tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34482593078363519962024-03-19T05:38:22.782-04:00ConciatoreThe Life and Times of 17th Century Glassmaker Antonio NeriPaul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.comBlogger1185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-34687242340429778052021-02-12T00:00:00.002-05:002021-02-12T00:00:03.988-05:00Archiater<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6SglrptZwbGh7GhfTLQ-TGg-ven61eRUMbVhEROlF1M7UgRVbFtkqsG5NyHL5DMdcPMGU4H2gIiaDpPjbuuOeVEGFYc-pFVN-ZOaV15TxZQ-69whHWvDzUp8c7-6O_28vGN1x5dwMWvk/s1600/Neri+crest+01.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6SglrptZwbGh7GhfTLQ-TGg-ven61eRUMbVhEROlF1M7UgRVbFtkqsG5NyHL5DMdcPMGU4H2gIiaDpPjbuuOeVEGFYc-pFVN-ZOaV15TxZQ-69whHWvDzUp8c7-6O_28vGN1x5dwMWvk/s400/Neri+crest+01.jpg" width="368" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Antonio Neri's family arms, from the vestibule</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">of the Palazzo Marzichi-Lenzi, Florence.</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Archiater was a title used in ancient times for the doctors of Roman Emperors. Later, this term was applied to the head physicians of rulers throughout Europe. Even today, the pope’s chief physician holds the official title of archiater. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1612 Florence, Antonio Neri wrote the first book devoted to glass formulation. His benefactor was Don Antonio de’ Medici, an alchemist prince from the royal family. There is no doubt that Antonio Neri gained some of his expertise at the prince’s laboratory, but his start in the chemical arts is probably owed to his own father. In the late sixteenth century, his father Neri Neri was appointed to the position of personal physician to the grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I. For Antonio’s childhood and teenage years his father was the most esteemed doctor in all of Tuscany. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Today, the connection between medicine, alchemy and glassmaking might not be so obvious, but in the early seventeenth century all three professions required use of similar materials, equipment and techniques. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">n the late 1580s, approaching the age of fifty, Antonio Neri's father was appointed the personal physician to Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici. The son of a barber-surgeon, Neri di Jacopo Neri - or Neri Neri, as he was known - had parlayed a degree in medicine into a successful and prosperous career. His elevation to 'citizen' status, a decade earlier, gave him entree into the world of the patrician elite and his appointment as royal physician secured a place for his young family near the top of the Florentine social hierarchy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />The fact that Neri Neri gained citizenship at the age of forty and did so together with his father shows it was not a legacy, but perhaps their medical prowess that lead to the award. One requirement of citizenship was possession of a domicile within the city. The baptism register lists Antonio and all of his siblings as residents of San Pier Maggiore parish, long before the citizenship grant. However, it is in the 1580s that we see the first reference to Neri Neri's ownership of the palazzo at what is now 27 Borgo Pinti.<br /><br />Baccio Valori was librarian, keeper of the royal herbal gardens and the godfather of Antonio Neri's older sister Lessandra. In 1587, Valori received a letter from Filippo Sassetti, sent from India. Filippo was a native Florentine, the nephew of Antonio Neri's godmother, Ginevra Sassetti. He attended university in Pisa with Valori and they became lifelong friends. In the letter, he notes that he has collected rare varieties of cinnamon in his travels along the Malibar coast. His intention was to rediscover the species thought to be a powerful cure of disease by the ancients. He planned to send a parcel of seeds of these and other medicinal plants. "If it pleases God, in the coming year, I will send this to you, so that you may see it all, together with our Messer Neri Neri, who graces my memories."<br /><br />In the autumn of 1587, Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici and his wife Bianca Cappello both became ill and died during a visit by the grand duke's younger brother Cardinal Ferdinando. Pernicious malaria was to blame and accounts by physicians on the scene described identical symptoms for husband and wife. The thirty-eight-year-old Cardinal Ferdinando relocated to Florence from Rome; he took charge and assumed power as the new grand duke of Tuscany. Shortly after, he appointed Neri Neri as his head physician.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">*This post first appeared here on 14 August 2013.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-29741011624232685032021-02-10T00:00:00.002-05:002021-02-10T00:00:03.282-05:00Sonnet for a Barber<p> </p><p><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPU92_tavzH8d5evlPeA6buEluhlT4IaVgO9Zoi4y38pjRm11X9TjnBih6xBoKlW0YkMlxpk5ahLYpRzTInSb2rVoAf7S6NHdOZjlqSSoqY8PtJq6CLyeG2JTe8bnQq6ztTNSnwipPHgY/s1600/domenichi.