Daughters of Alchemy

Meredith K. Ray

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780674425897
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del Renacimiento europeo

The era of the Scientific Revolution has long been epitomized by Galileo. Yet many women were at its vanguard, deeply invested in empirical culture. They experimented with medicine and practical alchemy at home, at court, and through collaborative networks of practitioners. In academies, salons, and correspondence, they debated cosmological discoveries; in their literary production, they used their knowledge of natural philosophy to argue for their intellectual equality to men.Meredith Ray restores the work of these women to our understanding of early modern scientific culture. Her study begins with Caterina Sforza's alchemical recipes; examines the sixteenth-century vogue for "books of secrets"; and looks at narratives of science in works by Moderata Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella. It concludes with Camilla Erculiani's letters on natural philosophy and, finally, Margherita Sarrocchi's defense of Galileo's "Medicean" stars.Combining literary and cultural analysis, Daughters of Alchemy contributes to the emerging scholarship on the variegated nature of scientific practice in the early modern era. Drawing on a range of under-studied material including new analyses of the Sarrocchi–Galileo correspondence and a previously unavailable manuscript of Sforza's Experimenti, Ray's book rethinks early modern science, properly reintroducing the integral and essential work of women.

1

Caterina Sforza’s Experiments with Alchemy

Talc is the star of the earth and has gleaming scales; it is found on the isle of Cyprus and its color is similar to citrine; in a mass it looks green, and dissolved in air it looks crystalline; and it has the following virtues, not to mention others not noted in this book, which will be the alchemist’s desire to discover: First, to make women beautiful and remove all spots or marks from the face, such that a woman of sixty will appear to be twenty.… Also … mixed with white wine, its powder will cure one who is poisoned; and he who drinks the powder in white wine will be protected that day from poison and all disease or plague.… Also … this water turns silver to gold, and makes false jewels perfect and fine.¹

In a manuscript titled Experimenti (Experiments), Caterina Sforza (1463–1509), regent of Forlì and Imola in Italy’s Romagna region, recorded this recipe for water of talc, a mineral-based solution produced through distillation and used by early modern alchemists for a variety of purposes. The recipe, which claims to restore youth, provide an antidote to poison and plague, and transform silver into gold, is the first of over four hundred prescriptions for medicinal remedies, cosmetics, and alchemical procedures compiled by Caterina Sforza over the course of her lifetime. The Experiments includes instructions for treating ailments ranging from fever, cough, and intestinal worms to sciatica, epilepsy, and cancer; creating lip colors, lotions, and hair dye; and—most valuable of all—producing the transmutatory philosopher’s stone and quintessence: the elixir thought to cure all illness, protect against disease, and prolong youth (perhaps indefinitely).² Many recipes accomplish several of these things at once.

The Experiments, which has been characterized as a “foundational text in the history of pharmacology,” not to mention that of alchemy, offers valuable insight into a little-studied aspect of this important Renaissance figure, the progenitrix of the Medici granducal dynasty.³ Admired by her contemporaries for her political leadership and fearlessness in battle and immortalized in sixteenth-century works including Machiavelli’s Discourses and The Prince, Caterina Sforza—like many noblewomen in early modern Europe—had a keen interest in scientific experiment.⁴ As her Experiments demonstrates, this interest was wide-ranging and incorporated the pursuit of both practical and esoteric knowledge, assembled from a variety of sources: learned texts and popular tradition, direct experience and the accounts of others. Letters attesting to the enduring business relationship between Caterina and her apothecary in Forlì, along with others addressed to her that provide or request assistance with alchemical, medicinal, and cosmetic recipes, confirm that Caterina actively collected the kinds of prescriptions contained in the Experiments and support the proposition that she was compiling this work up until her death in 1509.

