Article ID: CBB223258219

Fuit Ille non Empiricus Mercenarius: Apprehensions to Alchemy in Colonial New England (2020)

unapi

While recent historical studies have uncovered the intercontinental reputations of New England alchemists, much still remains to be known about actual attitudes concerning alchemy in the early colonies. Focusing on a corpus of roughly a dozen untranslated, and all but entirely unexamined Latin orations (ca. 200 pages) composed by Harvard College’s presidents and students in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, I argue that these new sources reveal the ambivalent, occasionally antagonistic attitude that educated New England men held towards the art of alchemy. Appreciating what they regarded as, in some cases, selfless, Christian efforts to cure diseases, these Harvard elite speakers still worried that alongside pious investigators had cropped up some self-serving charlatans, those who cared not for the communal promises of the art, but only the base financial reward.

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Authors & Contributors
Caccioppoli, Carmen
Rispoli, Gennaro
Yerlioğlu, Akif Ercihan
Marc Priewe
Casini, Paolo
Kafadar, Cemal
Concepts
Alchemy
Great Britain, colonies
Chemistry
Natural magic
Science and religion
Iatrophysical school
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
19th century
16th century
Early modern
Renaissance
Places
New England (U.S.)
North America
Europe
Atlantic Ocean
Naples (Italy)
Nova Scotia
Institutions
Harvard University
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