Ambix

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Alchemy and the Society of Jesus in the

Seventeenth Century: Strange Bedfellows?

Martha Baldwin

To cite this article: Martha Baldwin (1993) Alchemy and the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth
Century: Strange Bedfellows?, Ambix, 40:2, 41-64, DOI: 10.1179/amb.1993.40.2.41

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AMBIX,Vol. 40, Part 2, July 1993

ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS?

By MARTHABALDWIN*

THROUGHOUTthe seventeenth century, the newly formed Society of Jesus provided

instruction to thousands of Roman Catholic youths who attended its colleges and gymnasia.
Some of the most famous Roman Catholic natural philosophers of the century-including
Galileo, Descartes, and Mersenne-received their formal training in mathematics and
natural philosophy by attending Jesuit schools. While the Jesuit educational curriculum
was highly regarded throughout Catholic Europe, its tight control left no place for the
study of alchemy and the occult sciences.l But although such subjects were clearly excluded
from the Jesuit curriculum in the seventeenth century, learned members of the Society who
served as professors in the Jesuit colleges enjoyed considerable freedom outside their
classrooms to engage in a wide range of experimental investigations, including alchemical
ones. The attitude of Jesuit natural philosophers towards the occult sciences is an area in
need of scholarly investigation. This paper will probe the alchemical activities and interests
of a few seventeenth-century Jesuits and assess the influence that their membership in the
Society of Jesus exercised over their experimentation and on their scholarly studies, of
alchemy.
In examining the record of printed seventeenth-century Jesuit alchemical writings, it is
important to remember that the Jesuit hierarchy strongly supported the private intellectual
pursuits of its learned members and encouraged them to publish their work in printed books
in the belief that books served to advertise the intellectual talents of the Society's members
and to enhance its reputation as a whole.2 Hundreds of books were published by Jesuits
during the century on a wide range of subjects: theology, rhetoric, sacred and secular
history, grammar, metaphysics, ancient philosophy, optics, astronomy, hydraulics,
mechanics, mathematics, and acoustics. In comparison, the Jesuit production of books
relating to alchemy was quite small.3 Despite enjoying a liberty to engage in the practice and
study of alchemy, very few Jesuits chose to do so.
Significantly, those few Jesuits who felt attracted to alchemical studies evinced a
profound sense of ambivalence towards their alchemical projects. Those who wrote on the
subject characteristically did not publish books devoted exclusively to alchemy, nor did they
use titles suggestive of alchemical subject matter; rather they typically inserted their writings
on the subject in larger texts. Thus, when Athanasius Kircher, a GermanJesuit, published a
diatribe on alchemy, he placed it within his bulky two-volume Mundus Subterraneus (1665)
where he also discussed vulcanology, ocean currents, hydraulics, geology, metallurgy, and
toxicology. Similarly, the Italian Jesuit, Francesco Lana Terzi, included his recipes for the
philosopher's stone, palingenesis, and a universal medicament in books where he also
described his own inventions for airships, thermometers, perpetual motion machines, and
binoculars.4 Hoping to present their alchemical studies as part of much broader works on
natural philosophy suggests that these Jesuits seemed acutely uncomfortable with being

* Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Science Center 235, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 U.S.A.
 MARTHA BALDWIN

known as alchemists. Each of the Jesuit writers examined in this paper took care to
distinguish his own interest in alchemical projects from those of the greed-driven alchemist
willing to sell his soul to the devil and to compromise his eternal salvation in his lust for
dangerous knowledge.

SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

By the dawn of the seventeenth century, the Society ofJesus, though merely sixty years old,
had already procured a secure place for itself in the educational world of Roman Catholic
Europe. Throughout the century the Society continued to establish hundreds of new colleges
and gymnasia in lands controlled by Roman Catholic monarchs and senates. The rapid
growth of its schools and the corresponding expansion of its membership owed much to the
Society's efficient, centralized bureaucratic structure. By strong commitment to an
educational philosophy set forth by its founder, Ignatius of Loyola, and his early followers,
the Society was able to provide a carefully planned and remarkably uniform program of
studies for its widely dispersed colleges.
The Jesuit curriculum provided its students with a structured and uniform series of
courses in mathematics and natural philosophy. The Constitutiones of 1556 and the Ratio
Studio rum of 1599, the formative documents of the Society, set forth the order and method of
study which all professors were to follow in their courses of natural philosophy and
mathematics.5 It was the pedagogical mandate of the Society that Aristotle serve as the basic
text in all study of natural philosophy. Since alchemy and the occult sciences had no
substantive place in the Aristotelian canon, they received no attention in the founding
constitution or the formal educational agenda of the Society. Furthermore, throughout the
seventeenth century occasional Decrees of the Congregation reaffirmed the curriculum set
forth in the late sixteenth century and insisted that it undergo no major modifications.
Several historians of science are currently engaged in examining and analyzing the
contributions Jesuits have made to the development of early modern science.6 Peter Dear
has drawn attention to the high intellectual status which the Society accorded to the study of
mathematics and to the growing experimental tradition in optics, mechanics, and
astronomy. Rivka Feldhay has examined how theological issues impinged on Jesuit scientific
production, while William Wallace has studied the tenacity of the Aristotelian tradition in
the Jesuit curriculum. Steven J. Harris' quantitative study has documented the extent of
publication of scientific books from the Society's inception in 1540 to its suppression in the
eighteenth century. Most books produced by teachers in the Jesuit colleges were intended to
serve the needs oftheJesuit schools throughout Catholic Europe. Prefaces and letters to the
reader in many Jesuit books of natural philosophy and mathematics make it clear that their
authors wrote in order to produce useful textbooks. Since chemistry and alchemy fell outside
the traditional, highly structured Jesuit curriculum, this important incentive for book
production was clearly missing in Jesuit books relating to alchemy.
Another factor which undoubtedly inhibited the flourishing of an alchemical tradition
within the Society was its prohibition of medical studies. At the inception of the Society,
Ignatius of Loyola and his advisers decided that brothers in the Society would not compete
with the established faculties of law or medicine.7 While Jesuit missionaries in the New
World and in Asia did practice physic on their own brothers, and did report on indigenous
medical customs, theories, and materia medica, learned Jesuits living in Europe generally
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 43

obeyed the early prohibition and did not pursue medical training or practice. As a
consequence, jesuits were excluded from the one professional group in Western Europe who
were most interested in pursuing alchemical studies for their medical and pharmaceutical
applications.

ALCHEMICAL ACTIVITIES IN THE SOCIETY

Although alchemy never flourished in the Society, there is printed evidence of some early
alchenlical activity and of a tolerance of it on the part of the jesuit hierarchy, usually
theologians, who supervised the activities and publications of its learned natural
philosophers.8

Martin Del Rio (1551-1608)

Historians have frequently pointed to the Belgian jesuit, Martin Del Rio, as a primary
exponent of the Counter-Reformation Church's effort to condemn and restrict practices of
natural magic in Catholic Europe.9 Such a reading of Del Rio is based on his remarkably
popular Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex of 1599,10 where he examined the occult sciences
and gave confessors advice on recognizing certain forms of magical practice which ran afoul
of theological orthodoxy. His primary purpose in writing the book was to elaborate sound
legal and theological procedures by which confessors and inquisitors might deal with those
accused of witchcraft.
Despite the modern tendency to see natural magic and alchemy as closely related
enterprises, a closer examination of Del Rio's Disquisitionum reveals that the author made
clear distinctions between the two studies. Moreover, Del Rio held a far more accepting
attitude towards alchemy than has generally been acknowledged. While falling short of
giving alchemy a ringing endorsement, Del Rio carefully addressed and refuted, point by
point, the objections of its numerous detractors. Briefly passing over the medicinal
applications of the 'pyrotechnic or fiery art ... the purifying art of metals' which he
wholeheartedly supported as 'the most outstanding child of physiology,'l1 he chose
instead to scrutinize chrysopoeic alchemy. Not going so far as to state outright that
alchemists throughout history had been able to transmute base metals into gold, Del Rio
took the more cautious stance of arguing that it was far more reasonable to believe that the
alchemical art could produce this gold than to deny categorically the possibility of metallic
transmu tation.
With great clarity and persuasiveness Del Rio argued on behalf of the well-known
principle that human art and laboratory processes can speed up natural processes of
ripening metals. He also employed the familiar argument deeming the alchemical treatment
of base metals as analogous to the artificial incubation of a chicken's egg or to the
spontaneous generation of insects from rotting vegetable matter. While he recognized the
birth of imperfect animals as a natural product of putrefaction, he also cautioned that the
creation of some animate things might proceed not from the manipulation of natural
processes but from the aid of the devil. Despite this recognition that demonic energies could
be present in chrysopoeic transmutations, he maintained that alchemical transmutations
need not necessarily imply the presence of demonic agents. In his words, a human could arrive
at his knowledge of the transmutation process 'either with the devil as teacher or through
44 MARTHA BALDWIN