Caterina’s compilation was passed down to her youngest son, the condottiere Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, father to the first Medici grand duke, Cosimo I. It therefore stands at the origins of what would be a long and profound engagement with alchemy and medicine on the part of the Medici family. From the first foundry established by Cosimo I in Palazzo Vecchio, to the Casino erected by his son, Francesco I, in San Marco, the Medici princes were well known for their interest in experiments. In addition to these laboratory spaces, the Medici were also responsible for installing the first botanical gardens at Florence and Pisa, which would have supplied primary ingredients for such activities.⁵ Suggesting a lineage of alchemical activity that stretched into the past as well as the future, Caterina’s manuscript contains a recipe for making counterfeit gold attributed to Cosimo the Elder (Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici).⁶ A medicinal secret for a potent antipyretic is also attributed to Cosimo.⁷

The example of Caterina Sforza offers an opportunity to explore some of the ways in which women—and men—engaged with scientific culture on the cusp of the Scientific Revolution, using it to take control of their physical health, enhance their appearance, and govern their households. Like the print tradition of “books of secrets” that flourished in the mid-sixteenth century, Caterina’s Experiments reflect the empirical character of early modern scientific culture: indeed, the very term “experiment” has a complex history that speaks to its position between direct experience, observation, and application.⁸ The collection also mirrors the fascination with secrets (valuable or unusual recipes relating to alchemy, medicine, cosmetics, perfumery, and metallurgy) that enthralled courts throughout early modern Europe, giving rise to a lively market for recipes transmitted via letters, manuscript collections, and printed works as well as by word of mouth.

The collection and circulation of practical secrets—that is, medical and alchemical knowledge turned to the needs and demands of daily life—was by the sixteenth century a common pastime for women as well as men.⁹ Italian archives brim with such compilations: the Fondo Magliabechiano in Florence alone contains dozens of such works.¹⁰ In these collections, recipes for beauty waters, oils, and lotions are often attributed to well-known noblewomen in order to spark the interest of female readers, in particular, and underscore their value and authenticity. A sixteenth-century Gallant Recipe-Book (Ricettario galante) credits distillations of roses and lemons to Elisabetta Gonzaga (1471–1526), duchess of Urbino, and alchemical recipes based on mercury and alum to Isabella d’Aragona (1470–1524), daughter of Alfonso II of Naples; while an anonymous Florentine manuscript of the same period describes a hand lotion made from pulverized bone and a delicate powder of roses said to originate with Ippolita Sforza of Calabria (1446–1484).¹¹ Echoing widely circulating medieval predecessors such as the gynecological texts of The Trotula, medicinal remedies included in such works typically address women’s complaints ranging from problems with menstruation to pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing, in addition to a host of ailments common to both men and women. The compilation of recipe books was widespread throughout Europe, as well as in England, where they flourished well into the seventeenth century, in both print and manuscript form. The cookery books that also proliferated in this period commonly included medicinal recipes, with food serving multiple purposes for health and beauty as well as sustenance.¹²

The collection of recipes was not a solely textual pursuit; on the contrary, it found expression in the quotidian practice of both women and men, and in a variety of intellectual contexts. Like men, women sought out medicinal, alchemical, and, especially, cosmetic “secrets,” experimenting with them in court spaces, where they could be used to establish status and reciprocity among aristocratic networks; and in domestic contexts, where they served the needs of the family and the household. Like Caterina Sforza, other early modern women associated with prominent courts collected and circulated secrets: Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589), regent of France, was known for her interest in cosmetics as well as alchemy and medicine (and, it was rumored, poisons); Marie de’ Medici (1575–1642), also a queen of France (and a direct descendant of Caterina), established her own alchemical laboratory in order to conduct experiments. Bianca Cappello (1548–1587), wife of Caterina’s great-grandson, Franceso I de’ Medici, likely participated with her husband in alchemical experiments. Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), marchioness of Mantua, produced her own perfumes to give as gifts.¹³

