Laboratories of Art: Alchemy and Art Technology from Antiquity to the 18th Century

220 Pages·2014·6.93 MB·English

by  Sven Dupré (eds.)

Archimedes 37 New Studies in the History and Philosophy
of Science and Technology
Sven Dupré Editor
Laboratories
of Art
Alchemy and Art Technology from
Antiquity to the 18th Century
Laboratories of Art
Archimedes
NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME37
EDITOR
JEDZ.BUCHWALD,DreyfussProfessorofHistory,CaliforniaInstitute
ofTechnology,Pasadena,CA,USA.
ASSOCIATEEDITORSFORMATHEMATICSANDPHYSICALSCIENCES
JEREMYGRAY,TheFacultyofMathematicsandComputing,
TheOpenUniversity,Buckinghamshire,UK.
TILMANSAUER,CaliforniaInstituteofTechnology
ASSOCIATEEDITORSFORBIOLOGICALSCIENCES
SHARONKINGSLAND,DepartmentofHistoryofScienceandTechnology,
JohnsHopkinsUniversity,Baltimore,MD,USA.
MANFREDLAUBICHLER,ArizonaStateUniversity
ADVISORYBOARDFORMATHEMATICS,PHYSICALSCIENCESANDTECHNOLOGY
HENKBOS,UniversityofUtrecht
MORDECHAIFEINGOLD,CaliforniaInstituteofTechnology
ALLAND.FRANKLIN,UniversityofColoradoatBoulder
KOSTASGAVROGLU,NationalTechnicalUniversityofAthens
PAULHOYNINGEN-HUENE,LeibnizUniversityinHannover
TREVORLEVERE,UniversityofToronto
JESPERLU¨TZEN,CopenhagenUniversity
WILLIAMNEWMAN,IndianaUniversity,Bloomington
LAWRENCEPRINCIPE,TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity
JU¨RGENRENN,Max-Planck-Institutfu€rWissenschaftsgeschichte
ALEXROLAND,DukeUniversity
ALANSHAPIRO,UniversityofMinnesota
NOELSWERDLOW,CaliforniaInstituteofTechnology
ADVISORYBOARDFORBIOLOGY
MICHAELDIETRICH,DartmouthCollege,USA
MICHELMORANGE,CentreCavaille´s,EcoleNormaleSupe´rieure,Paris
HANS-JO¨RGRHEINBERGER,MaxPlanckInstitutefortheHistoryofScience,Berlin
NANCYSIRAISI,HunterCollegeoftheCityUniversityofNewYork,USA
Archimedeshasthreefundamentalgoals;tofurthertheintegrationofthehistoriesofscienceandtechnology
withoneanother:toinvestigatethetechnical,socialandpracticalhistoriesofspecificdevelopmentsinscience
andtechnology;andfinally,wherepossibleanddesirable,tobringthehistoriesofscienceandtechnology
intoclosercontactwiththephilosophyofscience.Totheseends,eachvolumewillhaveitsownthemeand
title andwillbe plannedbyone ormoremembers oftheAdvisory Boardin consultationwiththe editor.
Although the volumes have specific themes, the series itself will not be limited to one or even to a few
particularareas.Itssubjectsincludeanyofthesciences,rangingfrombiologythroughphysics,allaspectsof
technology,broadlyconstrued,aswellashistorically-engagedphilosophyofscienceortechnology.Takenas
a whole, Archimedes will be of interest to historians, philosophers, and scientists, as well as to those in
businessandindustrywhoseektounderstandhowscienceandindustryhavecometobesostronglylinked.