human industry and zeal.,12 In his scrutiny of available accounts claiming successful
chrysopoeic experiments, including those allegedly performed by Arnold Villanova,
Raymond Lull, and Bernard Trevisano, Del Rio concluded that such claims were truthful
and worthy of belief. While he warned on the issue of how old the knowledge of transmuting
base metals into gold might be, essentially he accepted its Egyptian origin in Antiquity and
denied its invention by Arabs in the Middle Ages.
When Del Rio considered the important question of whether chrysopoeia should be
deemed licit or illicit, he first stated some reservations, but ultimately argued decidedly in
favor of its legal status. He was not unaware that many men had lost everything in pursuit of
the philosopher's gold, and he included tales of avaricious men who had entrusted witlessly
their worldly goods to deceptive practitioners of the art. He endorsed the state's use of
authority to prohibit most citizens from engaging in alchemical experiments. He also held
the state justified in proscribing the use of chemically-produced gold in commerce and in
medicine: in commerce because it did not have the same weight as regular gold, in medicine
because it contained some noxious qualities deriving from the mercury used in the
alchemical process of its elaboration.
In keeping with many writers of his day, Del Rio detailed the unfortunate consequences
for the individual's soul, and for the social order, when alchemical procedures fell into the
hands of the wrong kind of men. Driven to desperation by the difficulty of their alchemical
experiments, alchemists too commonly invoked the aid of the devil and expressly offered
sacrifices to him. Such desperation not only led to the perdition of the alchemist's soul, but
also jeopardized the security and well-being of the state, for it was common knowledge that
'. . . whenever alchemy has flourished among many men, then also sorcery and 'witchcraft
have flourished as well.' 13Furthermore, Del Rio regarded with alarm those alchemists who
used Sacred Scripture in their art. He regarded as blasphemous some alchemists' viewing
Holy Writ as an alchemical text to decode and other alchemists' hiding their chemical
secrets under the cloak of Biblical stories or images.
Del Rio thus believed, as did most of his contemporaries, that the civil and religious
authorities should permit only men of particular moral temperaments to undertake
alchemical investigation: those who were humble, just, pious, and God-fearing. Del Rio
also attempted to define certain economic and social categories of men for whom
alchemy should be prohibited. In particular, he singled out the poor who only further
impoverished themselves by the art, failed to provide their families with basic necessities of
life, and forced their wives and daughters into prostitution. But while the king or governor
had every right to limit, under penalty of death, those permitted to practice alchemy, Del Rio
argued, ' ... it is obvious that this art is licit for rich men.,14 Those who would have license
to practice alchemy must be pious enough to abstain from offending God, wealthy enough
not to imperil their wives and children, and learned enough to engage in the abstruse
subject.
One need not be utterly cynical to recognize that Del Rio and his fellow Jesuits in all
probability would have deemed themselves to meet all three of these requirements.
Membership in the Society provided prima facie evidence of religious piety; p.aving pledged
themselves to a life of celibacy and poverty, they could not endanger the economic well-being
of their wives and offspring; and as students and teachers in the finest educational system in
Catholic Europe, they were by all accounts learned. If Del Rio's book countenanced legal
constraints on the practice of alchemy under certain conditions, it by no means put a blanket
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 45

disapproval on all alchemical projects and certainly not on those which might have engaged
Jesuit professors.

Fran~ois Aguilon (I566-I6I7)

It is not insignificant that the earliest evidence I have uncovered ofJesuit involvement with
alchemical projects in the seventeenth century comes from a student in the very Jesuit
college at Liege where Del Rio taught. In a manuscript written about 1624, Johannes
Baptista van Helmont made specific references to alchemical activities being pursued within
the college.I5 Van Helmont's remarks about the Jesuit alchemical activity were colored by
his purpose in writing his text-namely to defend himself against charges of heresy leveled
by another Jesuit, Jean Roberti.I6 Protesting against Roberti's accusation that he had
passed the bounds of theological orthodoxy by attempting forbidden gold-making, van
Helmont retorted that Jesuits themselves were engaged in gold-making experiments and
that he had personally witnessed such activities under the supervision of aJesuit, Fran<;ois
Aguilon at Antwerp in 1596.17
Van Helmont described Aguilon's interest in chrysopoeia with detail sufficient to
warrant credibility. According to van Helmont, Aguilon had enlisted the aid of an artisan
goldsmith in order to learn certain manual operations required for transmutation, and had
frequently invited van Helmont and Johannes Rubens to witness the experiments. Van
Helmont charged that Aguilon had directed repeated experiments attempting the
transmutation of gold from various forms of silver and in his experiments had used glass
vessels imprinted with the yellow seal of the Society ofJesus. The existence of such chemical
vessels caused van Helmont to conclude that' ... there was every suspicion that [the
experiments] had not happened without the approval of the Uesuit] superiors.,IB Dispirited
and embarrassed by his lack of success and by the expense of the experiments, Aguilon
ultimately abandoned alchemy. But before turning his attention to the more respectable
field of optics, he spent considerable time chemically adulterating gems, which, according to
van Helmont, the Society was selling to churches throughout Italy for use in the decoration
of reliquaries.
Van Helmont pronounced that Aguilon had become only a pseudochemist after his
training by an alchemical tyro, and he held him responsible for the fate of the hapless
artisan. Aguilon had finally fired the artisan who, as a consequence, lost his workshop, was
forced to earn his livelihood as a soldier and to abandon his wife and children. But, van
Helmont charged, the unconscionable Aguilon, protected by the comfortable institutional
trappings of the wealthy Society, had suffered no ill consequences from his alchemical
pursuits and had gone on to publish a respected volume on optics.I9
Historians need not take van Helmont's remarks on the Jesuits at face value, for he made
them in response to the attacks of another Jesuit, Jean Roberti who had impugned his
character as well as one of his famous medical cures, the weapon salve. Hence van Helmont's
hostility to the Society ran far deeper than this issue of Aguilon's shabby treatment of an
alchemical artisan. Van Helmont faced charges by the Inquisition of commerce with the
devil, and in self-defense counterclaimed that the Jesuits conveniently 'damned with the title
of heresy and censured with the crime of black magic anything which they cared to
contradict.,2o While not wanting to accept van Helmont's remarks uncritically, the historian
is struck that his remarks about the alchemical experiments carried on at the Jesuit College
 MARTHA BALDWIN

at Antwerp appear reasonable. Moreover, these charges were never refuted by those
ecclesiastics involved in his 1634 trial before the Inquisition.21

Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680)

While the written evidence for Jesuit interest in alchemical projects remains scarce for the
first quarter of the seventeenth century, there is greater evidence of renewed and intensified
interest in alchemy among Jesuits living in Italy in the second half of the century. The
published work of Athanasius Kircher22 reveals an active group of learned men pursuing
alchemical projects in the laboratory of the Jesuit Collegio Romano. Working with Kircher
in Rome was another Jesuit, Gaspar Schott, who later transported his interest to Germany
when his superiors reassigned him. A prolific writer, Schott made frequent references to
alchemical projects, both his own and those of his correspondents. Finally in the third
quarter of the century, alchemy engaged the interest of Francesco Lana Terzi who taught at
the Jesuit college in his native town of Brescia.
Long before he addressed the state of contemporary alchemical knowledge in 1665,
Kircher had published an enormous four-volume encyclopedia summarizing all that was
known to the ancient Egyptians. Entitled the Oedipus Aegyptiacus, the work had taken twenty
years to compose and appeared between 1652 and 1656. Here Kircher first gave serious
attention to the subject of alchemy. Like mathematics, music, and medicine, alchemy was,
he believed, raised to a highly sophisticated level by the ancient Egyptians. The esteem
which the Egyptian kings had attached to alchemical knowledge led them to forbid anyone
other than the priestly class from concerning themselves with it. Kircher further maintained
that the ancient Egyptians had wisely chosen to hide their alchemical knowledge from the
vulgar by encoding it in hieroglyphic writing. Kircher even went so far as to claim that the
ancient Egyptians had inscribed the chemical vessels used in their operations with such
hieroglyphs.
Although he denied that the Egyptians had possessed knowledge of the philosopher's
stone or an easy method for transmuting base metals into gold, Kircher asserted without
reservation that the staggering wealth of the ancient Egyptian civilization had rested on
alchemical knowledge. Although the Egyptians had never known the secret of trans-
mutation, they were highly skilled in those alchemical processes of metallic distillation,
sublimation, and resolution which allowed them to extract gold particles from the mud of the
Nile River. The ancient Egyptians had also used these same techniques with great success to
extract gold contained in rocks which were cut, mined, pulverized, purged, and refined by
skilled alchemists directing enormous numbers of slaves.
Kircher based his work on Egyptian alchemy on his examination of a wide array of
Egyptian papyri, obelisks, scarabs and amulets owned by the Vatican and by other scholars
in Rome. He also had access to the published and manuscript writings of a broad range of
medieval Christian and Arabic alchemical commentaries which Pope Innocent X had made
available to him. These included the works of Geber, Haled, Hermes Trismegistus, Abn
Amil, Artephius, Raymond Lull, Hamuelide Sadid, and Balsan the Arab. He demonstrated
further familiarity with Renaissance European alchemists and cited the work of Michael
Maier, Pierre Jean Fabre, Bernard Caneseus, Wilhelm Baroldonus, Marsilio Ficino, and
Agrippa von Nettesheim.23
If Kircher's knowledge of Egyptian alchemy stemmed exclusively from historical and
literary studies, this was decidedly not the case when he later examined contemporary
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 47

