Alchemy in Popular Culture: Leonardo Fioravanti and the Search for the Philosopher's Stone

Author(s): William Eamon

Source: Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 5, No. 2, Alchemy and Hermeticism (2000), pp. 196-
213
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 ALCHEMYIN POPULARCULTURE:LEONARDO
FIORAVANTIAND THE SEARCHFOR THE
PHILOSOPHER'SSTONE

WILLIAM
EAMON
New MexicoState University

In a recent surveyof late-medievalvernacular alchemical manu-

scripts, Michela Pereira concluded that alchemical ideas and prac-
tices were widely disseminated in the vernacular languages of west-
ern Europe.' She convincingly argues that these manuscripts are
not, however, examples of the "popularization" of alchemy. In-
stead, they are the visible signs of alchemical practitioners seeking
to gain insights into the esoteric art from whatever sources might
be available to them, whether scholarly, medical, or craft. Doubt-
lessly, Pereira's observations are true of the manuscript tradition.
The vernacular alchemical manuscripts seem to be best inter-
preted as evidence of the trials and searches of practicing alche-
mists who put to use all resources, including linguistic compe-
tence, in the search for the philosopher's stone, and not of alche-
mists attempting to popularize their art.
With the advent of printing, however, the picture becomes
somewhat more complex. It is well known that certain aspects of
the art of alchemy-distillation, for example-became highly fash-
ionable in medical circles.2 Moreover, through the printing of
cheap craft manuals, alchemical knowledge was widely dissemi-
nated to middle class audiences.3 In this paper, I want to explore
the "popularization"of alchemy in a specific context. In particu-
lar, I am interested in understanding how alchemy may have
served as a mechanism for "self-fashioning," i.e., as a means by

1 M. Pereira, "Alchemy and the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Late

Middle Ages," Speculum74 (1999), 336-56.
2 E. Hickel and W. Schneider, "Quellen zur Geschichte der pharmazeutischen
Chimie im 16. Jahrhundert. 2. Mitteilung: Destillierbiicher," Pharmazeutische
Zeitung111 (1964), 51-7;J. Telle, ed. Pharmazieund dergemeineMann. Hausarznei
und Apothekein deutschenSchriftenderfriihen Neuzeit, Ausstellungskataloge der
Herzog August Bibliothek, Nr. 36 (Braunschweig:Waisenhaus, 1982).
3 R. Hirsch, "Printingand the Diffusion of Alchemical and Chemical Knowl-
edge," Chymia3 (1950), 115-41; W. Eamon, Scienceand the Secretsof Nature:Books
of Secretsin Medievaland EarlyModernCulture(Princeton, 1994), chap. 3.

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Early Science and Medicine 5, 2

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 197

which individuals shaped identities and careers.4 In order to ex-

plore this phenomenon, I shall focus on a single figure as a case
study. My subject, the sixteenth century surgeon Leonardo
Fioravanti, was an ardent champion of the (as he called it) "new
art of alchemical medicine."5 In his writings, he exploited both the
fashion of alchemy and its esotericism to promote his "new way of
healing." By following him in his peregrinations through Sicily,
southern Italy, Venice, and Spain, and by attending to the persons
and places he encountered, we will have a chance to observe how
the esoteric art of alchemy engaged with popular culture.
Fioravanti was born in 1517 in Bologna and, as far as we know,
spent his first thirty years there.' Sometime around 1533 he began
practicing as an empiric or apprentice surgeon. In 1548, he seems
to have experienced some sort of epiphany. His autobiography
begins in October of that year, on the day when he left Bologna to
"go out into the world" in search of the secrets of nature. Follow-
ing in the footsteps of the ancient empirics, he recalled, "I began
to walk the world and plough the seas, seeing many cities and
provinces, practicing with various kinds of persons, medicating
many men and women with all sorts of infirmities."7
The first stop on Fioravanti's lengthy journey was Sicily, and it
was there that his quest for the philosopher's stone began. He
does not tell us why he chose Sicily as his destination, but it is
apparent that the island's reputation as the original home of em-
piricist medicine loomed large in his mind. In Fioravanti's version
of the history of medicine, Sicily stood out in bold relief. It was
there that Akron of Agrigento founded the empiricist medical
school.8 Indeed, Fioravanti insisted that in the entire ancient world
had produced only two physicians worth paying attention to:

4 I use the term "self-fashioning"in the manner suggested by S. Greenblatt,

Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980), 2-3.
5 L. Fioravanti, Capriccimedicinali(Venice, 1582), 186.
6 The best biography of Fioravanti, though still not entirely adequate, is D.
Giordano, LeonardoFioravanti Bolognese(Bologna, 1920). In addition, see P.
Camporesi, Camminare il mondo: Vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti medico del
Cinquecento (Milan, 1997); D. Furfaro, La vita e l'opera di Leonardo Fioravanti (Bo-
logna, 1963).
7 L. Fioravanti, Il Tesoro della vita humana (Venice, 1570), 17v-18.
8 For Akron of Agrigento and ancient medical empiricism, see L. Edelstein,
"Empiricismand Skepticism in the Teaching of the Greek Empiricist School," in
AncientMedicine,ed. O. Temkin and C. L. Temkin (Baltimore and London, 1967),
195-203.