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/5644
Sven Dupre´
Editor
Laboratories of Art
Alchemy and Art Technology from
Antiquity to the 18th Century
Editor
SvenDupre´
FreieUniversita¨t
MaxPlanckInstitutefortheHistoryofScience
Berlin,Germany
ISSN1385-0180 ISSN2215-0064(electronic)
ISBN978-3-319-05064-5 ISBN978-3-319-05065-2(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-05065-2
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2014937822
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Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
TheAlchemicalArtofDyeing:TheFourfoldDivisionofAlchemy
andtheEnochianTradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
MatteoMartelli
TransmissionofAlchemicalandArtisticKnowledgeinGerman
MediaevalandPremodernRecipeBooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
SylvieNeven
ArtisanalProcessesandEpistemologicalDebateintheWorksof
LeonardoDaVinciandVannoccioBiringuccio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
AndreaBernardoni
ArtificialInterventionsintheNaturalFormofThings:Shared
MetallogeneticalConceptsofGoldsmithsandAlchemists. . . . . . . . . . . . 79
HenrikeHaug
TheLaboratoriesofArtandAlchemyattheUffiziGallery
inRenaissanceFlorence:SomeMaterialAspects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 105
FannyKieffer
MaterialandTemporalPowersattheCasinodiSanMarco
(1574–1621). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
MarcoBeretta
GoldsmithsandChymists:TheActivityofArtisansWithin
AlchemicalCircles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
LawrenceM.Principe
Ignerefutata:ThermalAnalysisintheLaboratoryPractices
ofJohnDwightandEhrenfriedWalthervonTschirnhaus. . . . . . . . . . . 181
MorganWesley
v
ThiSisaFMBlankPage
Introduction
The Antwerp painter Adriaen van Utrecht (1599–1652) arranged Chinese porce-
lain,agobletmadeofrockcrystalandcristalloglassesa` lafac¸ondeVenise,nextto
amagnificentdisplayofgold-andsilversmiths’worksonatableintheforeground
ofhis1636“AllegoryofFire”(Fig.1).1Manyoftheseobjectshavebeenidentified
as originating in Antwerp, and it is likely that Van Utrecht’s painting celebrates
the manufactureand trade ofluxurygoodsfor which Antwerp gainedfame inthe
early seventeenth century. Van Utrecht’s objects have another point in common:
one way or the other they are produced through the agency of fire. Van Utrecht’s
paintingcelebratesAntwerp’seconomicpowerandtheproductiveingenuityofits
craftsmen and artists as much as it praises the transformative force of fire turning
relatively cheap and humble materials into highly valued objects of art. These
objects were all products of the arts of fire, which according to Vannoccio
Biringuccio (1480–c.1539) included alchemy, and excluded “false alchemy”
concernedwithpretentioustransmutation.2
In the background of Van Utrecht’s painting, a window opens on to a space in
which a man stands working at a stove with an open fire. Stirring a cauldron, the
man is shown in the material company of bellows, an anvil, a melting and a
distilling furnace, and other equipment related to the worlds of assaying and
metallurgy.VanUtrecht’sbackgroundreferstothespacesinwhichtheobjectsin
the foreground were produced. Were these spaces laboratories or artisanal work-
shops? Were they home to gold- and silversmiths, glassmakers or producers of
porcelain?Thedifferencebetweenworkshopsandlaboratoriesduringthisperiodis
ambiguous, not only in Van Utrecht’s depiction, and the line between the two
spacesisasdifficulttodrawasthatbetweentheartsoffireandalchemy.Thisbook
isconcernedwiththeinterconnectionsanddifferentiationsbetweenforegroundand
1My discussion of Van Utrecht’s painting in this and the next paragraph is based on Go¨ttler,
“TheAlchemist,thePainter.”
2ForBiringuccio’sattitudetowardsalchemy,seeNewman,PrometheanAmbitions,128–32.
vii
viii Introduction
Fig.1 AdriaenvanUtrecht,AllegoryofFire,1636(CourtesyofRoyalMuseumsofFineArtsof
Belgium,Brussels(Photo:J.Geleyns))
backgroundinVanUtrecht’spainting,betweenartisanalworkshopsandalchemical
laboratories,betweenthematerialartsandalchemy.