alchemical knowledge in his work of 1665 entitled Mundus Subterraneus. In this wide-
ranging work covering all knowledge derived from any product of the underground
world of the earth, Kircher addressed such alchemically related matters as gold-making,
distillation, pharmacy, poisons, mining, assaying, metallurgy, and fireworks. Kircher again
demonstrated familiarity with ancient and modern literature on these subjects, but here
he also included precise accounts of chemical experiments which he, together with his
assistants, had performed using the chemical apparatus of the Collegio Romano.24 (See
Figure I.)
In justifying his own interest in alchemy, Kircher divided the art into three parts:
metallurgical alchemy, transmutatory alchemy and spagyric or analytic alchemy. Shunning
transmutatory alchemy as the lure of the devil, Kircher argued that metallurgical alchemy,
or the art of preparing, washing, cooking, dissolving, coagulating, and separating metals was
a noble art, cherished in all centuries and all cultures. He used his Jesuit contacts in the
mining districts of Hungary to offer reports on state-of-the-art metallurgical practices.25
Similarly, he viewed spagyric alchemy as an honorable and praiseworthy part of medicine,
for here alchemists extracted and distilled the oils, salts, spirits, and quintessences of mineral
and plant matter for medicinal purposes. As his contribution to this branch of alchemy,
Kircher compiled tables of medicinal plants and minerals and produced many recipies for
pharmaceutical preparations which required spagyric preparation.26
Kircher endorsed the well-known alchemical notion that it was the technician's task to
imitate nature. The alchemist attempting in his laboratory to purify precious metals from
common minerals would do best to study and mimic the natural genesis of metals in the
earth. Kircher maintained that the geocosmos was the archetype of alchemical transforma-
tion and that careful observation of geological processes could teach alchemists the
perfection of their art. Hence by imitating the natural subterranean processes of heating,
evaporating, calcining, coagulating, hardening and fixating, the artist could aspire to create
quickly the very metals which nature produced slowly over the centuries. Yet Kircher
cautioned that since man could not penetrate into the deep viscera of the earth, his
knowledge of natural processes and proportions in creating minerals and metals was
necessarily speculative and difficult to attain.
In keeping with alchemical tradition, Kircher proclaimed that the alchemist's
experimental apparatus should follow closely those of natural subterranean structures. (See
Figure 2.) He claimed that his furnaces, alembics, retorts, curcurbits and circulatory vessels
merely copied the shapes and functions of the fiery chambers, caverns, metallic veins, and
rivers of the underground world. For Kircher this analogy between the alchemist's workshop
and the subterranean fiery chambers was not merely literary: he had ascended Mount Etna
in 1637 and had had himself lowered down inside its crater by a rope contraption winched by
paid servants. A few days later he witnessed the volcanic eruption from fifty miles away. He
was strongly impressed by the volcano's heat and flames, its smoke, and stench. He likened
the volcano's heat to that of the alchemist's furnace, its smoke to that of his alchemical
decoctions, and its stench to the sulphurous and bituminous fumes which he inhaled in his
laboratory.27 Later in his life Kircher inspected numerous springs, rivers, and frigid
mountain caverns where he believed natural distillations and resolutions took place,just like
those in his laboratory's retorts and chemical vessels. He speculated that Nature had created
different metals in the deep earth out of a common material whose quintessential substance
was saline. He also believed that waters and vapors of a mercurial-sulphuric mixture were
 MARTHA BALDWIN

Fig. I. Examples of alchemical equipment from Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, 2 vols (Amsterdam,
1665), vol. 2, opposite p. 390; reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 49

Fig. 2. Kircher's vision of the bowels of the earth from Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, 2 vols
(Amsterdam, 1665), vol. 2, p. 256; reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Kircher's descent into Etna in 1637 left a strong impression on his later alchemical studies. He likened the
alchemical furnace to the underground chambers of the geocosm. The central heat source of the earth
simultaneously concocted many different mineral waters-saline, nitrous, aluminous, and vitriolated ones-to
produce various mineral substances such as naphtha, bitumen and petroleum.

plentiful in the earth's interior. When these joined with the undifferentiated saline matter,
endured fiery subterranean heat, and moved through canals, he surmised that they
transformed themselves into diverse metals according to the varying heat working on the
saline substance. Thus Kircher claimed the techniques of alchemy could be properly
considered geocosmos applicatum.28
With pride Kircher illustrated and described the vessels and furnaces that he used in his
own alchemical experiments at the Collegio Romano. (See Figure 3.) Calling attention to his
hands-on participation, Kircher made it clear that he was no distant supervisor of
experiments. He claimed to have endured staining his hands with carbons and coals,
singeing his beard repeatedly with glowing embers, and filling his lungs with noxious
mineral fumes.29 Indeed Kircher claimed that he had verified all of his book's recipes for
spagyrically-produced metallic medicines in the laboratory of the Collegio Romano where
he lacked nothing for accomplishing chemical experiments of any kind. And when he called
into question the formulae of other alchemists, he claimed he could do so with full confidence
because these had failed his own empirical tests.
Moreover, Kircher boasted that because of his seniority and reputation within the
Society of Jesus, he had at his beck and call numerous skilled chemical assistants
(manipulatores) including Italians, Frenchmen, Germans and Poles. This provides clear
evidence that the alchemical laboratory in the Jesuit college at Rome was not the preserve of
a lonely adept enshrouded in secrecy, but was a large, co-ordinated workplace. As director of
experiments, Kirchner proclaimed' ... it was my prerogative to order and prescribe their
method; theirs to execute my orders. And just as it is unbecoming for physicians to make
compositions of medicaments, to open a vein, or insert a syringe, since this is the proper role
of the pharmacist or surgeon; just as an architect does not prepare cement or polish marble,
 MARTHA BALDWIN
5°

Fig. 3. The alchemical furnace which belonged to the Jesuit College in Rome from Athanasius Kircher, Mundus
Subterraneous, 2 vols (Amsterdam, 1665), vol. 2, opposite p. 392; reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University. Kircher was quite proud of this furnace. His accompanying description indicated that the
experimenter could fill individual alembics with herbs or metallic materials and thus subject many different
substances to heat at the same time. Operations requiring lower temperatures were placed in the lowest alembics,
while at the same time, those requiring the highest temperatures would be placed in the uppermost alembics.
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

but entrusts such things to be done by others, ... ,30 so too did the master alchemist Kircher
direct many of the manipulations to be performed by his trained workmen.
Further testimony of Kircher's active involvement in alchemical projects is seen in his
list of procedural canons, or safety measures, which he had devised for all who took part in
his chemical experiments. He also suggested to his reader that his canons were worthy of
imitation by anyone attempting chemical experiments. First, he urged that chemical vessels
be fabricated from glass, since metallic vessels could upset the quality or temperament of the
liquids contained in them. He insisted that, when spirituous materials were distilled, the
chemist use glass vessels of at least two cubits length so that volatile parts could be more
completely carried off; he emphasized that vessels containing fluids which would be
subjected to heat should never be filled to capacity and he elaborated guidelines relating to
maximum volumes for filling vessels of particular shapes. He also suggested additives such
as sand or pumice for solutions prone to 'flatulence and dislocation of parts' and evinced a
first-hand knowledge of the dangers of chemical explosions. He further emphasized the
importance of completely sealing chemical vessels which were to be placed in furnaces. His
list of materials appropriate for strong sealants again revealed practical laboratory
experience: he suggested egg-white mixed with sand, glass shards mixed with the gluten of
mushrooms, olive oil and linseed oi1.31
Kircher evinced even further direct involvement with alchemical apparatus when he
proudly described and illustrated a chemical furnace he claimed to have invented. Using a
magnifying glass to focus the sun's rays with a concave mirror, the apparatus employed heat
resulting from this concentrated light to dissolve and calcine metals held in a glass flask
placed next to the magnifying glass. Kircher had specially designed the mirror to be
mounted on a movable metal track so that his assistants could easily adjust it to follow the
motion of the sun in the course of a day.32 (See Figure 4.)
While Kircher never practiced medicine, he was deeply interested in the spagyrical
preparation of plants and minerals and their use as medicaments. In his volume he produced
long charts showing various vegetative species whose botanical parts (flower, fruit, seed,
root, bark, wood, gums, resins) could by treated by particular chemical procedures
(decoction, infusion, reduction to salt, resolution, distillation, purgation, extraction) to
produce efficacious medicines for particular bodily ailments. While neither the charts nor
the chemical treatments of the plant substances were novel, Kircher's meticulous
classificatory scheme and painstaking attention to all the various spagyric treatments
suggest the depth of his conviction that the search for certain types of alchemical knowledge
promoted the good of mankind.
Kircher never went so far as to endorse belief in the existence of potable gold, or a
universal medicament which could be produced by the spagyric art to cure all diseases and
to prolong greatly man's natural life span. He neither leapt to defend the universal panacea,
nor did he simply state that the subject was as controversial as the philosopher's stone.
Instead, he gave verbatim recipes by the best alchemists for the panacea-Andreas Libavius,
Alexander of Piedmont, Gerard Dorn, Leo Suavius, Andreas Blavius,and Paracelsus-and
honestly admitted with regret that his own efforts to replicate their prescriptions had failed.
While Kircher flatly denied the possibility of transmuting base metals into gold, his
attitude towards lower types of metallic transmutations, such as iron into copper, was far
more positive. Kircher insisted that a genuine transmutation involved the whole and perfect
mutation of one substance into another thereby producing a total change of form as well as
 MARTHA BALDWIN