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198 WILLIAMEAMON

Hippocrates and Akron. "The first put down the laws of medical
science, and the other recovered experience."9
When Fioravanti arrived in Palermo in March, 1549, he writes,
"I did not know more than all the doctors commonly knew then,
not yet having acquired the gift of truth."'1 He certainly had little
knowledge of or experience with the alchemical arts. His first en-
counter with alchemy occurred in Messina, where he was intro-
duced to the art by a Franciscan friar called Matteo Guaruccio. Fra
Matteo, it seems, had a secret for curing wounds much sought
after by the local surgeons. Fioravanti befriended the friar, and
after a few weeks Guaruccio agreed to divulge his secret for curing
wounds, a distilled balsam that Fioravanti later marketed as his
balsamo artificiale. Since Fioravanti writes about these events in a
chapter entitled, "How I Came to the True Surgery," it was obvi-
ously an encounter he valued highly."
This would not be the last time that Fioravanti would turn to
members of the religious orders to learn the secrets of alchemy.
The friars had a long history of alchemical practice, especially in
the distillation of medicinal waters. It was a fourteenth-century
Franciscan, John of Rupescissa, who originated the medical doc-
trine that inspired much of sixteenth-century medicinal chemis-
try.'2 Rupescissa's theory that the spirit of wine (alcohol) was the
incorruptible "fifth essence" of substances provided the founda-
tion for the alchemical activities of the Franciscan and the Jesuati
religious orders.'3 The "aquavit-brothers," as the Jesuati were some-
times called, specialized in making elixirs and cordials, which they
believed preserved the body from corruption and putrefaction.'4

910Tesoro,4.
Ibid., 18v-19r.
" Ibid., 46.
12 On Rupescissa, see L. Thorndike, Historyof Magicand Experimental Science,8
vols. (New York, 1923-1958), 3:347-69; R. P. Multhauf, "John of Rupescissa and
the Origins of Medical Chemistry,"Isis 45 (1954), 357-67.
"1The Jesuati were founded in the fourteenth century by Giovanni Colombini
(c. 1300-1367), a wealthy Sienese merchant who gave away all his possessions in
order to live as a mendicant. The order he founded dedicated itself to caring for
victims of the plague. The order was disbanded in 1668 by Pope Clement IX,
supposedly because of abuses connected with the manufacture and distribution
of alcoholic beverages. On the Jesuati, see The CatholicEncyclopedia,ed. Ch. G.
Herbermann, et al., 17 vols. (New York, 1913-1922), 8:458; G. Dufner, Geschichte
derJesuaten,Uomini e Dottrine, no. 21 (Rome, 1975).
14 The only work that has survived relating to Jesuati alchemy is a sixteenth-
century Librode i secrettie ricettecomposed by one of the order's brothers, Giovanni

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 199

As we shall see, the idea that distilled essences might purge the
body of corruptions fit perfectly with Fioravanti's theory of heal-
ing.
From Messina Fioravanti moved to Naples, determined to make
further explorations into the secrets of alchemy. Taking up resi-
dence in a house near the Castel Nuovo, he bought distillation
vessels and set up an alchemical laboratory. His residence became
the center of experimental activity, where " alchemists and distill-
ers from various nations began to practice" and where "every day
they made new things and rare experiments."'5 These individuals
must have made up the core of what Fioravanti later described as
an "academy" that met in his house and made experiments in dis-
tillation and other alchemical processes.'6 The academy's patron
was Giovanni Battista d'Azzia, the Marchese della Terza, one of the
leading lights of the Neapolitan literati. An accomplished poet in
his own right, Della Terza was a generous patron of arts and let-
ters. Like many of the Neapolitan nobility, he played an active part
in the literary and philosophical academies that had sprung up in
Naples in the 1530s and 1540s. He was, for example, a member of
the Sereni, an academy devoted to poetry, philosophy, and astrol-
ogy which included prominent intellectuals among its member-
ship. The Sereni was one of the academies closed down by the
Spanish Viceroy, Pedro of Toledo, following an abortive aristo-
cratic uprising in 1547.17
Such informal gatherings of literati and experimenters were
quite common in Naples at the time, as they were in most Italian
cities.8s All we know about Fioravanti's group is that its members

Andrea di Farre de Brescia. Composed between 1536 and 1562, the manuscript
contains numerous illustrations of alchemical apparatus and detailed descriptions
of distillation procedures. It enumerates hundreds of remedies for ailments af-
fecting all parts of the body. Much is devoted to malfrancese (syphilis), and there
are repeated references to guaiac wood (lignum vitae), a famous drug from the
New World. The manuscript, now in the Spencer Research Library at the Univer-
sity of Kansas, is labelled Pryce MS El. On guaiacum, see R. S. Munger, "Guaia-
cum, the Holy Wood from the New World," Journal of the History of Medicine 4
(1949), 196-229.
15
Tesoro, 50.
16
Fioravanti mentions the academy in a letter to the Neapolitan physician
Alfonso da Rienzo, dated 14 April 1568. Tesoro, 234.
",
Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, chap. 4.
18 W. Eamon, "Court, Academy, and Printing House: Patronage and Scientific
Careers in Late-Renaissance Italy," in Patronage and Institutions, ed. B. Moran
(Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 25-50; E. Cochrane, "The Renaissance Academies in the

