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Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire

2015; Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science; Volume: 5; Linguagem: Inglês

10.33137/aestimatio.v5i0.25876

1549-4497

Bruce T. Moran, John Young,

History of Science and Natural History

Andreas Libavius (or Liebau, ca 1550--1616) was an enormously learned, prolific and, in his day, respected writer whose supposedly pivotal role in the history of chymistry has been asserted a good deal more often than it has been analyzed. 1Having studied philosophy, history, and medicine at Wittenberg and Jena, Libavius became a city physician and school inspector at Rotenburg ob der Tauber for a time, and gained something of a reputation for his Latin poetry.Most of his career, however, was spent as teacher or headmaster at assorted secondary schools, inculcating logic and rhetoric into teenage boys.The interests that he pursued in his spare time were encyclopedic, encompassing theology, philosophy, literature, logic, and medicine; but his primary concern and the subject of by far the greatest number of his published works-works dryly described by Hugh Trevor-Roper as being 'of Teutonic length, depth and weight ' [2006, 86]-was the tantalizingly ill-defined topic that Libavius himself generally referred to as 'alchemy'.Progressivist historians of the last century routinely cited Libavius as one of the first to distinguish, or at least to begin to distinguish, between superstitious, fanciful 'alchemy' and rational, experimental 'chemistry'. 2It is now, however, becoming increasingly accepted that Newman and Principe [2001] argue persuasively for the resurrection of the 1 early modern term 'chymistry' to refer to any study of the nature of matter in that the period, without distinguishing anachronistically between 'chemistry' and 'alchemy'.See for instance the key role ascribed to Libavius in chapter 13, 'From 2 Alchemy to Chemistry', of Taylor 1949, and the remarks of Buntz 1970, 194.I do not mean to denigrate either author, merely to illustrate the intellectual climate of the time.sus' reputation between the late 19th and mid-20th century.'Spagyria' is a term, possibly coined by Paracelsus himself, meaning (debat-