Fig. 4. Kircher claimed to have invented this alchemical furnace, from Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, 2
vols (Amsterdam, 1665), vol. 2, opposite p. 241; reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard
University. Kircher gave the reader instructions for fabricating the vessel and acknowledged the problem of
changes in temperature according to weather and the hour of the day. He dismissed such problems as not
insuperable and cajoled his reader: "but I entrust these matters to your industry."
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 53

substance. As a good Aristotelian, he distinguished between accidental and substantial

transmutations and noted that changes of color, of odor, or of state (e.g. from a fixed to a fluid
state) did not suffice to make a pure transmutation. In his eyes Paracelsus' well-known
transmutation of iron into copper failed to meet the test for a substantial transmutation, and
was in fact only an accidental reduction. Kircher argued that the process (whose result he
did not call into question) was achieved by a separation of copper corpuscles which, in the
presence of vitriol, wandered to join themselves with iron.33
But while Kircher could quibble over the differences between accidental and substantial
transmutation, he did not always do so. He was quite happy to perform experiments on
metallic transmutations for visitors to the Collegio Romano and in the Mundus Suhterraneus he
described a series of chemical experiments which created transmutations, albeit only
accidental transmutations, brought about by the separation of very minute particles which
then reorganized into new masses. These transmutation experiments were not Kircher's
own; he gleaned them from the pages of Brasavola, Agricola, Paracelsus, Faloppio and all
the best professores alchimiae.34 One of his favorite experiments was to produce various colors
in molten metallic subtances by mixing in saline additives such as vitriol, alum, and sal
ammoniac and applying heat.35
To demonstrate his concept offermentation (which he defined as the separation of pure
from impure bodies, or active from passive bodies) Kircher appealed to another experiment
where he mixed the oil of the terebinth tree (pistacia terehinthus) with ordinary wine. When a
very mild heat was applied to the concoction, the substance dramatically shattered the glass
vessel which contained it. Kircher's account of the experiment included a corpuscular
explanation of the sulphuric particles of the oil (which was in essence turpentine, perhaps
treated with nitric acid). These particles so agitated and rarefied the inimical, but formerly
dormant, particles of the wine that as they attempted strenuously to separate themselves
from the sulphuric particles, they burst the container in their attempt to fly off. Kircher
further supported his doctrine of fermentation as an alchemical separation of animate and
inanimate particles by citing experiments performed by the eminent English physiologist
and physician Thomas Willis.36
In his corpuscular interpretation of fermentation as an intrinsic motion of particles
caused by the natural agitation and separation of saline, sulphuric, or mercurial particles,
Kircher explained that fermentations produced complete alterations in substances and
could thus be considered a type of natural transmutation. In defending the notion that in
fermentation heavier particles were attenuated by more subtile particles until they were
ultimately exalted and carried off, Kircher relied heavily on corpuscular matter theory. He
believed that modern men had compelling new visual evidence, provided by the microscope,
of the particulate structure of many substances. But wary of the jesuit prohibition of
atomism which had been promulgated in 165 I, he took care to note that his corpuscles were
not identical with the polymorphic corpuscles of Democritus ' ... which are repugnant to
the senses and are nothing other than the lazy figments of evil men. ,37
Kircher's efforts to dissocia te himself from the heretical doctrine of atomism and to keep
himself and his alchemical activities in the good graces of the Society paid off. Eventually put
in charge of the jesuit collection of antiquities and natural history specimens sent to Rome
by Jesuit overseas missionaries, Kircher added alchemical apparatus to the collection. (See
Figure 5.) He and his assistants were often called upon to lead visiting dignitaries through
the collections and they frequently performed chemical experiments for visitors.38 In a book
54 MARTHA BALDWIN

Fig. 5. Kircher claimed to have designed this glass vessel for use in his own laboratory, from Athanasius Kircher,
Mundus Subterraneus, 2 vols (Amsterdam, 1665), vol. 2, p. 396; reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University. Boasting that his 'circulatory vessel' was more excellent than others, he wrote that it was
constructed out of glass and fitted with helically shaped canals. The vapor recirculated from the head (A) to the
stomach (V). According to Kircher, the circulation took place quickly and the mixture became increasingly purified
with each circuit through the helices. Grosser particles fell into the stomach, while more subtile particles moved to
the helices. 'Using this vessel you can do in eight days what requires up to forty days in the traditional hermetical
vessels of the chemists.'

published in 1678 devoted to the collections of this 'Jesuit museum', Kircher's assistant,
Giorgio de Sepi, who called himself his master's artisan in contriving laboratory apparatus,
'executor in machinis concinnandis,' illustrated and described the various chemical apparatus
and glass vessels in the museum's collection. He also reported that the museum owned an
hermetically-sealed glass flask containing water from theJordan River. The flask had been
owned at the beginning of the century by the eminent Jesuit mathematican, Christopher
Clavius. In addition to pride in ownership of water from the very river where Christ had
been baptized by John, De Sepi also explained that the sealed flask offered proof of the
alchemical principle that air was the cause of all corruption.39

Francesco Lana Terzi (1631-1687)

Along with De Sepi and other Jesuits interested in natural philosophy, Lana Terzi shared
the distinction of serving as Kircher's assistant in the Collegio Romano between 1652 and
1654.40 After stints teaching rhetoric and grammar at the Jesuit gymnasia at Terni and
Parma, he returned to his native town of Brescia in 1665 where he continued to involve
himself heavily in physical, optical, and alchemical experiments, producing in 1670 his
Prodromo. After a two-year assignment to teach mathematics at the University of Ferrara and
at the Jesuit college there, he returned to Brescia and took up his experiments with new zeal.
Intending to produce a twelve-volume encyclopedia embracing all his scientific interests,
Lana Terzi saw its first two volumes, entitled Magisterium Artis et Naturae appear in print in
1684 and 1686. Neither his intellectual ambitions nor his energy failed him in the last years
of his life when he continued to work on the third volume (which was published
posthumously), to organize a local scientific society, the Accademia dei Filesotici (modelled
on the Royal Society of London), and to oversee the publication of its official journal, Actae
novae academiae philexeticorum naturae et artis. Had Lana Terzi not died in 1687, the journal and
the scientific society might have continued beyond their brief one-year life spans. He also
engaged in correspondence with Leibniz, who saw fit to publish his letters in the Acta
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 55

Eruditorum Lipsiae. Other correspondence of his appeared in the Journal de Venise and in the
Philosophical Transactions. 41
Each of Lana Terzi's published works addressed a broad range of scientific questions.
Drawing great inspiration from Bacon, he set out intentionally to pursue new inventions
which might prove useful to the liberal and mechanical arts. In his encyclopedic work, Lana
Terzi made claims for an ordered structure underlying his vast subject matter. Complaining
that modern scientists too often neglected theoretical principles in their search for utilitarian
inventions, Lana Terzi promised his reader that he would tackle both aspects. Moreover,
Lana Terzi made it clear to his reader that he was no slavish imitator of Aristotle and
preferred an eclectic approach to the ancients. Using the analogy of artists producing a
painting, Lana Terzi insisted that in natural philosophy there was only one truth but many
methods to arrive at it. While stating that he accepted the four Aristotelian elements, he also
made it clear that he not only accepted but often found preferable the three Hermetic
principles of salt, sulphur and mercury. Despite the jesuit prohibition against atomistic
doctrines, Lana Terzi noted the usefulness of atomism, albeit a fiction, as a theoretical
concept in natural philosophy. In fact he went so far as to charge that no one sane could dare
to eliminate atoms from the world.42 He also willingly employed concepts such as
magnetism in bodies, sympathy and antipathy, strife and friendship. Drawing heavily from
Boyle's corpuscular and chemical studies, he also spoke offixed and volatile bodies, alkalis
and acids.
While taking pride in his experimental approach to natural philosophy, Lana Terzi
cautioned that natural philosophers could not deduce universal truths from experiments
alone. He also conceded that he had devised many experiments that he had not been able to
put to trial himself, but, like Bacon, he confidently assumed they would one day be
attempted by others who had greater leisure and funds than himself. In his text he clearly
differentiated those experiments that he had performed, those that his trustworthy jesuit
brothers had performed, and those that he hoped his reader would perform.43 Lana Terzi's
general attitude toward experiment echoed the high esteem in which his early teacher
Kircher placed manual labor. He was particularly concerned with scientific novelties, and
included in his works inventions for obtaining longitude, new machines of perpetual
motions, chronometers, hydraulic apparatus for garden statuary, along with chemical and
medical secrets. He hoped to amass a full history of inventions and he pleaded with his
readers to send in their own additions, corrections and improvements with the promise of
publishing them for the good of the literary republic.
Alchemical projects engaged Lana Terzi's interests from the outset. (See figure 6.)
Although the Brescianjesuit distinguished between alchemy and chemistry, he believed the
two sciences used common techniques: separation, reduction of mixed bodies, perfection of
quintessences, and transmutations. In his eyes the two were differentiated only with respect
to the raw material which each studied; according to his scheme, alchemy was restricted to
metals, and chemistry to animal and plant substances. Since medicine used pharmaceuticals
produced from the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, medicine properly embraced both
chemistry and alchemy.44
Unlike Kircher who frequently cautioned against the human presumption to uncover
knowledge which should perhaps be reserved exclusively for God, Lana Terzi was far more
optimistic about man's potential to discover God's recondite secrets. He viewed the
alchemist's task as one of unveiling nature's or God's handiwork, rather than entering into
56 MARTHA BALDWIN