Although the collection of recipes was by no means confined to court culture, the pursuit and exchange of secrets found particularly fertile ground in court settings. This valuable knowledge functioned as a form of currency, a tool through which to establish social and intellectual position, and a means to cement networks of communication with like-minded collectors across boundaries of gender as well as geography. Daniel Jütte refers to an “entire economy of secrecy” that characterized European court culture in the early modern period.¹⁴ Courts were important sites for introducing new ideas and technologies, spurred by the same spirit of competition that galvanized courtiers in other areas of court life.¹⁵ Princes patronized scientists and alchemists who supplied novel and valuable ideas that could benefit or enhance their power. The courtly association with secrets was epitomized in later decades by figures such as Giambattista della Porta, whose explorations of the secrets of nature in works such as Magia naturalis (1589) were directed at the intellectual curiosity of the learned prince. William Eamon stresses the exchange value of secrets at court, noting, “Secrets, paradoxes, allegories, and other forms of privileged information, whose hidden meaning presented a challenge and promised to surprise and delight the discoverer, were among the most appropriate kinds of gifts a client could offer a patron.”¹⁶ Yet it was not only clients who engaged in the pursuit and exchange of such information. As the example of Caterina Sforza illustrates, signori—and indeed signore—were equally fascinated by experiments and also engaged in them directly. The Experiments demonstrates Sforza’s interest in new scientific technologies and techniques as a tool for shaping and maintaining political power (by producing alchemical gold, counterfeit coins, and even poisons and their antidotes); but also that her involvement with science had a personal and familiar component (sending and reciprocating gifts, tending to health and hygiene, managing the household). Along with her Experiments, Caterina’s correspondence with her apothecary in Forlì and other men and women with whom she exchanged recipes reveals the extent to which she was invested in what has been termed “court experimentalism”: that is, courtly enthusiasm for experimental knowledge including alchemy, medicine, and the production of cosmetics.¹⁷ Caterina’s example amply reflects the complex contours of knowledge and practice in early modern scientific culture, in which medicine and alchemy were deeply intertwined (while cosmetics, produced through alchemical processes, had medicinal—and sometimes moral—effects). Her pursuit of secrets blurs lines not just between alchemy and medicine, but also between domestic and commercial, private and public, male and female. Turned to both political and personal purpose, Caterina’s recipes are amassed from an amalgam of learned and popular sources; and from men and women of varying social status, including kings, noblewomen, courtiers, nuns, and Jews.¹⁸ After looking closely at Caterina’s volume of Experiments and what it can tell us about the fluid arenas in which women engaged with science and medicine as well as the material conditions in which such experiments were undertaken, this chapter will then consider Caterina’s participation in networks of scientific knowledge beyond the pages of her compilation. In doing so, it examines her interactions with practitioners of alchemy and medicine in other Renaissance courts as well as in other contexts—particularly the convent, which played a key role in the development and commercialization of pharmaceutical medicine in sixteenth-century Italy. It also considers the political and financial implications of Caterina’s collection of secrets and the importance of her legacy with respect to the scientific pursuits of her Medici descendants.

Caterina at Court

The natural daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Lucrezia Landriani, Caterina was raised and educated in her father’s household in Milan. Like most aristocratic women, she likely received some form of humanist education similar to that of her brothers. Caterina had a close relationship with her father’s second wife, Bona Maria di Savoia, who arrived at the Sforza court in 1468. Bona’s apothecary, Cristoforo de Brugora, kept a medicinal garden, and it has been suggested that it was through Bona and her apothecary that Caterina was first introduced to the world of botanical pharmaceuticals she would later explore in her experiments.¹⁹ After her first marriage, Caterina designed medicinal gardens of her own in Imola and Forlì, likely used for the cultivation of simples, the basic botanical ingredients employed to make medicines and cosmetics. A half-century later, Caterina’s grandson Cosimo I would establish Europe’s first public botanical garden in Pisa, as well as the Giardino de’ semplici in Florence, both designed by Luca Ghini.²⁰

In 1473 Caterina was married to Girolamo Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, as part of a papal plan to regain control of the Romagna, now under Sforza authority.²¹ At age fourteen, she left Milan to celebrate her wedding and join her husband in Rome. There she participated in the city’s lively court culture for several years, until civil u...