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200 WILLIAM EAMON

carried out experiments in alchemy, distillation, and the develop-

ment of new drugs. These aims are strikingly similar to those of
another, almost contemporary Neapolitan academy called the
Accademia Segreta, which was formed in the 1540s. We know a
good deal about the latter group because one of it members, the
humanist Girolamo Ruscelli, left a detailed description of it.'"Ac-
cording to Ruscelli, the Accademia Segreta comprised a group of
men devoted to testing by experiment all the alchemical and me-
dicinal secrets they could find. Ruscelli published the results of the
academy's trials under the pseudonym of "AlessioPiemontese" in
his Secreti(1555), the most famous book of secrets of the early
modern period.20Alessio's Secretiwas an instant bestseller. It went
through more than a hundred editions and spawned dozens of
imitations, causing Tommaso Garzoni to acknowledge the emer-
gence on the cultural scene of a new "profession."Garzoni called
Alessio and his cohorts "the professors of secrets,"describing them
as relentless seekers of obscure, veiled, and occult knowledge.21
Fioravanti gives no indication that his academy was anything
nearly as elaborate as the one Ruscelli describes. The latter, sup-
posedly, had a fully-equipped alchemical laboratory, an herb gar-
den, and a staff of servants.Yet we cannot discount the possibility
that Fioravanti'sacademy was inspired by the Accademia Segreta.
Della Terza, who had been Ruscelli's patron while the humanist
resided in Naples, would surely have know about the Segreti, if he
did not actually participate in it.22Was Della Terza, in fact, the
unnamed nobleman whom Ruscelli refers to as the Segreti's pa-
tron? It is impossible to tell; but he is a logical link between Rus-
celli's academy and that of Fioravanti.
It appears that Fioravanti'sinformal academy was devoted prin-
cipally to alchemical preparations of medicinal potions, principally
by distillation. Such experiments, at least, form the bulk of the

Italian and European Setting," in The Fairest Flower: The Emergence of Linguistic
National Consciousness in Renaissance Europe (Florence, 1985), pp. 21-39.
'9 G. Ruscelli, Secretinuovi (Venice, 1564), preface. In addition, see W. Eamon
and F. Paheau, "The Accademia Segreta of Girolamo Ruscelli. A Sixteenth-Cen-
tury Italian Scientific Society,"Isis 75 (1984), 327-42. I have attempted to recon-
struct this academy and its context in Science and the Secrets of Nature, chap. 4.
20
Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 139-47.
21
T. Garzoni, La Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (Venice, 1588),
80v. On the books of secrets, see Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature.
22 P. Trovato, Con ogni diligenza corretto:La stampa e le revisioni editoriali dei testi

letterari italiani (1470-1570) (Bologna, 1991), 241, 260n. 31.

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 201

alchemical recipes that Fioravanti later published. But the group

also conducted metallurgical experiments aimed at transmuting
base metals into silver and gold. One of its members, Fra
Carubino, supposedly invented a method "a fissare la luna in sol
finissimo" by which he was able to make twenty-two carat gold.
Another member of Fioravanti's Neapolitan circle, Antonello da
Cifune, was able make gold of twenty-four carats.23
The academy's reportedly successful experiments in transmut-
ing gold evidently did not convince Fioravanti of the practicality
of the procedure. Possibly the experiments were done on small
amounts of metals and involved considerable expense. At any rate,
in spite of his academy's experimental successes, Fioravanti left
Naples skeptical of the quest for alchemical gold. Although he
thought it was possible to make gold alchemically, and claimed to
have seen it done numerous times, he concluded that the
endeavor was not worthwhile. Indeed, in the Capriccimedicinali, he
strongly advised the prospective adept against attempting to make
alchemical gold, or even silver, because little would come of the
efforts. "You won't earn much in his art," he warned, although he
admitted that the process was "un bellissimo artificio."24
In 1558, after spending three unhappy years in Rome, Fioravanti
moved to Venice, intent on realizing his new ambition of becom-
ing an author.25 The move was a turning point in his life. Not only
did it launch a new phase of his career-that of a successful and
controversial writer of popular scientific and medical books-it
also put him into contact with a circle of natural philosophers and
literati who were intensely interested in alchemy. Two of these in-
dividuals had connections to Naples: Decio Bellobuono, whom
Fioravanti had met while the two were living there, and Girolamo
Ruscelli, the founder of the Accademia Segreta. Ruscelli had left
Naples shortly before Fioravanti arrived there. It would not be
unreasonable to suppose that Fioravanti was introduced to Ruscelli
by way of a recommendation from his former patron, the Mar-
chese della Terza. Ruscelli, in turn, would play a key role in Fiora-
vanti's career by introducing him into the Venetian publishing

23 L. Fioravanti, La Cirugia (Venice, 1570), 165.

24 Capricci medicinali, 206v.
25 Fioravanti's years in Rome and his move to Venice are mentioned in Tesoro,
70-73v, 78; Capricci medicinali, 80v-81; and Specchio di scienze universale (Venice,
1564), 199.