Fig. 6. Some of the laboratory equipment used by Lana Terzi, from Francesco Lana Terzi, Magisterium Naturae et
Artis, 3 vols (Brescia, 1684-1692), vol. 2, fig. I; reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard
University. Even in a small Italian town like Brescia, the Jesuit College owned a remarkable array of alchemical
equipment.
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 57

competition with the Godhead. For this reason he was not at all disturbed, as was Kircher,
about the devil's possible participation in alchemical projects.
Given his far greater optimism about the limits of human knowledge and his greater
receptivity to atomistic philosophy, it is not surprising that Lana Terzi endorsed
wholeheartedly the possibility of transmuting one metal into another. Kircher's equivoca-
tions about accidental and substantial transmutations did not disturb him; he cited
unhesitatingly the authority of Lull, Villanova, Paracelsus, Alexander Scotus, Anselm de
Boedt, and Tadeo Hagecio and repeated their recipes to transmute mercury into lead,
stannum into silver, and iron into copper. He even claimed that he too had been able to
extract a small quantity of the soul of gold, which, when poured on top of imperfect metals,
converted them into gold. He gave his reader the broad outlines of his own process and its
theoretical underpinnings and discussed in detail the menstruum or solvent necessary for the
process. He asserted that the task was not only possible, but that the operator could even
perform it in a few months time and in a single chemical vessel, ifhe ' ... possessed the good
principles of Chemistry.,45 To the objection that metals could only be generated in the
viscera of the earth and not in a chemical vessel, Lana Terzi responded that the place of
generation was not determinative as long as the alchemist possessed the proportionate
matter and seed.
Lana Terzi also held out hope that alchemists could prepare and manufacture a
universal menstruum to be used as the basis of a potable medicament capable of
exterminating all diseases. He had studied carefully the relevant procedures and recipes of
the best modern alchemical authors, including Pierre Jean Fabre, Otto Tachenius, Robert
Boyle, Lazarus Grandius, Adolph Balduin, Paracelsus, Johannes Baptista van Helmont,
Angelo Sala, and Michael Sendivogius. And although he had repeated some of their
procedures fifty times without success, his confidence was never dashed; he merely
concluded that' ... it is not given to all men to discover this universal menstruum.,46
Unlike Kircher who promoted the theatrical uses of alchemy in ~is museum
demonstrations, Lana Terzi evinced in his writings a sober concern for the practical
applications of alchemical and chemical knowledge. He was convinced that knowledge of
quintessence of dew would lead to the production of a potent fertilizer which would enhance
crop productivity a hundredfold. He advised agrarians to soak seed in liquefied saltniter
(probably potassium nitrate) or putrefied dew before sowing the earth. He undertook
experiments onpalingenesis in order to understand better the salts contained in the ashes of
plants, where he believed their generative virtue was lodged.47
Similarly Lana Terzi believed that knowledge of chemical precipitates held the promise
of aiding soon the physician in his diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. He performed
dozens of experiments in which he mixed various substances with human blood and urine;
such experime~ts taught the chemist how kidney stones were formed within the body, for
example. Conversely, other experiments macerating solid substances in various menstrua
could suggest ways whereby physicians might learn how to dissolve stones lodged inside the
kidney, ureters, urinary tract, and bladder. Decrying the present state of urine inspection as
uninformed guesswork, Lana Terzi maintained that the subjection of the urine ofa diseased
patient to chemical analysis promised a greatly improved method of diagnosis. To replace
the older, unreliable method of visual inspection of the color, consistency, and content of
urine, Lana Terzi proposed mixing particular acids with the patient's urine and then
studying the resulting precipitates. He urged comparison of these results with those
 MARTHA BALDWIN

reproduced exactly on the urine of a healthy man. He concluded that for almost every
specific disease chemists could discover a specific chemical precipitate in the urine which
could lead to a reliable diagnosis of the disease. Although he acknowledged that not every
disease might prove amenable to this technique of urinalysis, he asserted: 'A very rich field
will be opened to physicians from my method; may they cultivate the soil diligently and add
to my experiments. ,48
Lana Terzi elaborated further experiments and chemical procedures which promised
utility to military commanders and ship's captains. He reviewed the extensive writings on
fulminating gold whereby gold was dissolved in aqua regia in order to produce a loud
cracking noise. In addition, he prophesied that chemical analysis would soon produce vast
improvements in gunpowder and he devoted whole chapters to the subject. He also felt that
alchemy had much to promise the science of cryptography, since the concoction of invisible
inks from various acids lay easily within the talents of a skilled chemist. The production of
such substances offered military commanders a considerable advantage over the enemy in
ba ttleground comm unica tions.
Well familiar with Rudolph Glauber's recipe to produce desalinized seawater by adding
leaden substances to precipitate out the saltiness, Lana Terzi realized that Glauber's
procedure was worthless to sailors because it required fresh water to work, was expensive to
execute, and still produced an end-product that was not potable. But Lana Terzi
nevertheless drew inspiration from Glauber's efforts and thought that the project, one of
great promise to those who lived aboard ship, would ultimately be solved by alchemists. He
had similar faith in the ability of chemists to aid perfumers by showing them the ways to
elicit oil and spirits from wood-smoke and flowers. As an aid to those engaged in this trade,
he offered his own recipes as well as those of Johannes Hartmann.

Gaspar Schott (1608-1666)

Kircher initiated another able student, Gaspar Schott, into alchemical projects at the
Collegio Romano at the same time as Lana Terzi. Schott, like Kircher, was German born
and had been forced to flee Germany during the Thirty Years War when raging confessional
and political battles in his native country made life impossible for the Jesuit community in
his native diocese of vVurzburg. After nearly twenty years service as a professor of
mathematics and natural philosophy in the Jesuit college of Palermo in Sicily, Schott lived
from 1652 to 1655 at the Collegio Romano where he became a life-long friend and devotee of
Kircher. Soon after his return to Germany in 1655, he engaged in a prolific correspondence
with other scientists of his day and in voluminous production of printed books, including a
mathematical encyclopedia entitled Cursus Mathematicus (166 I), a multi-volume work on
natural magic entitled Magia Universalis (1657-59) and a treatise on hydraulics entitled
Mechanica Hydraulico-Pneumatica (1657). He also edited several works of Kircher's including
his treatise on cosmology, Iter Exstaticum Coeleste (1660).49
While Schott always considered himself a disciple of his master, he was far more cautious
about taking any position in a theoretical debate in the sciences. He was expert, however, at
presenting the scientific controversies of his day, and summing up for the reader the
arguments and evidence marshalled by each side. On the matter of transmutation of metals,
he equivocated.
However he made an exception to his general evasiveness in his endorsement of
palingenesis. Like Kircher and Lana Terzi, Schott believed in and attempted
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 59

experimentally to recreate plants from their ashes in glass phials. Schott did not claim
originality in his recipes, for he acknowledged his indebtedness to Diacobus Dobrzenski de
Nigroponte, Georgius Harstarfferius, Balthasar Conrad, and Kircher. While the details of
his meticulous and tedious alchemical procedure need not concern us here, it is important to
note that Schott too believed in the alchemical resurrection of plants. His recipe called for
glass chemical vesels, distillation apparatus, and furnaces with accurate temperature
controls.5o
Schott also wrote extensively on fire and devoted a long chapter in his Thaumaturgus
Physicus (1654) to pyrotechnic magic. Here he examined carefully the inextinguishable fires,
candles, and lanterns of modern alchemists, as well as those reported in ancient literature.
He reproduced Oswald Croll's recipe for fulminating gold and added his own procedures for
artificial fires. In an effort to show how alchemical knowledge could be put to use in staging
court spectacles, he analyzed gunpowder recipes and noted that proportions of chemical
ingredients were crucial as well as the size of the granular particles of the ingredients. Schott
made it clear that his chief interest in writing about pyrotechnics was not to prepare a
practical manual for artillery men, but to collect whatever was rare, marvellous, ingenious
or prodigious on the subject. In striving to adapt the chemical knowledge of modern
pyrotechnics (commonly derived from military applications) for court entertainment, Schott
aimed in his writings to illuminate the marvellous in the natural world and to show the
effects of magical forces operating in natural phenomena. While his efforts to bring the
tradition of natural magic within the embrace of modern natural philosophy cannot be
examined more fully here, it is important to note that Schott included alchemical
phenomena and techniques in his writings on natural magic. Like Kircher and Lana Terzi,
he too had access to laboratory equipment and to the writings of ancient and modern
alchemists.51 Like Kircher and Lana Terzi, Schott was burdened with teaching duties in his
Jesuit college, but his published works suggest far more widely-ranging interests than those
reflected in the traditional curricula of the jesuit colleges.