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPU92_tavzH8d5evlPeA6buEluhlT4IaVgO9Zoi4y38pjRm11X9TjnBih6xBoKlW0YkMlxpk5ahLYpRzTInSb2rVoAf7S6NHdOZjlqSSoqY8PtJq6CLyeG2JTe8bnQq6ztTNSnwipPHgY/s400/domenichi.jpg" width="353" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16.2288px;">Possible portrait of Lodovico Domenichi,</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;">British Museum, inventory #1867,1012.650</span></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">This is a post about a 16th century poet who was best friends with alchemist/glassmaker Antonio Neri's grandfather, Jacopo, and who may even be the inspiration for the glassmaker's middle name: Lodovico. Neri, born in 1576, is remembered mostly for his book of glass recipes, <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>, yet he considered himself first and foremost an alchemist. His father was the personal physician to the grand duke of Tuscany, and his grandfather was a barber surgeon, who probably lived in the family house until his death in 1594, when Antonio was an 18-year-old. There can be little question that our glassmaker/alchemist was steeped in chemistry and medicine from a very early age, but perhaps also literature. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In November of 1554, poet Lodovico Domenichi wrote a sonnet to his friend, Jacopo Neri. Jacopo was from Dicomano in the upper Arno River valley, then living in Florence with his young family. Domenichi was serving a sentence of house arrest in a wretched paper mill in Pescia, in the hills north of Florence. He had been found guilty by the inquisition on charges of translating the heretical writing of John Calvin into vernacular Italian, a crime for which the poet could have easily been executed. Luckily, he had friends in high places and after some nervous time spent in the stockade in Pisa, his sentence was reduced and later commuted by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Jacopo Neri had taken ill with a grave infirmity and when word reached Domenichi, he took pen to paper and composed seventy stanzas in the style of Petrarch. In so doing he bestowed a precious gift, the only one he could under the circumstances; he immortalized his good friend on paper. The sonnet starts:</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> As I have now come to understand your</i></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> Perilous illness and health,</i></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> It is both grief and fondness that I show<br /><br /> So may merciful God help you,</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> Without delay, lest this vile world lose</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> So much goodness in you, so much virtue.</i></span></div><div><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the sonnet, he goes on to extol Jacopo's kindness towards patients, his willingness to forgive and his admiration among scholars. Along the way, Domenichi describes his own predicament; the cruelties of the mill workers, the muddy floors, his desire to flee and trying to sleep on a bed of frozen straw among the work animals. The rain has been falling for weeks and he is miserable. Recalling happier times he evokes the memories of many mutual friends, including a dwarf named Don Gabriello Franceschi, who delivered sermons at the Cestello church, Neri's family church, located a few hundred feet from his front door. Franceschi was from the family into which Jacopo's daughter, Faustina, would later marry. </span><br /><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> There he is called Don Gabriello </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> Franceschi and I am honored, for good reason,</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i> A giant of men in a small handsome package.</i></span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">He goes on to describe his saviors; the men who intervened with the Church on his behalf. One was Pompeo della Barba, educated at Pisa and later called to Rome as the personal physician to Pope Pius IV. In the end, Domenichi was pardoned, allowed to leave the damp mill and return to Florence. Within a short time, he was appointed court historian to Cosimo I. Over his career, he published many volumes; translations of works ranging from Xenophon, to Plutarch, to Pliny's Natural History, to a groundbreaking compilation of poems by contemporary women. At the end of his life, Domenichi suffered devastating debilitation, maybe from a stroke, which robbed him of the ability to speak. Even so, he still received regular visits from his old friend Jacopo Neri the barber surgeon. As we turn away from the subject of Lodovico Domenichi, it is hard to resist speculating that a decade after his death, the poet was remembered with fondness by the Neri family in the christening of our glassmaker, whose full name is Antonio Lodovico Neri.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Lodovico Domenichi, "A Mastro Jacopo di Neri, Cerusico, E Barbiere." in Il Secondo libro dell' Opere Burlesche, di M. Francesco Berni. (Fiorenza: Apresso li Heredi di Bernardo Giunti, 1555), vv. 2. Reprinted many times. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">*This post first appeared 9 September 2013.</span></div></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-24596388234725919382021-02-08T00:00:00.002-05:002021-02-08T00:00:03.733-05:00The Duke's Mouthwash<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwtBLV6780DuaVWzySpynzHnblK6UK5AHqVquB7OxNudjC3Ru1Q_cycbsKeP1RrmJAI1IWZ7dnDvXVHGVCBHOP-oGHaYP-L08nU1NBC8dig_cMnT3s2UjWkMTiDZ3cdvYeqbOioPfbRDo/s1600/5556.