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202 WILLIAMEAMON

world, and to the circle of poligrafiof which Ruscelli was a promi-

nent figure. As he had done earlier in Naples, Fioravantiset up an
alchemical laboratory in his home in the Campo San Luca, where
he concocted his distilled drugs.
He could not have chosen a place more receptive to new medi-
cal fashions. Besides being the home of a flourishing publishing
industry, Venice was a leading center of pharmaceutical re-
search-in particular the use of distillation for making new
drugs.26With its unrivalled commercial relations with Constantino-
ple, Syria,and Egypt, the Venetian republic had a flourishing trade
in pharmaceuticals. When Fioravanti arrived there, Venice had
around seventy pharmacies, many of which were centers for the
production of distilled drugs. Fioravanti had close relations with
at least two pharmacies: the Fenicein the Campo San Luca, where
he resided, and the Orsoat Santa Maria Formosa, where he had
his medical practice. Sabba di Franceschi, who operated the Orso
pharmacy, and Giovan Giaccomo, who ran the Fenice,were well
known in Venice as distillers of medicinal waters."
The friars were also active in distilling medicinal liquors. Dur-
ing Fioravanti'speriod in Venice, the Franciscans operated a dis-
tillery in the convent in Campo Frari that appears to have been a
lively center of medical discussion. The Franciscan friar Antonio
Volpe, who operated a distillery in the Campo San Salvatore, was
so well known in Venice as a distiller of medicinal waters to treat
syphilis that he was known throughout the city as "the Canker
Friar"(il frate del cancro).Volpe was certainly no learned physician.
Indeed, he owned only two books: a breviaryand a copy of Fiora-
vanti's Capriccimedicinali.We learn about him only because in 1567
he was investigated by the Inquisition as a suspected Lutheran, a
charge brought against by his former business partner, Fioravanti's
friend Decio Bellobuono.28
Volpe's trial opens up before us a microworld of medicinal dis-
tillers and empirical practitioners. Witnesses at his trial included
the pharmacist Georgio Melichio, owner of the Struzzopharmacy,

26
R. Palmer, "Pharmacyin the Republic of Venice in the Sixteenth Century,"
in TheMedicalRenaissanceof theSixteenthCentury,ed. A. Wear, R. K. French and I.
M. Lonie (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 100-17.
27 Garzoni, Piazza universale,Discorso 89.
28 The record suggests that Bellobuono denounced the friar in order to avoid

repaying a loan that FraVolpe had advanced him. The records relating to Volpe's
trial are in Archivio di Stato, Venice, Sant' Uffizio, b. 23.

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 203

famous for its distilled medicinal waters and one whom Fioravanti
praised as "un grandissimo stilatore."Fioravanti himself was a witness
at the trial. Another witness was the Murano glassmaker Nicola
dall'Aquila, who supplied Volpe with distillation apparatus. As it
turns out, Fioravanti also bought his glassware from dall'Aquila,
who he says made alchemical vessels for practitioners throughout
Italy.29Other witnesses at Volpe's trial included a friar who worked
at the distillery in the Frari church and two distillers who had
shops in the Campo Frari.
The picture of mid-century Venice that emerges from Volpe's
trial is one of a bustling center of trade in distilled medicinal wa-
ters and cordials. The fact that Volpe earned a reputation city-wide
as the "canker friar" is a clear indication that the fashion for dis-
tilled drugs reached a broad cross-section of society. Volpe's pa-
tients and buyers included poor, middle class, and wealthy clients.
Skilled craftsmen like Aquila likewise profited from the fashion for
distilled drugs. Fioravanti also meant to gain from these new medi-
cal fashions. But the alchemy that transformed this tyro into a
master was not of the alembic, but of the printing press.
Fioravanti's first book, the Capricci medicinali (1561), was an at-
tempt to launch a new medical fashion in a marketplace fueled by
fashion. The book's very title, "Medical Caprices," suggests some-
thing novel and faddish. Exploiting the popular fascination with
"secrets," he made alchemy-in particular distillation-a key com-
ponent of his "new way of curing." He devoted an entire section
of the Capricci medicinali to alchemy, which he says was "the great-
est and most noble art and science that the philosophers have ever
invented."30 Setting himself apart from the regular doctors, he
insisted that physicians must be able to make their own drugs and
not simply to rely on pharmacists to compose them.31 To advertise
his newly-invented essences, he gave them catchy trade-names like
"angelic electuary" (elettuario angelico), "magistral syrup" (siroppo
maestrale), "blessed oil" (olio benedetto), and dia aromatica, the "fra-
grant goddess" he prescribed as the first course of action against
almost every ailment he encountered. Medicinal distillates were
very much a la mode in sixteenth-century Italy, and Fioravanti was
not about to lose out on the chance of becoming known as a
master of the art of making them.

29 Tesoro, b4.
S Capriccimedicinali,177v.
s' Ibid., 85.

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204 WILLIAMEAMON

It is easy enough to demonstrate that the medical marketplace

of early modern Venice was fashion-driven. The empirics and
ciarlataniwho crowded the piazza San Marco to sell their special
secrets are ample testimony to this.32What is less easy to under-
stand is why the medical marketplace should have been so pro-
pelled by novelty. Part of the answer must be simply greater com-
petition and the appearance on the scene of a wide variety of
medical providers. But that answer simply begs the question. Per-
haps more to the point was popular culture's growing skepticism
about traditional medicine. Whether in popular books and broad-
sides or in comic caricatures of learned doctors in the piazza, the
physician and his medicine came under sharp attack in early mod-
ern popular culture.33
Popular culture's skepticism about traditional medicine can be
explained, at least in part, by the failure of the great expectations
created by official medicine. During its long struggle to attain
autonomy, the regular physicians had made bold claims about
what "scientific"medicine could accomplish. These claims natu-
rally created high expectations on the part of the rest of society.
But those hopes were shattered by violent epidemics of new dis-
eases, first of all bubonic plague, and then a succession of out-
breaks, including influenza, typhus, and syphilis. Despite what sci-
entific medicine might have claimed about its ability to cure, hun-
dreds of thousands died.
One would think that such glaring failures would have made the
professional medical community more modest. But ironically, in-
stead of tempering its claims about what medicine could accom-
plish in the face of frightening new diseases, precisely the oppo-
site happened. The decades following the Black Death were the
decades of Golden Remedies. Elixirs, universal potions, and pana-
ceas of all kinds became an increasingly important part of the
physician's arsenal. The search for the philosopher's stone in
medicine reached an almost feverish pitch in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.mThe marketplace abounded in panaceas and