j ESUIT CAVEATS TO ALCHEMICAL ACTIVITIES

If this evidence is sufficient to establish the existence of a marginal, but not insignificant
place for alchemical studies within the Society ofjesus in the seventeenth century, it would
be remiss not to point out the common concern of these jesuit authors to avoid overstepping
the legitimate boundaries of alchemy. Kircher and Schott were firmly convinced that the
devil preyed upon the alchemist's sinful lust to create gold from baser metals. They were
acutely sensitive to the knowledge that pious Christians put the eternal salvation of their
souls at risk by engaging in alchemical pursuits. Citing Scripture as his authority, Kircher
admonished that greed drove many alchemists to wander from the faith and to inflict fatal
wounds on their souls.52 As a priest who had received confessions from the penitent, Kircher
claimed he had known alchemists who had been deceived by the devil. Lana Terzi and
Schott each joined Kircher in his horror at the concept of the alchemical creation of a human
being, or homunculus, a feat which Paracelsus claimed to have achieved.53 Like Kircher,
Schott was consistently attentive to demarcate the legitimate from the illegitimate domains
of man's technical knowledge.
This concern to avoid diabolical participation in alchemical study led these jesuits to
endorse the openness of alchemical knowledge. Maintaining that the promise of private
knowledge and private gains was a satanic lure, jesuit alchemists encouraged others to avoid
60 MARTHA BALDWIN

indulging in the secret codes, private language, and arcane vocabulary which so riddled
alchemical literature. This call to abandon the hiding of alchemical secrets was not new with
these late-seventeenth-century Jesuits; it had been the rallying cry of earlier reformers as
well. But the fundamentally religious concerns of these Jesuits to avoid the unwitting
participation of the devil in their experiments gave further support to the growing trend
toward the openness of scientific knowledge. 54
Most importantly these Jesuits evinced uneasiness with alchemy by consciously
separating themselves from those contemporary alchemists who believed the aim of alchemy
was one of spiritual regeneration. As members of a religious society who had undergone
years of theological study and who had taken formal religious vows early in their lives, they
were committed to the belief that a Christian fulfulled his spiritual needs totally through
traditional Roman Catholic rites, sacraments, and doctrines. For them alchemy could offer
at most practical improvements in man's condition on earth-potent medicines, richer
fertilizers, cheaper metallic ores, or court entertainments. Distraught that the Englishman
Robert Fludd or the Italian Lucilio Vanini had sought to interpret the Scriptural accounts of
the incarnation, nativity, passion, death and resurrection of Christ as alchemical
instructions for creating the philosopher's stone, Kircher decried this as a blasphemous
practice. 55 Content with far more literal readings of the creation account in Genesis than
those alchemists who viewed it as a description of the divine alchemist's separation of the
pure from the impure, those Jesuits who did engage in alchemy made clear their rejection of
alchemical interpretations of Scriptural stories and religious doctrines. None of these Jesuit
alchemists sought a correspondence between the three Paracelsian principles and the
Christian Trinity. Not at all eager to encourage an alchemical religion which might come to
compete with true Christianity, they instead chose to remain loyal to traditional Roman
Catholicism.
In assessing the place these Jesuits allotted to alchemy, the historian can conclude that
alchemy very much engaged their interests and talents, but never occupied a central place in
their studies of natural philosophy. If the Society ofJesus never became a headquarters for
alchemical projects, it nevertheless offered alchemy some respectable. shelter in the
seventeenth century. As members of the Society ofJesus, these men faced certain restrictions
which impinged on their alchemical studies. Subject to the censorship and disapproval of the
Society's theologians, they engaged in alchemy with a sensitivity to avoid the charges of
demonic magic and atomism. As in universities, alchemy never becarp.e part of the
traditional and uniform curriculum of studies followed in the Jesuit schools throughout
Europe. While other Jesuits pursued vigorously those branches of natural philosophy in the
Aristotelian canon which directly related to their teaching, Jesuits interes,ted in alchemy
pursued this field in their free time and in addition to their duties as te~chers of more
traditional sciences. Yet despite the constraints of doctrinal orthodoxy and a traditional
curriculum, a few Jesuits pursued a sophisticated alchemy within the institutional confines
of the Society. In doing so they enjoyed the not insignificant advantage of access to the
libraries and laboratory equipment owned by their religious Society.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

I. The history of the Society of jesus, its early commitment to Catholic education, and the creation ofits colleges
has occupied many scholars and the bibliography is enormous. Useful introductions are W\lliam V. Bangaert,
A History of the Society ofJesus, (St. Louis: Institute ofjesuit Sources, 1972) and George Ganss, Saint Ignatius' Idea
of a Jesuit University: A Study in the History of Catholic Education, 2nd rev. ed. (Milwaukee, 1956). Ganss has also
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 61

translated and edited the important founding documents of the Society, written by Ignatius of Loyola, The
Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, tr. George E. Ganss (St. Louis: Institute ofJesuit Sources, 1970). Ignatius wrote
the Constitutions about 1556, they were soon translated into Latin, and revised slightly in 1599. The Ratio
studio rum set forth the teaching methods and order of studies to be followed in all Jesuit schools. While the
document did allow for adaptation to change, the Jesuit educational system was coherent and the curriculum
was remarkably cohesive. On the Ratio see Gianpaolo Brizzi, La "Ratio studiorum." Modelli culturali e pratiche
educative dei Gesuiti in Italia tra Cinque e Seicento (Rome, 198 I) and Alan Farrell, The Jesuit Code of Liberal Education:
Development and Scope of the Ratio studiorum (Milwaukee, 1938). See also Manfred Barthel, The Jesuits: History and
Legend of the Society of Jesus, tr. Mark Houson (New York, 1984) and Francois de Dainville, L'iducation desJesuites
(XVI-XVllle siecles), ed. Marie-Madeleine Compere (Paris, 1978).
2. The concern of the hierarchy to earn and establish a reputation for intellectual excellence by publication of
books by its members is considered in Ugo Baldini, "Uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae. Le censure librorum e
opinionum" in Legum Impone Subactis. Studi su Filosofia e Scienza dei Gesuiti in Italia 1540-1632 (Rome, 1992),
pp. 1-75·
3. The publication record of Jesuits has been carefully catalogued and preserved by Carlos Sommervogel,
Bibliotheque de la Compagnie deJesus, 12 vols. (Brussels-Paris, 1890-1910). Quantitative work by StevenJ. Harris
has documented the magnitude and breadth of Jesuit publications in natural philosophy, mathematics,
astronomy, and physics. Harris has shown that between 1600 and 1773 Jesuit authors published more than
4,000 works in these subjects. See Harris, "Transposing the Merton Thesis: Apostolic Spirituality and the
Establishment of the Jesuit Scientific Tradition," Science in Context, 3 (1989), 2g-65.
4. On Kircher's life see Hans Kangro "Athanasius Kircher," DSB. Two more recent biographical accounts are
found in Fred Brauen, "Athanasius Kircher (1602-80)," Journalfor the History of Ideas, 43 (1982), 12g-34 and
Joscelyn Godwin, Athanasius Kircher: A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1979). Francesco Lana Terzi wrote two books which addressed alchemical subjects. The first,
intended as a brief introduction to his magnum opus was entitled Prodromo overo saggio di alcune inventioni nuove
premessa all arte maestra per mostrare Ii piu reconditi principii della naturale filosofia opera che prepara il P Francesco Lana
bresciano della Compagnia di Giesu (Brescia, 1670). Under the editorship of Andrea Battistini the work was
republished as Prodromo all' Arte Maestra (Milan: Longanesi, 1977). His second work appeared in three volumes,
one published posthumously; it was entitled Magisterium Naturae et Artis, 3 vols. (Brescia, 1684-92). The
publication history of this work is discussed below.
5. Ignatius of Loyola stated this policy in The Constitutions. 'In logic, natural and moral philosophy, and
metaphysics, the doctrine of Aristotle should be followed ... ' [420], op. cit. (I), p. 220. The Ratio Studio rum
governed practice in Jesuit schools until the suppression of the Society in 1773. On the Aristotelian mandate of
the Society's curriculum and on the teaching of mathematics in the Jesuit schools of early modern Europe see
Ugo Baldini, "Legem Impone Subactis. Teologia, Filosofia e Scienze Matematiche nella didattica e nella
Dottrina della Compagnia di Gesu (1550-1630)" in Legem Impone Subactis, op. cit. (2), pp. 19-74.
6. In addition to Harris' quantitative study, cited above, see Peter Dear, "Jesuit Mathematical Science and the
Reconstitution of Experience in the Early Seventeenth Century," Studies in the History and Philosophy ojScience, 18
(1987), 133-75; Rivka Feldhay, "Knowledge and Salvation in Jesuit Culture," Science in Context, I (1987), 195-
213; William Wallace, Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage oj the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984). In addition, John Heilbron gives an excellent summary of physical sciences
studied by various early modernJ esuits in his Elements of Early Modern Physics (Berkeley: University of California
Press, Ig82), pp. g3-106; Gabriele Baroncini has examined the teaching of natural philosophy in the Jesuit
Colleges in Italy, "L'insegnamento della filosofia Naturale nei Collegi Italiani dei Gesuiti (1610-70): Un
esempio di nuovo aristotelismo" in Brizzi, La Ratio, op. cit. (I), pp. 163-215.
7. The Constitutions [452], cited in Ganss, op. cit. (I), p. 2 15, firmly stated 'The study of medicine and laws, being
more remote from our Institute, will not be treated in the universities of the Society, or at least the Society will
not undertake this teaching through its own members.'
8. The Constitutions of the Society set up a system of internal censorship whereby every published Jesuit book had
first to be submitted for examination and approval to the superior general of the Society. The Constitutions at
article [653] [Ganss, op. cit. (I), p. 284], expressly mandated 'One who has talent to write books useful for the
common good and who has written them ought not to publish any writing unless the superior general sees it
first, and has it read and examined.' With the expansion of the Society, a bureaucracy of censorship was
required. On this internal censorship see Ugo Baldini, "Uniformitas et solidatas," op. cit. (2). Hence, historians
may assume that every book published by aJesuit which contained alchemical matters had met the approval of
a board of Jesuit censors, usually consisting of five men, at least some of whom were theologians.
g. Martin Del Riojoined the Society in 1580, having already gained a doctorate in law and having led an active life
in politics; he had served as a senator of Brabant and as procurator general of the army of the Spanish
Netherlands. Broadly trained in the humanities and in foreign languages, Del Rio served the Society as a
professor of sacred literature atJesuit colleges at Rouen, Liege, Graz, and Louvain. Even for Jesuit standards,
his publication record was extensive and included writings on the ancients, commentaries on Scripture and
 MARTHA BALDWIN

