Matus, Zachary Alexander (Author)
University of Pennsylvania Press
Physical Details: 216 pages
Language: English
One of the major ambitions of medieval alchemists was to discover the elixir of life, a sovereign remedy capable not only of healing the body but of transforming it. Given the widespread belief that care for the body came at the cost of care for the soul, it might seem surprising that any Franciscan would pursue the elixir, but those who did were among its most outspoken and optimistic advocates. They believed they could distill a substance that would purify, transmute, and ennoble the human body as well as the soul. In an age when Christians across Europe were seeking material evidence for their faith and corporeal means of practicing their devotion, alchemy, and the elixir in particular, offered a way to bridge the terrestrial and the celestial.Framed as a history around science, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life focuses on alchemy as a material practice and investigates the Franciscan discourses and traditions that shaped the pursuit of the elixir, providing a rich examination of alchemy and religiosity. Zachary A. Matus makes new connections between alchemy, ritual life, apocalypticism, and the particular commitment of the Franciscan Order to the natural world, shedding new light on the question of why so many people claimed to have made, seen, or used alchemical compounds that could never have existed.
...MoreReview Steven P. Marrone (2019) Review of "Franciscans and the Elixir of Life: Religion and Science in the Later Middle Ages". American Historical Review (pp. 321-322).
Review Emily E. Beck (2018) Review of "Franciscans and the Elixir of Life: Religion and Science in the Later Middle Ages". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 703-705).
Review James Hannam (2018) Review of "Franciscans and the Elixir of Life: Religion and Science in the Later Middle Ages". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 384-385).
Similar Citations
Article
Ciola, Graziana;
(2013)
Giovanni di Rupescissa: autobiografia, profezia e leggenda
Article
Peter Murray Jones;
(2018)
The Survival of the Frater Medicus? English Friars and Alchemy, ca. 1370–ca. 1425
Article
Lorenza Gianfrancesco;
(2018)
Books, Gold, and Elixir: Alchemy and Religious Orders in Early Modern Naples
Book
Paolo Galiano;
(2022)
I codici alchemici di Frate Elia
Article
Hugoniot, Christophe;
(2011)
Una bevanda di apostasia: il comos mongolico nell'Itinerarium di frate Guglielmo di Rubrouck
Book
Bartolomeo Bologna (da);
Francesca Galli;
(2021)
Il «De Luce» di Bartolomeo da Bologna. Studio e edizione
Thesis
Rampling, J M;
(cited 2010)
The Alchemy of George Ripley, 1470--1700
Book
Theresa Levitt;
(2023)
Elixir: A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life
Article
Han, Jishao;
(2008)
External Alchemy and the Science of the TCM Formula in the Song Dynasty
Thesis
Matus, Zachary Alexander;
(2010)
Heaven in a Bottle: Franciscan Apocalypticism and the Elixir, 1250--1360
Book
Giuseppe da Spello;
Romilda Saggini;
(2025)
L'Erbario di fra Giuseppe da Spello
Chapter
Elaine Stratton Hild;
(2022)
The Role of Music in a Franciscan Liturgy for the End of Life, as Evidenced in Manuscript Newberry 24
Book
Andrew Laird;
(2024)
Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico
Article
Halevi, Masha;
(2012)
Between Faith and Science: Franciscan Archaeology in the Service of the Holy Places
Article
Luigi Pepe;
(2016)
Tra matematica e fisica. François Jacquier in Italia e le sue "Institutiones philosophicae"
Article
Elisabetta Ulivi;
(2011)
L'ultimo testamento di Luca Pacioli con altri documenti inediti
Book
Dániel Bárth;
(2020)
The Exorcist of Sombor: The Mentality of an Eighteenth-Century Franciscan Friar
Chapter
Christoph Geudens;
(2020)
Some notes on the Northern European reception of Frans Titelmans' De consideratione dialectica (1533)
Article
Matus, Zachary;
(2013)
Resurrected Bodies and Roger Bacon's Elixir
Article
Giralt, Sebastià;
(2013)
The Legend of Arnau de Vilanova, from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Times
Be the first to comment!