32 Eamon, Scienceand the Secretsof Nature,chap. 7; D. Gentilcore, Healersand

Healing in EarlyModernItaly (Manchester, 1998), chap. 4.
33 See Eamon, Scienceand the Secretsof Nature,chap. 7.
4 Ch. Crisciani and M. Pereira, "Black Death and Golden Remedies. Some
Remarkson Alchemy and the Plague,"in TheRegulationof Evil. Socialand Cultural
AttitudestoEpidemicsin theLateMiddleAges,ed. A. ParaviciniBagliani and F. Santi
(Sismel, 1998), 7-39. In addition, see M. Pereira, "MaterMedicinarum:English

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 205

wonder drugs. People were growing impatient with the elaborate

regimens prescribed by official medicine. They wanted a quick
dose for what ailed them.
Fioravanti's "new way" was tailor-made for this new medical
marketplace. The question that underlay his method was one for
which, he observed, everyone wanted an answer: Is it possible to
find a single remedy that will cure all diseases? Is the philosopher's
stone possible? Since Fioravanti's success depended upon his pana-
ceas, it is not surprising that he answered this question in the af-
firmative. In a chapter on the philosopher's stone in the Capricci
medicinali, he explained that all diseases arise from a single cause:
the "indisposition" of the stomach. Therefore, he concluded, all
diseases may be cured by driving out the "bad humors" that cor-
rupt the stomach. Medicines made with his pietrafilosofale, he con-
tinued, have the ability to attract bodily corruptions and expel
them. A powerful emetic distilled from Roman vitriol, mercury,
and other substances, the pietra filosofale was a key ingredient in
several of his drugs.35
Now, Fioravanti is not really claiming that he had discovered the
philosopher's stone, the one sought by the alchemical philoso-
phers since antiquity. His pietra filosofale was in fact one of the
patent names he gave his potions. He had made an important
discovery, all right; but it had little to do with alchemy. Instead, he
had discovered an elementary advertising secret: the use of appeal-
ing trade-names that captured the mood of the times.36 Yet
Fioravanti's theory of the origin of disease had serious theoretical
implications. Indeed, it amounted to the claim that the doctrine
of the four humors was the Great Lie of the physicians. For the
humoral doctrine enabled the physicians to sustain the orthodox

Physicians and the Alchemical Elixir in the Fifteenth Century," in Medicine from
the Black Death to the FrenchDisease, ed. R. French, J. Arrizabalaga, A. Cunningham,
and L. Garcia-Ballester (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 26-52.
5 Capricci medicinali, 87v-89.
36 Fioravanti's methods may be compared to those of a contemporary,
Tommaso Zefiriele Bovio (1521-1609), a Verona empiric who, like Fioravanti,
preferred strong vomits and purges, including his Hercules, to drive out "corrup-
tions" from the body. T. Zefiriele Bovio, Flagello contro dei Medici communi detti
Rationali, in Operedi Zefiriele Tomaso Bovio (Venice, 1626), 4, 52. On Bovio, see A.
Ingegno, "Il Medico de' disperati e abbandonati: Tommaso Zeffiriele Bovio
(1521-1609) tra Paracelso e l'alchimia del seicento," in Cultura populare e cultura
dotta nel seciento (Milan, 1985), 164-74; and A. Dal Fiume, "Un Medico astrologo
a Verona nel '500: Tommaso Zefiriele Bovio," Critica storia 20 (1983), 32-59.

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206 WILLIAMEAMON

view that proper treatment had to be based upon an understand-

ing of the subtle physiological differences among patients, the
kind of theoretical understanding available only to academically-
trained doctors. But if all illnesses stemmed from a single cause,
then all could be cured by a single universal medicine, regardless
of the patient's individual humoral complexion. It was a theory
that perfectly matched the marketplace's demand for fast and
cheap cures.
Another factor working in favor of Fioravanti's success was the
predominance of primitivist themes in Italian popular culture.
Fioravanti claimed to be a pure empiricist in the spirit of Akron of
Agrigento. He based his medical theory on the notion that the
animals know how to cure themselves by instinct, so that when they
are sick, they purge their stomachs with herbs they find in nature."3
To him this was proof that all diseases were caused by corruptions
of the stomach. He claimed that his therapeutical system was a
return to the "natural way" of healing, a methodology used by the
earliest physicians, who learned it from the animals, but lost be-
cause of the corrupting influence of medical theory.8 The topos
of moral decline from a Golden Age was a prominent motif in
Venetian thought and letters. The imaginary scenarios of ideal
societies fantasized by sixteenth-century Venetian writers were
immensely popular among middle class readers.39 In his critique
of medicine, Fioravanti appropriated these primitivist themes and
put them to work as a marketing device.
This is not to say that Fioravanti was insincere in his espousal of
alchemical methods and cures. He fervently believed not only in
making drugs alchemically, but also in the possibility of using al-
chemy to literally transmute sickness into health, just as it was
possible to transmute base metals into silver and gold. "The art of
alchemy can be done similarly on human bodies," he wrote, "with
the intention of transmuting one complexion into another, and of
fortifying and invigorating nature."40 Fioravanti's "alchemy of the

37L. Fioravanti,Dellafisica (Venice, 1582), 29-30.