moral adages. For modern assessments of Del Rio see Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A
Study in Intellectual Patterns (Berkeley: University of California, 1979), pp. 60-107 and Natural Magic and Modem
Science, Four Treatises, 1590-1657 (Binghampton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1989), vol. 63,
pp. 70-93; Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia University Press,
1958), vol. 7, pp. 309, 328, 337, 349,606; R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World, A Study in Intellectual History
1576-1612 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 250. Evans states: 'Even the anathemas of the Churches,
especially of Catholics like the Jesuit Martin Del Rio, were not unequivocal. The strongest resistance to occult
studies came nevertheless from established religion.' Walter Pagel gives a similar judgment of Del Rio in his
johannes Baptista van Helmont, einfiihrung in die philosophische Medi:(.in des Barock (Berlin: Springer, 1930), pp. 93, 99;
and in his "Religious Motives in Medical Biology," Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, 3 (1935),97-
128; 213-231; 265-312; see especially, pp. 218, 220, 301, n. 5.
10. Martin Del Rio, Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex, quibus continetur accurata curiosarum artium & vanarum
superstitionum confutatio (Venice, 1616), pp. 57-82. His manual went through numerous editions after it first
appeared at Louvain in 1599 and was widely read and cited throughout the century. I cite this edition; readers
may consult any of the numerous seventeenth-century editions, which are listed in Sommervogel, op. cit. (3),
1898-1900. His remarks on alchemy are found in book I, c. 5.
I I. Del Rio, op. cit. (10), p. 58.
12. Ibid., p. 78.
13· Ibid., p. 79·
14. Ibid., p. 82.
15. Van Helmont entitled the manuscriptjudicem Neutrum Causam Appellat Suam et Suorum Philadelphus and composed
it in defense of accusations of having offended sacrosanct theology, corrupted Scripture, taught superstition,
and endorsed heresy. Van Helmont's accuser was the Jesuit Jean Roberti and the two men carried on a vitriolic
pamphlet war for several years. Van Helmont was brought before a court of the Inquisition in 1634 and
interrogated about this manuscript at that time. The Philadelphus, considered by Helmont scholars to be an
unimportant juvenile writing, was not published until the nineteenth century when it was transcribed and
edited by C. Broeckx in Annales de l'Academie d'Archeologie de Belgique, 25 (1869),82-136. It was brought to my
attention in Robert Halleux's examination of the neglected sources on Van Helmont in his extremely useful
"Helmontiana," Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgie, 45
(1983), 35-63·
16. The Roberti-Van Helmont dispute centered on the weapon-salve. Several historians have examined this
skirmish, including Allen Debus, "Robert Fludd and the Use of Gilbert's De magnete in the Weapon-Salve
Controversy," journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 19 (1964), 389-417 and Robert Halleux,
"Helmontiana," op. cit. (15), pp. 51-54.
17. Fran<;ois Aguilon was born in Brussels, entered the Society ofJesus at Tournai in 1586, and taught philosophy
at Douai, then theology at Antwerp, where he was made rector of the Jesuit college. Apparently he was
responsible for the architectural design of the Jesuit church at Antwerp as well. His only published work was his
Opticorum libri sex Philosoph is iuxta ac Mathematicis utiles (Antwerp, 1613) which had later editions at Wurzburg in
1685 and at Nuremberg in 1702. For information on Aguilon see Sommervogel, op. cit. (3), vol. I, p. 90.
18. Van Helmont, Philadelphus, op. cit, (15), p. 132.
19. Ibid. Indeed van Helmont's account seems to be correct, for Aguilon's only publication was his work on optics.
Here he made no overt references to alchemy or to his earlier interest in alchemical experiments. However he
did write on the sequence of colors and on the effects of heat on image perception, two topics of common interest
to alchemists.
20. Van Helmont, Philadelphus, op. cit. (15), p. 89.
2 I. The records of the trial and of Van Helmont's testimony before the court of the Inquisition have been preserved
in the archives of the Archdiocese of Malines. Robert Halleux has studied them in his "Helmontiana," op. cit.
(15)'
22. Kircher was one of the most prolific writers of his day. Sommervogel, op. cit. (3), vol. 4, pp. 1046-77 gives a
complete catalogue of his published works. In addition to his Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Rome, 1652-55), he published
a significant work on magnetism, Magnes, sive de Arte Magnetica (Rome, 1641); an important work on optics, Ars
magna lucis et umbrae (Rome, 1646); a work on music, Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650); and a work on China and
the lands of the Far East, China Monumentis (Amsterdam, 1667).
23. Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est universalis hieroglyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae.
Opus ex omni orientalium doctrina & sapientia conditum, nec non viginit diversarum linguarum authoritate stabilitum, 4 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1652-55), vol. 2, pp. 388-433 deal with Egyptian or hieroglyphic alchemy. Kircher offered his
talents as an interpreter of Egyptian hieroglyphs in reciprocation of the successive Popes' favors of granting
access to the papal library. He assisted both Alexander VII and Innocent X in restoring and re-erecting various
Egyptian obelisks which decorated the City of Rome. Such papal favors were extended to hundreds of humanist
scholars visiting Rome. What is of interest here is Kircher's strategy; he depended on the papal library for his
learning and in turn made his intellectual talents available to his papal patrons.
 ALCHEMY AND THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

