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Tara E. Nummedal
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Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire Paperback – Illustrated, February 22, 2019

by Tara Nummedal (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men—and occasionally women—who made a living as alchemists in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire. As purveyors of practical techniques, inventions, and cures, these entrepreneurs were prized by princely patrons, who relied upon alchemists to bolster their political fortunes. At the same time, satirists, artists, and other commentators used the figure of the alchemist as a symbol for Europe’s social and economic ills.

Drawing on criminal trial records, contracts, laboratory inventories, satires, and vernacular alchemical treatises, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire situates the everyday alchemists, largely invisible to modern scholars until now, at the center of the development of early modern science and commerce. Reconstructing the workaday world of entrepreneurial alchemists, Tara Nummedal shows how allegations of fraud shaped their practices and prospects. These debates not only reveal enormously diverse understandings of what the “real” alchemy was and who could practice it; they also connect a set of little-known practitioners to the largest questions about commerce, trust, and intellectual authority in early modern Europe.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    280 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    University of Chicago Press
  4. Publication date
    February 22, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    9.02 x 5.98 x 0.63 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    022663972X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0226639727
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review


"Alchemy and Authority does for the history of alchemy what the literature on quacks has done for the history of medicine: it approaches the blurry boundaries that define an individual’s success or downfall in a profession and in society. By asking, reconsidering, and answering the questions posed here, Nummedal speaks to historians of alchemy and science as well as to anyone intrigued by history and the mechanisms of economic systems, power, and authority. . . . . Her style is refreshingly concise and engaging. She is one of only a few academic authors who manage to confine and cionsistently pursue their argument . . . and yet manage to write beautiful, effortless prose."
-- Anke Timmerman ― Chemical Heritage


"This is a terrific study, accessible, based in concrete archival research, and well connected to contemporary discussions. It gives new direction to thinking about the role of alchemy in the social and cultural life of early modern Europe. By diffracting the light usually focused on prominent alchemical figures in the history of science and medicine, Nummedal adds a much needed cultural dimension to the understanding of how alchemical identities were shaped in early modern Europe and to how they in turn influenced the social and intellectual world around them."
-- Bruce T. Moran ― Bulletin of the History of Medicine


"Nummedal’s Alchemy and Authority should be read not just by historians of science but also by historians interested in court culture. Her work offers a new look at the dynamic relationship between the construction of natural knowledge and political authority that many historians will benefit from reading."
-- Darin Hayton ― Renaissance Quarterly

"Alchemy and Authority makes a significant contribution to the history of early modern science, and also provides some valuable material for the study of early modern state-building and court culture. . . . This extremely readable and enjoyable book has much to offer historians and literary scholars of a variety of backgrounds." -- Paul Brand ― German History

"The title of this book, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire, aptly embraces its multiple but related themes. On one hand, it is about the efforts of early modern alchemists to construct a kind of professional authority for themselves and about the necessary but sometimes tragic relationships of alchemists to the political authorities that patronized them and capitalized their workshops. But it is also about how 'authority,' in its deeper meaning of 'authorship,' played a significant role in creating and shaping public stereotypes of the alchemist...Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire shows us that the language and methodology of alchemy and mining were similar and that patrons expected similar solutions from alchemists and metallurgists, who were in many cases the same clients. This is an important step in properly contextualizing early modern alchemy." -- Jole Shackelford ― ISIS

"Nummedal describes alchemy in the Holy Roman Empire very convincingly as a complex problem of scientific, economic, and social history." ― Zeitschrift fur Historische Forschung (translated from German)

About the Author


Tara Nummedal is assistant professor of history at Brown University

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; Illustrated edition (February 22, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 022663972X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226639727
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.02 x 5.98 x 0.63 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

About the author

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Tara E. Nummedal

Tara E. Nummedal

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Originally from Seal Beach, California, Tara Nummedal teaches history at Brown University. She writes and teaches about European history and the history of science, including gender, the body, religion, commerce, state building, and satire in the early modern period. She is particularly interested in the history of alchemy, and has begun to dip her toe into digital humanities as well. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
5 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

ArcesseEum
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2017
Verified Purchase
This book is magnificently useful and lucid, very well referenced, and an integral piece to understanding actual historical alchemy.
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Craig MACKINNON
3.0 out of 5 stars An impressive scholarly work, not necessarily of interest to the "layman"
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2008
Here is a classic example where the 5-star system of Amazon breaks down. Like Roger Ebert with movies, I think it impossible to denote in a simple star rating an evaluation of a book. Should the book be rated for its entertainment value and/or readability? Should it be judged by its accuracy (in which case only an expert could rate scholarly works)? So, here's a breakdown of what my 3/5 rating means for this book:

(a) 5/5 for scholarly merit - it is well referenced and amply end-noted. I am not an expert in the field, but as a chemistry prof who has read about chemical history, there is nothing here that raises an alarm. It feels accurate and documents its claims well.

(b) 3/5 for readability - as someone interested in the Early Modern period, and someone interested in chemical history, I was favourably inclined towards this book. Although it is convincing, the prose is a little dry and occasionally repetitive. The author tends to the "Tell them what you're going to say, say it, then tell them what you've said" pattern, which ends up feeling repetitive.

(c) 3/5 for content - there is a lot of "authority" in this book, but much less "alchemy." A better title might have been "AlchemISTS and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire." This may seem like splitting hairs, but the author spends little time on what alchemy was, but rather what alchemists were and did. As a chemist, I would have been interested in the assays used to test for gold at this time, refining techniques, etc. There are plenty of pictures and explanations of the equipment, but little in the way of recipes or explanations of the chemical processes. Thus, I found the content a little disappointing in this regard. In fact, the best part of the book (for me) was a discussion on why/when alchemy could demonstrate success. We know that chemical methods cannot produce gold from lead - transmutation of elements requires a particle accelerator and then the result is only a few gold atoms at a time, and those atoms are radioactive! Nummedal spends a section explaining how a real (non-transmutative) result could be misinterpreted to verify the validity of transmutational theory in a convincing and thoughtful fashion.

Ultimately, even the most highly skilled scientific or historical writer might have had a hard time writing a book on this material. There were so many definitions of alchemy at the time that the topic is not amenable to a reductionist treatment. This leaves the reader somewhat unsatisfied, even one who understands that there is no way to find a "consensus opinion". Thus, this work is most likely of interest either to students of chemical history or students of economic history of the Early Modern period. Others will not find a breezy, witticism-laden populist account but a methodical and meticulously-researched scholarly tome.
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