38I discuss Fioravanti'smedical theories in W. Eamon, "'Withthe Rules of Life
and an Enema': Leonardo Fioravanti's Medical Primitivism,"in Renaissanceand
Revolution: Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen, and Natural Philosophers in Early Modern
Europe,ed. J. V. Field and F. A. J. L. James (Cambridge, 1993), 29-44.
9 H. Levin, The Myth of the Golden Age in the Renaissance (New York, 1972); P.
F. Grendler, Critics of the Italian World, 1530-1560 (Madison, 1969), 162-77
40 Capricci medicinali, 182v.

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 207

human body" was based on an analogy with the process for trans-
muting metals, following the six alchemical stages of preparation,
calcination, solution, congelation, fixation, and projection. Each
step required the use of one or more of Fioravanti's drugs to com-
plete the process. Thus in the first stage, preparatione, the body is
prepared to be transmuted "from a bad complexion into one of
good temperament" by using his soothing syrups. In the second
stage, calcinatione, the body is desiccated of superfluous humidity
with sudorific drugs. Then, because desiccation leaves the blood
"almost frozen in the veins," solutione applies various electuaries,
such as theriac or Fioravanti's balsamo artificiale, to dissolve the
blood and prepare it for congelatione. In this stage of human al-
chemy, rich food, confections, and quinta essenza are prescribed to
retain the humors that have been purified. This prepares the body
for fissatione, using Fioravanti's oil of vitriol composition, which
ensures that the process will remain fixed and "not go up in
smoke." Now the body is ready for the final stage, proiettione,which
"projects" the qualities of gold, silver, mercury, tin, copper, or lead
onto the body, depending on the type of disease being treated.41
There is no evidence that Fioravanti ever actually administered
this fantastic alchemical regimen to any of his patients. Indeed, it
is one of the few procedures for which he did not provide either
historical or testimonial evidence for its effectiveness. But whether
real, theoretical, or merely conjectural, such "caprices" were pre-
cisely the sort of novel techniques that Fioravanti vaunted as a way
of identifying himself with the "new alchemical medicine."42
By far the most important member of Fioravanti's Venice circle,
from the standpoint of alchemy, was Ettore Ausonio, a little known
but prolific natural philosopher from Milan. Ausonio exerted a
major influence upon Fioravanti. Although there is no record of
when the two met, it can be established that Fioravanti knew
Ausonio before 1567, when he published the Specchio di scienze
universale, where Fioravanti mentions the Milanese alchemist as
"un huomo rarissimo & dotissimo."43Prior to meeting Ausonio,
Fioravanti was a practical alchemist whose principal interest had
been in making new drugs through distillation. Ausonio intro-
duced him to the arcane doctrines of pseudo-Ramon Lull and

41 Ibid., 182-8v.

42 Ibid., 185v.
4 Specchio, 83v.

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208 WILLIAMEAMON

stimulated his interest in alchemical theory. A fervent follower of

pseudo-Lullian alchemy, Ausonio wrote numerous treatises and
compilations of the pseudo-Lull's alchemical works.
Practicallynothing is known about Ausonio. The only notices of
him that I have been able to find are in Michela Pereira's pioneer-
ing studies of the pseudo-Lullian alchemical tradition."4Ausonio's
relative obscurity is easy to understand. Although he was a prolific
author, he published nothing. His entire oeuvreconsists of scat-
tered works on mathematics, astrology, medicine, and alchemy
contained in several dozen codices preserved in the Biblioteca
Ambrosiana in Milan.45These manuscripts reveal a man of intense
energy and wide-ranging interests, a fervent and devoted compiler
of the works of others, but also one who had little discipline for
sticking with a work to its completion. A cosmographer, astrologer,
alchemist, and inventor of scientific instruments, Ausonio began
dozens of projects but completed few. None of his works were
carried through to the final stage of publication. And so he
bounced from project to project, starting each one with passion-
ate dedication and hurried impatience but just as quickly losing
interest in it, only to begin a new one.
But Fioravantipositively adored Ausonio. In the Specchiohe calls
the Milanese alchemist "un grandissimofilosofo e fisico."46In a dedi-
cation letter to Ausonio in his Cirugia (1570), Fioravanti praised
Ausonio as a physician "so expert in medicating, that you not only
heal the sick of their illnesses, but you almost raise the dead from
their sepulchers, with your divine and precious liquors."47Shifting
his interests from practical alchemy to an attempt to comprehend
the complex theory underlying the art, Fioravantibecame disciple
not only of Ausonio but (as he believed) of the Majorcan philoso-
pher Ramon Lull. If, up to this point, he had only discovered the
philosopher's stone as a trade name for one of his drugs, he now
became convinced that he was on the track of discovering the real
philosopher's stone.
It was presumably out of his devotion to the pseudo-Lullian al-

44 M. Pereira, TheAlchemical CorpusAttributedto RaymondLull, Warburg Institute

Surveysand Texts,ed. J. Krayeand W.F. Ryan, XVIII (London, 1989), 48-9.
45 The principal work is the Trattatosopral'artedell'alchimia,Milan, Biblioteca
Ambrosiana, Q 118 Sup. See the discussion in Pereira, TheAlchemicalCorpusAt-
tributedto RaymondLull, 48-9.
4 Specchio,b7v.
47 L. Fioravanti, Cirugia,a4.