24. Kircher, Mundus subterraneus, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1665). There was a subsequent edition at Amsterdam in
1678. References to alchemical matters are sprinkled throughout the enormous two-volume text. Kircher
addressed alchemical matters exclusively in vol. 2, pp. 231-325 (Book I I). All references here are to the 1665
edition.
25. In the Mundus Kircher reported the results of a questionnaire he had his Jesuit associate Andreas Schaffer
circulate to miners, mine inspectors, and mining engineers in the Hungarian mines, ibid., pp. 182-190. For
Kircher's division of the various branches of alchemy, see pp. 232-33.
26. Kircher offers elaborate tables of spagyrically produced medicines in his Mundus, ibid., pp. 404-8.
27. Kircher's first-hand account of the erupting volcano was vivid and detailed. His narrative of his visit to Etna
and the volcanic eruption Of27 March 1638 and his subsequent visit to Vesuvius formed the lengthy preface (12
folio pages, unpaginated) to his Mundus Subterraneus. This was the only part of his work ever translated into
English. The English edition was entitled The Vulcano's: or Burning andfire-vomitting mountains,famous in the world:
with their remarkables. Collected for the most part out of Kircher's Subterraneous world; and expos'd to more general view in
English, upon the relation of the late wonderful and prodigious eruptions of Aetna. Thereby to occasion greater admirations of the
wonders of nature (and of the God of nature) in the mighty element of fire (London, 1669).
28. Kircher, Mundus, op. cit. (24), books 8 and 10passim; vol. 2, pp. 236-52. There is obviously a strong Paracelsian
resonance in Kircher's geological theories.
29. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 32 I.
30. Ibid ..
3 I. Ibid., p. 394; he gave yet another set of chemical canons at pp. 433-38.
32. Ibid., p. 241. See also the plates at p. 239 and p. 396 illustrating alchemical furnaces. Kircher had also described
the apparatus in his earlier book on optics entitled Ars magna lucis et umbrae op. cit. (22); 2nd ed. Amsterdam,
1671.
33. Kircher, J.lJundus, op. cit: (24), vol. 2, pp. 257-58.
34. Ibid., pp. 256-60 and book I I, passim.
35. For alchemical experiments involving transmutation of colors see Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 8-15.
36. Ibid., pp. 396-97. Kircher's reference was to Willis' Defermentatione.
37. Ibid., p. 397. Historians of science have discussed the repercussions and historical background to this
condemnation of atomism in the Society of Jesus. See Baroncini, Feldhay, and Baldini, op. cit. (6). The
skittishness of the Jesuit natural philosophers over the issue of atomism became particularly evident after the
1651 condemnation of atomism by the Jesuit hierarchy. Jesuit theologians who exercised powers of censorship
over the works of the Jesuit natural philosophers issued the condemnation. Atomism had long aroused
fundamental questions of interpretation over the Eucharist and concern about atomism heightened in the
course of the century. Pietro Redondi has advanced the controversial opinion that tacit atomistic doctrines
provoked the crisis culminating in Galileo's condemnation in 1633. Pietro Redondi, Galileo Heretic (Princeton,
1987).
38. The museum started in 1651 from a bequest of antiquities to the Collegio Romano from Alfonso Doninio, a
Roman noble. Kircher was put in charge of the collection and added artifacts sent back to Rome by overseas
Jesuit missionaries and a great deal of scientific apparatus. In time Kircher acquired assistants to help arrange
and maintain the collection, including Giorgio de Sepi who issued a description of the collection entitled Romani
Collegii Musaeum Celeberrimum cuius magnae antiquariae rei statuarum imaginum picturarumque partem ex legato Alphonsi
Donnini an no 1651 s.p.q.r. a secretis munifica liberalitate relictum P. Athanasius Kircherus soc. Jesu novis et raris inventis
locupletatum compluriumque principium curiosi donariis magna rerum apparatu instruxit innumeris insuper rebus dicatum ad
plurimorum maxime externorum curiositatisque doctrinae avidorum instantiam urgentesque preces novis compluribus machinis tum
peregrinis ex Indiis allatis rebus publicae luci vitisque exponit Georgius de Sepibus Valesius aucthoris in machinis concinnandis
executor (Amsterdam, 1678); a second catalog appeared thirty years later and was edited by the Jesuit Filippo
Bonanni, Musaeum Kircherianum sive Musaeum A.P. Athanasio Kirchero in Collegia Romano Societatis Jesu jam pridem
incoeptum nuper restitutum, auctum, descriptum & iconibus illustratum (Rome, 1709). The museum was never open to
the public, but Kircher and his assistants were often called on to display the collection to the numerous foreign
dignitaries who visited Rome each year. On the museum see Silvio A. Bedini, "Citadels of Learning. The
Museo Kircheriano and Other Seventeenth Century Italian Science Collections" in Maristella Casciato, Maria
Grazia Ianniello, Maria Vitale, eds, Enciclopedismo in Roma Barocca (Rome: Marsilio Editori, 1986), pp. 249-67.
39. Giorgio de Sepi, Musaeum, op. cit. (38), p. 13.
40. Further biographical information on Lana Terzi is found in Andrea Battistini's introduction to a modern
edition of Francesco Lana Terzi, Prodromo, op. cit. (4), pp. 33-7 and in Cesare Vasoli, "Sperimentalismo e
Tradizione negli 'Schemi' Enciclopedici di uno Scienziato Gesuita del Seicento," Critica Storica, 17 (1980),
101-127.
41. Full citations of Lana Terzi's published correspondence are found in Sommervogel, op. cit. (2), pp. 1442-5.
42. Lana Terzi, Magisterium, op. cit. (4), "Auctor Lectori," vol. I, ii-iii-4. Lana Terzi's residence in provincial
Brescia probably resulted in his work's being subjected to far less rigorous local Jesuit censors. It is doubtful
that Kircher, in Rome, could ever have published such a statement.
 MARTHA BALDWIN

43. Lana Terzi gave a pledge of trustworthiness for his own experiments and asked his reader to accept as true
those experiments performed by six of his Jesuit brothers whom he considered reliable witnesses and
accomplished scientists. The six were Niccolo Cabeo, Gianbattista Riccioli, Maria Grimaldi, Niccolo Zucchi,
Paolo Casati and Danielo Bartoli. Lana Terzi explicitly stated that unless he named an author of a particular
experiment or observation, the reader could assume that it had been verified by him personally. He makes such
an asseveration in the Magisterium, op. cit. (4), "Autor Lectori," vol. I, iv.
44. Lana Terzi, Prodromo, op. cit. (4), (Brescia, 1670), pp. 105-128.
45. Ibid., p. 120.
46. Lana Terzi, Magisterium, op. cit. (4), vol. 3, p. 198. 'Quodnam autem sit istud menstruum universale ... non
omnibus datum est invenire.'
47. Lana Terzi, Prodromo, op. cit. (4), pp. 94-101. On related attempts to use alchemical knowledge to improve
English agricultural production see Allen G. Debus, "Palissy, Plat and English Agricultural Chemistry,"
Archives intemationales d'Histoire des Sciences, 2I (1968),67-88 and idem, "The Paracelsian Aerial Niter," Isis, 55
(1964), 43-61.
48. Lana Terzi, Magisterium, op. cit. (4): on urinalysis, see vol. 3, pp. 152-54, 167-68; and on medicinal
preparations, see pp. 2 14-20.
49. On Schott's life see Sommervogel, op. cit. (3), vol. 7, pp. 912-g14 and G. Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den
Landem deutscher Zunge, vol. 3 (Munich-Regensburg, 1923), pp. 587-92, and A. G. Keller, "Gaspar Schott,"
DSB.
50. Gaspar Schott, Physica curiosa, sive Mirabilia naturae et artis (Wurzburg, 1662) treats of palingenesis and the
alchemical resuscitation of plants from their ashes at pp. 1351-64. His Thaumaturgus physicus sive Magiae
universalis naturae et artis quae in cryptographicis, pyrotechnicis, magneticis, sympatheticis, ac antipatheticis, medicis,
divinatoriis, physiognomicis, ac chiromanticis, . . . est . . . proponitur, varie discutitur, innumeris exemplis aut experimentis
illustratur (Wurzburg, 1659) also contains much traditional alchemical material, pp. 91-223.
51. The significance of the laboratory to early modern science has been studied recently by Owen Hannaway,
"Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science: Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe," Isis, 77 (1986),585-610
and Steven Shapin, "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," Isis, 79 (1988), 373-404.
See also Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
52. Kircher, Mundus, op. cit. (24), vol. 2, p. 283 cited 2 Timothy 6:9-10. He devoted a subsection of book I I to
discussing why the devil involves himself so especially with cultivators of alchemy.
53. Kircher found the attempt to create a homunculus from human semen in a glass vessel the most horrifying of all
the heresies of the alchemists. According to Kircher, Arnold of Villanova produced in a glass phial an embryo
complete with all its organs and members, but he had stopped short of finishing the work lest he seem to force
God to place a rational soul in it. Kircher went so far as to publish Paracelsus' recipe for generating a
homunculus. He roundly condemned the Swiss alchemist for transgressing the limits of natural philosophy. See
Kircher, ibid, pp. 279-80. Del Rio was also sensitive to the issue, see his Disquisitionum, op. cit. (10), p. 81.
54. The debate over the propriety of open or secret scientific knowledge in early modern Europe has been examined
by William Eamon, "From Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge" in David S. Lindberg and Robert S.
Westman eds., Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 333-65. The development of the
laboratory as a communal workplace in the seventeenth century has been considered by Steven Shapin, op. cit.
(51).
55. Kircher frequently bewailed the impiety of the alchemists and Rosicrucians in book I I of his Mundus, op. cit.
(24), pp. 279-80. Other Jesuits, such as the French theologian Franc;ois Garasse, were deeply suspicious of
alchemy as a font of heresy. See Garasse, La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits de ce Temps ou pretendus tels, combattue
et renversee par Ie P Franr;ois Garassus de la Compagnie deJesus (Paris, 1623), pp. 296-97.