Laboratories of Art: Alchemy and Art Technology from Antiquity to the 18th Century PDF
Preview Laboratories of Art: Alchemy and Art Technology from Antiquity to the 18th Century
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 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2014 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionor informationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.Exemptedfromthislegalreservationarebriefexcerpts inconnectionwithreviewsorscholarlyanalysisormaterialsuppliedspecificallyforthepurposeofbeing enteredandexecutedonacomputersystem,forexclusiveusebythepurchaserofthework.Duplication ofthispublicationorpartsthereofispermittedonlyundertheprovisionsoftheCopyrightLawofthe Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer.PermissionsforusemaybeobtainedthroughRightsLinkattheCopyrightClearanceCenter. ViolationsareliabletoprosecutionundertherespectiveCopyrightLaw. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexempt fromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication,neithertheauthorsnortheeditorsnorthepublishercanacceptanylegalresponsibilityfor anyerrorsoromissionsthatmaybemade.Thepublishermakesnowarranty,expressorimplied,with respecttothematerialcontainedherein. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com) 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.”
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