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 209

chemical doctrine that in 1576 Fioravanti decided to travel to

Madrid and to the court of Philip II. In the 1570s, Philip's court
was a center of Lullist philosophical activity.48 Whether the king
saw Lull's doctrine as the key to universal knowledge, as a means
to converting the infidels, or as providing the key to the philoso-
pher's stone is unclear. What is known is that pseudo-Lullian works
formed a major part of the large collection of the king's alchemi-
cal treatises in the library of the Escorial.49 It is also known that
Philip himself engaged in the art. Although his confidence in the
transmutation of base into precious metals was shaken by the re-
sults of experiments conducted under his supervision in the 1560s,
he retained his faith in the medicinal possibilities of alchemy." As
early as the 1550s, he was hiring foreign alchemists to prepare
medicines by distillation. In 1579, he appointed a Neapolitan,
Giovanni Vincenzo Forte, to "prepare quintessences according to
the practice of Ramon Lull for the health of the human body."''51
In the 1580s, he had an elaborate alchemical laboratory built at
the Escorial to further these researches.
Presumably Fioravanti was one of the foreign alchemists invited
to Spain during this period. Having resided for seven years in Sic-
ily and Naples, he had longstanding contacts with the Spanish
nobility, and his works were well known in Spain. In 1550, he had
served as a military surgeon under the Spanish Viceroy of Sicily
during the siege of Africa. A British Library manuscript contain-
ing Fioravanti's affidavit defending himself against charges of
malpractice supports the possibility that Philip invited Fioravanti
to his court to advise him on alchemical matters. In the affidavit,
Fioravanti explicitly states that he had come to Spain at the king's
invitation to be an "advisor to the state" on matters concerning the
preparation of medicines.5'

48 D. C. Goodman, Power and Penury. Government, Technology and Science in

Philip II's Spain (Cambridge, 1988), 9-12.
4 F. J. Puerto Sarmiento and G. Folch Jou, "Los manuscritos alquimicos
seudolulianos conservados en la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid," Boletin de la
Sociedad Espaiiola de Historia de la Farmacia 30, no. 119 (1979), 227-42; R. Taylor,
"Architectureand Magic:Considerations on the Idea of the Escorial,"in Essaysin
the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower,ed. H. Hibbard and M. J.
Lewine (New York, 1969), 81-109.
50 For Philip's interests in alchemy, see F. Rodriguez Marin, FelipeII y la
alquimia (Madrid, 1927); J. Ruiz, "Los alquimistas de Felipe II," Historia 16 12
(1977), 49-55.
51 Quoted in Goodman, Power and Penury, 14.
52 BM Add MS 28,353: ff. 57-61 (1576): "y habiendo venido de Italia para

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210 WILLIAMEAMON

Additional information concerning Fioravanti's activities in

Spain can be gleaned from his last book, Della fisica, which he
completed after he returned to Italy and published in 1582. Not
surprisingly, he gathered around himself a circle of devoted alche-
mists at the royal court, as he had done elsewhere. The group
included Juan Cornejo, one of the hypochondriac king's legion of
court physicians, whom Fioravanti credits with having the secret of
the bezoar, and Agostin Bravo, "hombrediabolico,"who, because of
his familiarity with alchemical furnaces, supposedly knew more
about the inferno than the devils. And then there was Giovanni
Angelo di Santini of Bologna, the "alchimista terribilissimo"who
became one of Fioravanti's disciples.5s
Also present at Philip's court was an Italian aristocrat named
Lorenzo Granito, a native of Salerno, whom Fioravanti says was the
equal of Ramon Lull, Arnald of Villanova, and John of Rupescissa.
According to Fioravanti, Granito demonstrated for him how to
make the philosopher's stone, which would enable one to make
the finest twenty-two carat gold from any metal.54 Granito also
showed him an ancient manuscript containing a Spanish poem
that supposedly held the secret of the philosopher's stone.
Fioravanti reprinted the verses at the end of Della fisica. It is far
from clear whether he understood these obscure allegorical verses,
for he made no effort whatsoever to explicate them. Yet, he obvi-
ously left Spain profoundly impressed by what he saw in Philip's
court. He was equally appalled by the condition of Spanish medi-
cine: if Spain lagged behind the rest of Europe, he believed, it was
because its physicians were not listening to the alchemists.
Fioravanti disappears from the historical record not long after
returning to Italy in 1577. The exact date of his death is not
known, but nothing more is heard from him after the publication
of Della fisica in 1582. His traditional death date, 1588, has so far
not been documented from any contemporary source.
My narrative of Fioravanti's search for the philosopher's stone
permits a number of conclusions about alchemy in popular cul-
ture. First of all, it seems to me that there has been a rather un-
critical acceptance in modern historiography of the notion that

hacer la experiencia y haciendome el consejo de estabo y las confidencias y

disputados por su magestad mandado que habiesse la experiencia con los dichos
medicamentos y no hallandolos aqui ni sabiendolos hacer necesariamente."
5 Dellafisica, 296, 352, 362, 372.
54Ibid., 374.