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwtBLV6780DuaVWzySpynzHnblK6UK5AHqVquB7OxNudjC3Ru1Q_cycbsKeP1RrmJAI1IWZ7dnDvXVHGVCBHOP-oGHaYP-L08nU1NBC8dig_cMnT3s2UjWkMTiDZ3cdvYeqbOioPfbRDo/s400/5556.jpg" width="347" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549-1609),</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Scipione Pulzone (1544 - 1598), Private collection.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Antonio Neri's father, Neri Neri, was royal physician to the family of Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici. As such, he regularly interacted with other members of court, ranging from the archbishop of Florence, to his colleagues in medicine, including the royal apothecary (speziale), Stefano Rosselli. Rosselli shared more than a professional relationship with Neri Neri. They both admired the work of an ancient Greek physician named Dioscorides; Rosselli was something of an authority on his methods. In addition, he ran the 'Speziale al Giglio' shop, once owned by Tommaso del Giglio, who's chapel Neri Neri took over at Cestello church. Rosselli's son, Francesco, and Neri Neri were among the four chosen to revise and update the famed </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On 21 September 1589, Rosselli started to compile his own book of recipes to pass down to his two sons, Francesco and Vincenzo, who would go on to continue the pharmacy.[2] The book begins with a poison remedy credited to none other than Cosimo de' Medici. Recipe no. 9 is the grand duke’s antispasmodic oil, presented by Niccolò Sisti, with whom Antonio Neri would later work at the glass house in Pisa. No. 20 is the duke's oil for deafness, also presented by Sisti. No. 41 is a poison antidote revealed to Francesco de' Medici by the Archduke of Austria. It was tested on a prisoner at the Bargello prison, a "volunteer" who was intentionally poisoned as part of the experiment, then revived with the antidote in the presence of Stefano Rosselli and Baccio Baldini, the long time physician to Cosimo I. Supposedly, the prisoner's reward for surviving was early release.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Recipe No. 30 carries perhaps a bit less risk; it is titled "Acqua da gengie di messer Nerj Nerj" (Mouth wash of Neri Neri):</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Take a quarter of a bushel of mastic buds,a quarter of a bushel of myrtle buds, a quarter of a bushel of red roses, three ounces of alum, a half ounce of salt and a quarter ounce of hard rose honey. Mash the herbs with a mortar and pestle and put them in nine pounds of Greek wine for twenty-four hours, then boil in a bain-marie and reduce to two-thirds. In this, we bathe the gums: it makes them dry and firm.</span></i></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Mastic</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Myrtle</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Alum</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Rose Honey</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Greek Wine</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The date that Stefano Rosselli started his book of secrets is interesting because it is the same day that Neri Neri, with the grand duke's two other physicians, Cini and Da Barga, were busy making medicinal wine based on Dioscorides' ancient recipes. Perhaps they all met that day at Rosselli's shop, for his advice. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] Neri, Benadù, Rosselli, Galletti 1597.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[2] Rosselli 1996;</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> an Italian transcription and French translation of Rosselli's recipes, with a very entertaining introduction.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">* This post first appeared here on 4 November 2013 in a shorter form.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-27717904293865504522021-02-05T00:00:00.002-05:002021-02-05T00:00:05.384-05:00The Duke's Oil<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZjlQzYl_B1AGQc79AqKDgZBF2N6bVXQAlyWJcwQ29xIJIMxKPg2zYzzFLQjfMi4LgoISdrmkdVjDShJTe5BC1YSJYPnO88DokXVW7A8xLzDm2oOJZn26-lQd4v0MmyMzIoYdX0kFdOw/s1600/piranesi-trajan.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="419" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZjlQzYl_B1AGQc79AqKDgZBF2N6bVXQAlyWJcwQ29xIJIMxKPg2zYzzFLQjfMi4LgoISdrmkdVjDShJTe5BC1YSJYPnO88DokXVW7A8xLzDm2oOJZn26-lQd4v0MmyMzIoYdX0kFdOw/s400/piranesi-trajan.jpg" width="303" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Trajan's Column, Rome</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1758)</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the seventeenth century, alchemy was a dangerous business. Yes, there were risks of sanctions by the authorities, which could be very harsh, but great dangers also lurked in the chemicals themselves. Some like lead and mercury accumulated in the tissues slowly, over a period of years, others could kill a man within a few minutes. Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte had personal knowledge of just how deadly the products of alchemy could be.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In Rome, Del Monte was the unofficial ambassador to Florence and the Medici family. He regularly greeted dignitaries from around Europe and dazzled them in his sumptuous palace. He was an avid glass collector, a patron of the arts and more quietly a dedicated student of alchemy. He was a lifelong friend to Don Antonio de' Medici and visited the prince's laboratory in Florence several times. This is where Antonio Neri was making glass early in his career. Later, Neri worked at a secondary Medici glass furnace in Pisa, where the cardinal had fancy glass table service made for the Vatican.