Women in Early Modern Alchemy

Antonio Neri, 1598-1600,
MS Ferguson 67, f. 25r.

In honor of Women's History Month, is a post that was first published here on 30 October 2013. There is little doubt that women have participated in the practice of alchemy since its beginnings. Maria Prophetissima, also known as Mary the Jewess, is perhaps the best known female alchemist. None of her writings are known to have survived, but she is thought to have lived around the third century. Legend tells that the "bain-marie" (double boiler) is named after her.  

In the seventeenth century, One of Antonio Neri’s manuscripts depicts three women running chemical equipment. It is likely that these were nuns, trained in the same Church sponsored educational system that produced Neri. Convents were often expected to be self sufficient, and many ran their own pharmacies. Antonio Neri had sisters as well as brothers, and at least one sister entered a convent located on the north side of Florence, near the laboratory where he practiced alchemy and made glass. The fact that specific names have not been associated with Neri’s  three female co-workers should not deter us from celebrating their contribution to the birth of early modern science.

Within a year of his ordination in the Catholic Church, Antonio Neri began an ambitious treatise, illustrated in his own hand, devoted to "all of alchemy." Six of the illustrations in this manuscript, completed in 1600, show women tending equipment. What is remarkable is that, in the historical record, female participation in alchemy is otherwise extremely rare. 

Two pictures show female alchemists at work. In both cases, the 

Antonio Neri, 1598-1600, 
MS Ferguson 67, f. 35r.

technician stands behind a dedicated piece of apparatus, facing forward, giving the impression of propriety in an arranged portrait. The first drawing depicts a furnace and vessels used to make liquid mercury from its ore. The other shows a different type of furnace with a 'tower,' used as an efficient way to cook ceruse (white lead oxide). These images are part of a larger set of two dozen similar drawings that each illustrate the equipment used to prepare a specific product, many include a furnace and glassware. Nine of these show a single individual, (or in one case two men) tending the equipment. 

Three other illustrations in the manuscript are notable for their

Antonio Neri, 1598-1600, 
MS Ferguson 67, f. 37r.

engagement of women. These pictures show details of kitchen and nursing work; what might be termed more traditional female roles in the sixteenth century. Two of these illustrations are devoted to the respective arts of preparing plants and animals. They show women working alongside men performing various tasks. A third illustration shows medicinal fogging tents tended by a woman. Inside one tent, a male patient sits on a bench, exposed and breathing fumes pumped in by a large vessel perched over a fire.

These images also present clues to the circumstances of Antonio Neri's work environment. We may well be looking at operations inside the Casino di San Marco soon after prince Don Antonio de' Medici's occupation of the facility. The presence of women among Neri’s colleagues indicates a social setting with a camaraderie not displayed in other alchemical works of the period.