Article ID: CBB675034051

“The Lute of Wisdom”: Alchemy, the Body, and Medicine in the Material Renaissance (2023)

unapi

Abstract This article is the first interdisciplinary study of excavated early modern lute, a paste that alchemists wrapped around vessels, contextualising its relevance for the history of science. We explore the material epistemology of the alchemical laboratory by opening a conversation between archaeological sciences and the history of the body, medicine, and science. In an age that valued embodied epistemologies, we argue, medicine mattered for cultures of making and affected alchemists’ material practices. This article combines the scientific analysis of luted glass remains from the sixteenth century Oberstockstall alchemical laboratory in Kirchberg am Wagram, Lower Austria, with the in-depth study of recipe collections, alchemical, botanical, medical, and metallurgical treatises, and visual sources. Based on this methodology, we argue that the alchemist’s material practices were strongly linked to early modern Paracelsian thought and medical understandings of the body. In methodological terms, this article shifts boundaries between historians, archaeologists, and materials scientists.

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Authors & Contributors
Long, Kathleen Perry
Timmermann, Anke
Clericuzio, Antonio
Eamon, William C.
Forshaw, Peter J.
Gantenbein, Urs Leo
Journals
Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Bruniana & Campanelliana: Ricerche Filosofiche e Materiali Storico-testuali
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Azogue: Revista Electrónica Dedicada al Estudio Histórico-Crítico de la Alquimia
Atti e Memorie, Rivista di Storia della Farmacia
Publishers
Harvard University
National Geographic Society
Indiana University
Aracne
Ashgate
Brill
Concepts
Alchemy
Medicine
Physicians; doctors
Natural magic
Neoplatonism
Human body
People
Paracelsus, Theophrastus von Hohenheim
Bacon, Roger
Barba, Alvaro Alonso
Fioravanti, Leonardo
Fludd, Robert
Gassendi, Pierre
Time Periods
16th century
17th century
Renaissance
15th century
Medieval
18th century
Places
Europe
Italy
Austria
Spain
Peru
Venice (Italy)
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