Van Utrecht is one of the heirs of Van Eyck (c.1390–1441). Following Giorgio
Vasari (1511–1574), Karel van Mander (1548–1606) portrayed Van Eyck as an
alchemist and likened his invention of oil paint to alchemical experimentation.3
AccordingtoVanMander,VanEyckexperimentedwithvarnishesandbindingagents,
“and found after much investigation that pigments mixed with such oils became
malleable and dried hard, and having dried became impermeable, and that the oil
madecolourslivelier,andthattheythemselvesbecamelustrouswithoutvarnishing.”4
ItturnsoutthatVanEyckdidnotinventoilpaint,andneitherwasheanalchemist.
Neverthelesshewouldneverhavebeendescribedinthosetermshadnotartists
and alchemists both been considered agents of material transformation. Van
Mander’sdescriptionofVanEyck’sexperimentationalsoremindsusthatpainters
andalchemistssharedmaterials,andthatpaintersusedartificiallycreatedpigments,
“madebyalchemy”accordingtoCenninoCennini(c.1370–c.1440).However,this
3Davis,“RenaissanceInventions.”
4Mander,Hetschilder-boeck,199v.TranslationinMelion,ShapingtheNetherlandishCanon,79.
Introduction ix
book is not concerned with travelling materials and shared material culture.
Shifting the focus from painting to the decorative arts, this book scrutinizes
epistemicexchangesbetweenproducersoftheartsoffireandalchemists.
Laboratories and Workshops
What can the evolution of the laboratory, and its shifting relation to the artisanal
workshop,tellusaboutepistemicexchangesbetweentheartsandalchemy?Inthe
fifteenthandsixteenthcenturies,thetermlaboratoriumuniquelyreferredtowork-
places in which “chemical” operations were performed: smelting, combustion,
distillation, dissolution, and precipitation. Matteo Martelli has convincingly
shownthatnosuchtermwasavailableinAntiquity.5ThePapyri,containingrecipes
for the production of a range of luxury goods, and the earliest texts on alchemy,
used the terminology of specific crafts (dyeing, metalworking and glassmaking).
While artisans labored in workshops with tools and ingredients specific to their
craft, alchemists seemed to have made use of a more complex set of materials,
instruments and techniques belonging to various crafts. However, Martelli also
showsthateventheearliestalchemistsdevelopedspecializedequipment.Thisleads
to the assumption that as early as the first century AD, alchemists in Hellenistic
Egypt began to differentiate themselves from artisans. However, there was no
workplace specifically designed for alchemists to engage in their activities. It is
likelytheyaccessedthematerialequipmentinartisanalworkshops.
Bytheearlymodernperiod,thealchemisthadacquiredaspecificplaceofwork.
AccordingtoPamelaSmith,bythemid-sixteenthcentury,theselaboratorieswere
referredtoformallyaslaboratoriumandofficina.6Theubiquityoffurnacesandthe
use of fire demanded a specific workplace, whereas experimental philosophy still
lackedspecificplacesofexperimentationintheseventeenthcentury.Laboratories
were associated with secretive practices. When in the early seventeenth century
AndreasLibaviusdescribedtheidealworkplaceofthechemist,heemphasizedhow
itdifferedfromthedark,smelly,secretivelaboratorythatwasnoticeablylackingin
decorum:
Wedonotwantthechemisttoneglecttheexercisesofpietyorexempthimselffromother
dutiesofanuprightlife,simplypiningawayamidsthisdarkfurnaces[...].Thuswearenot
going to devise from him just a chymeion or laboratory to use as a private study and
hideaway in order that his practice will be more distinguished than anyone else’s; but
rather,whatweshallprovideforhimisadwellingsuitablefordecorousparticipationin
societyandlivingthelifeofafreeman[...].7
5Martelli,“GreekAlchemistsatWork.”
6Smith,“Laboratories,”299.
7Libavius, “Commentariorum alchymiae.” Quoted and translated in Hannaway, “Laboratory
Design,” 599. However, for corrections of Hannaway’s view, see Shackelford, “Tycho Brahe,
LaboratoryDesign,”andNewman,“ChemicalHouseofLibavius.”