is evident from the full-fledged techniques for assaying and

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Fig. I. The gods observe the alchemist at the anvil, by Domenico Beccafumi (r486-I55I), Sienese. Woodcut. 6 4 x 4 % inches Whittelsey Fund, I959

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the philosophers' stone. But he regards alchemy as a vain wish and fanciful dream. "Those err

_Bp^^^^' __ - ~ 9^g^~" who expend their energies on this art, standing

_-?^ ^ 1_ long vigil ... more inflamed than the very coals

^^^?.=^^^'-^_^^^~ . Y)^ in their furnaces." It therefore seems impossible that a book of practical instruction by an author

^t, >F-,l S 1t12{1! who repudiates alchemy should be illustrated

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(~ 'I 11 /_,~ Iwith Beccafumi's prints, which are suffused with alchemical thought.

In the first of the series (Figure I), the gods

.->_,,^J^ iiW?^ M"cautiously observe the two companions at the

^-s j|i t;^ _. ~__~. ^ anvil. In the second (Figure 2), emboldened, _ i _they consider the overtures of the two men.

Venus, symbolizing copper, holds her dove; Sat- urn, with his sickle, represents lead; Jupiter,

i8 ^~ li ,with the thunderbolts, zinc; Mercury, quick- silver; Mars, iron; Sol, gold; and standing at the

top, Luna symbolizes silver. In the background

^l& I ^ l n~ \ \ the sun, moon, and torrent of water are alchemi-

Fig. 3. The gods rush away. Facsimile of Becca- fumi's woodcut

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Fig. 2. The gods are approached by the alchemist __

and his companion. 6a x 48 inches '

refining metals that appear in the Probierbuchlein '

, of 1510. The fNutzlich Bergbichlein, also from the

beginning of the century, summarizes the theories on which both the metallurgists and alchemists proceeded. The four elements of Aristotle and the sulphur and mercury of Geber are declared ^ to be equally correct "according to a good under-

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standing and right interpretation." Further, it i was through the effects of the planets that the J elements were said to be united and formed 'Pl ^ T into ores.

George Agricola, who published in 1556 that ( w < classic on metallurgy, De Re Metallica, dissents 1l on the matter of planetary influence. Biringuccio I- however does subscribe: "Gold is perfection, silver less perle fect because the influence of the i e of te moon is less than that of the sun." He credits the wrs

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alchemists with many observations of chemists cal 5.I ;F/' " ! > value arising incidentally from their pursuit of ____ _ -_

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...* ;- -_. { woodcuts, can be associated with Vulcan, while his aged companion who supervises should be

. .' ~.... .. ^ * B identified with the alchemist himself. The al- chemists, very fond of precedent, were always referring to the Sages.

The process represented in Figure 6 is the ex- *.-* ^i" ^ * B traction of gold from silver by means of nitric

=^^a i..| :-- , . ~ ^acid, a process known to Geber and to the author

? :l ;: H ?of the Probierbiichlein. As a practical illustration '~t-_x_-? _ -

j ^^" it is inadequate in several ways. From Biringuc- cio's description the cucurbits should be plastered

-e -=.- -^ Iwith lute (or clay): these are transparent. They should be embedded in the furnace to at least one-half their height, as in the illustration of dis-

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^^ tillation from the Pirotechnia (Figure 8). In the latter, the nitric acid in which the silver dissolves

/0 v Wl^ is being decanted into another vessel, leaving the gold at the bottom. Biringuccio's instructions

'i'i^^,^^^S^ nt l^^fl 1 -11 iii say "lift the cucurbit from the ashes and put it in some safe place, or completely put out the

*1 ".. , e- , Fig. 5. The gods, as metals, are brought to the anvil. Facsimile of Beccafumi's woodcut

Fig. 4. The gods are captured. 6 x 4 inches . _

Whittelsey Fund, 1959

cal symbols: gold, or Sol, stands for sophic sulphur; silver, or the moon, denotes sophic I -=-

mercury; and both unite in a "Spiritual and

Living Water," as Geber called it, which was the f philosophers' stone. The Pretiosa Margarita Novella I ascribed to Bonus of Ferrara, supposed to have /. been written about 330 and published in Venice in 1546, says that when the two waters of divine

sulphur and mercury are combined, coagulation I takes place with a color of the whiteness of snow; this whiteness signifies the eternal peace and concord of the elements, and the accomplish- ment of the Great Work of Alchemy.

In the third illustration of the series (Figure , 3), the gods take alarm. Mercury, the most vola-, tile of the metals, dashes away the fastest. Cap- , tured and bound in the fourth (Figure 4), they |

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are symbolic of the ore or unrefined state of - metals. Subdued in the fifth (Figure 5), the o s -

metals are brought to the anvil to be worked. - -' ._- ' The metalworker, appearing in each of these ...D '

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Fig. 6. The extraction of gold from silver. 64 x

4 % inches Whittelsey Fund, I959

Fig. 7. The extraction of gold from silver. Illustra- tion from Agricola's De Re Metallica, 1556. 5 8 x

5 Y2 inches Bequest of W. Gedney Beatty, I94I

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fire and let the cucurbit remain in place." It would be difficult indeed, with a roaring fire in the furnace as in Beccafumi's representation, to

perform such a decantation operation. Either there must be one row of vessels, or a free-

standing furnace, as illustrated in Agricola's De Re Metallica (Figure 7).

A silversmith's or pewterer's workshop is seen in Figure 9. Biringuccio refers to casting pewter in a mold of white tuff, and to the screw press which was an important mechanical aid to

minting. In the bell and gun foundry of Figure Io mol-

ten bronze runs through a taphole into a cannon mold embedded in the ground.

Bronze has found an ultimate use in the ninth of the series (Figure 11) in cannons, fire tubes, and explosive cannon balls. The sky reverberates and meteors fly. The alchemist throws up his hands in alarm. Gunpowder, according to Bi-

ringuccio, is a harmful thing, but defensively he

adds, "all things in this world made by art or

Fig. 8. The extraction of goldfrom silver. Facsimile illustration from Biringuccio's Pirotechnia, 1540

Figs. 9, I0, II, 12 (opposite). ABOVE LEFT: The

workshop of a silversmith or pewterer. ABOVE

RIGHT: A bell and gun foundry. BELOW LEFT:

The alchemist is alarmed by an explosion. BELOW

RIGHT: The metalworker destroys his furnace. 6 x 4 % inches

Whittelsey Fund, 959

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produced by nature are made only for their own

specific use." In the final woodcut of the series (Figure

12), the metalworker has taken to heart the alchemist's dictum against the disastrous conse-

quences of using metal for weapons. The alche- mist points to the demolished corner of the

building; the metalworker, wielding his hammer,

smashes the furnace, while Saturn, associated with destruction and disaster, looks on.

The fascination of alchemy endured as late as 800o and even then its ridicule could provoke a

smile from Rowlandson's audience (Figure I3). By juxtaposing the activities in foreground and

background, he was able to point up the more fruitful occupation.

Fig. i3. Hocus Pocus, by Thomas Rowlandson (I756-I827), English. 10o x 12 inches

Whittelsey Fund, I959

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