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 211

engaging in alchemical research in early modern Europe auto-

matically equates with being a Paracelsian. Thus Fioravanti is
widely regarded as Italy's leading Paracelsian.55 The distinguised
Spanish historian of science Jose Maria L6pez-Pifiero attributes
Fioravanti with introducing Paracelsianism to Spain, while
Suzanne Butters speculates that it was in part through Fioravanti's
works that Cosimo d'Medici was introduced to Paracelsianism.56
But these attributions, it seems to me, are dubious. First of all,
there is little in Fioravanti's works that can be specifically identi-
fied as "Paracelsian," as opposed to being traceable to other stand-
ard works on medicinal chemistry. Although he mentions the
German medical reformer on a few occasions, he never actually
discusses his doctrines, and none of the references imply that he
was a disciple of Paracelsus. Indeed, none even suggest that he was
familiar with Paracelsian doctrine. Instead, he merely credits the
German alchemist, along with other moderns, with having made
certain important discoveries. Moreover, Paracelsus's works were
not widely available in Italian during Fioravanti's period. Finally,
and perhaps most importantly, there were other more probable
sources for Fioravanti's alchemical ideas. Foremost among them
were Arnald of Villanova, John of Rupescissa, the pseudo-Ramon
Lull, and above all Ettore Ausonio, all of whom receive far more
attention in Fioravanti's writings than Paracelsus.
If sixteenth-century Italian popular alchemy (as represented by
Fioravanti) was not Paracelsianism, what was it? First of all, as I
have tried to show in this paper, we should not discount the pos-
sibility that Fioravanti's medical system had as much to do with
fashion as with philosophy. In addition to being a practicing alche-
mist, Fioravanti was a popularizer. For him, the pursuit of the
philosopher's stone was not so much a search for truth in natural
philosophy, nor even of alchemical gold and the riches it prom-
ised. It was, instead, an appeal to the medical marketplace's de-
mand for novelty.
Fioravanti's biography also suggests that alchemy could be a

55 G. Zanier, "La medicina Paracelsiana in Italia: Aspetti di un'accoglienza

particolare," Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4 (1985), 627-53.
56J. M. L6pez Pifiero, "Quimica y medicina en la Espafia de los siglos XVI y
XVII: La influencia de Paracelso," Cuadernos de historia de la medicina Espafiola 11
(1972), 17-55; idem, "Paracelsus and His Work in 16th and 17th Century Spain,"
Clio Medica 8 (1973), 113-41; S. Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan: Sculptors' Tools,
Porphyry, and the Prince in Ducal Florence, 2 vols. (Florence: Olschki, 1996), 224-5.

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212 WILLIAMEAMON

mechanism for self-fashioning."7 An obscure empiric from Bolo-

gna, he took advantage of a medical marketplace that was in con-
stant flux to forge an identity as a new kind of healer, that of a
doctor without ties to the medical establishment but one whose
knowledge and experience placed him above ordinary empirics. In
the process, he made himself the subject of an alternative medical
movement that gained a considerable following.58 By presenting
himself to the public as an alchemical practitioner, he claimed
legitimacy as one of the "new men" of the times, a restless, mobile
"professor of secrets" who trumpeted his new discoveries in books
aimed an non-academic readers.59 And yet, although he champi-
oned a "new way of healing" that was radically different from the
"canonical way," he insisted that his method was in reality a return
to the most ancient medicine of all, that of the "first physicians."
His peculiar blending of alchemical medicine with primitivism
tapped into two streams of popular consciousness: its fascination
with novelty and its longing for the utopian "good old days."
Of course, there were limits to Fioravanti's self-fashioning. He
could not do just as he pleased. His ability to make himself over
and to create a new identity was, to some extent, constrained by
the very forces that he used to self-fashion. Thus even while vilify-
ing the medical establishment, he eventually joined it by obtain-
ing his medical degree from Bologna in 1568, when he was fifty
years old. Yet he always remained something of an outsider, never
a part of the academic establishment and too unconventional to
be embraced by it. Early modern people were by no means sover-
eign shapers of their identity; yet the example of Fioravanti sug-
gests that they were nonetheless able to work out strategies for self-
expression and autonomy.

SUMMARY

This article examines the alchemical ideas and practices of the sixteenth-
century Italian surgeon Leonardo Fioravanti. I argue that Fioravanti's

7 I have treated this theme in greater detail in W. Eamon, "El 'Nou Asclepi':
Leonardo Fioravantii les modes mediques al Renaixement," Afers.Fulls de recerca
i pensament31 (Valencia, 1998), 679-93.
58 The letters
from patients that Fioravanti published in book three of the
Tesorotestify to his following throughout Italy.
59 Cf.J. Becher in P. H. Smith, TheBusinessof Alchemy: Scienceand Culturein the
Holy RomanEmpire(Princeton, 1994), 10-11.

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 THE SEARCH FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 213

"search for the philosopher's stone" was as much an effort at self-fashion-

ing as a search for alchemical gold. Exploiting the fashion for alchemical
drugs, he framed a "new theory" of healing that relied on the use of dis-
tilled drugs as a means of purging bodily corruptions. His theory reso-
nated with popular culture, and made him the focus of an alternative
medical movement. I conclude that Fioravanti's alchemy was not not
Paracelsianism, but relied much more on more immediate sources such
as Arnald of Villanova, the pseudo-Lull, and the contemporary Milanese
alchemist Ettore Ausonio.

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