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">About a two mile walk from Saint Peter's Basilica, over the Tiber River, directly toward the Colosseum, is Trajan's Column. It commemorates Emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars at the beginning of the second century. It displays a scroll in base relief that winds all the way from the pedestal to the capital. The monument is large enough to contain an internal staircase leading to an observation platform at the top. In 1587, it was crowned by a bronze statue of Saint Peter that still stands today; the initial model was sculpted by artist Tommaso della Porta, who was under the patronage of Cardinal Del Monte. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Giovanni Baglione picks up the story in his book </span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>That man [della Porta], I think, suffered mentally and it showed at the end of his days. When he felt some kind of tingling in his abdomen, he went to the Cardinal del Monte his friend and master and asked for some of the "grand duke’s oil" that he hoped would relieve the tingling. The Cardinal indulged him; gave it to him and said that he should apply it only to the wrists and only a little, because the oil was potent and it could make him feel sick. He took it and went back to his house and after dinner he sent for the barber, to administer the medication, and while the messenger went on, Tommaso impatient and simpleminded, applied the oil himself and instead of touching the wrists, as the Cardinal had instructed, he lathered the arms, chest, body and entire abdomen, so that the powerful oil went to the heart and in fact killed him. The barber arrived to medicate him, found him dead and all attempts at revival were in vain. Tommaso della Porta, was buried at Santa Maria del Popolo.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The "grand duke's oil," was widely known, and widely cited in references throughout Europe well into the 19th century. Its other name was oil of tobacco – essentially a distillation of almost pure nicotine. In very small doses, it acts as a stimulant of the central nervous system, in slightly higher doses it is a narcotic, even greater, but still relatively small amounts act as a quick and lethal poison absorbed directly through the skin. Ingesting a single pill capsule of typical size full of pure liquid nicotine is more than enough to kill an adult in short order.</span><br /><br /><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This story has one final twist. Antiques dealer Domenico Lupo was one of the men present at the reading of Della Porta's will on 7 March 1607. Twenty-five years later, an inventory of Lupo's assets listed a "small figure half old and half new that is said to be of Prior Ant. Neri," either the glassmaker or possibly his great uncle. </span></div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">* This post first appeared here 5 February 2014. </span></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-27149788408931821862021-02-03T00:00:00.001-05:002021-02-03T00:00:05.399-05:00Alchemist Cardinal<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgamVHdnbxOc7795uwY2e8QgyiPn2i4-NT4svscslUxrmh-voW99ZTLjTkpS394wiwqghgSQcvg5hLAv1MTAztMsU-hLsA_DGAE79sqBTL7IAGYPRUk9elVzhvc7HHHPOp_wUIinZekX-k/s1600/b133317376ed.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="569" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgamVHdnbxOc7795uwY2e8QgyiPn2i4-NT4svscslUxrmh-voW99ZTLjTkpS394wiwqghgSQcvg5hLAv1MTAztMsU-hLsA_DGAE79sqBTL7IAGYPRUk9elVzhvc7HHHPOp_wUIinZekX-k/s400/b133317376ed.jpg" width="284" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Portrait of Francesco Maria del Monte</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ottavio Leoni (1578–1630)</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the early seventeenth century, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte served as the unofficial Florentine cultural ambassador in Rome. He regularly entertained visiting dignitaries and represented the Medici family's interests within the Vatican. He was an avid art collector, glass enthusiast and amateur alchemist. He was a patron to the artist Caravaggio, to the astronomer Galileo and a dear friend to Antonio Neri's employer Don Antonio de' Medici.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The strong bond of affection between Don Antonio and Cardinal Del Monte is clear from their extensive correspondence and gifts to each other. In addition to their passion for alchemy, the two shared a strong interest in glassmaking technology. There is a chance that the cardinal met glassmaker Antonio Neri in Florence; in 1602 he visited the Casino di San Marco, where the glass foundry was located and he returned in 1608, although by then Neri was in Antwerp. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Del Monte's biographer Zygmunt Waźbiński offers, "It is very likely that Cardinal Del Monte, with his interest in glass, had known then (in 1598) the [future] </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">author [Neri] of <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>." [1]</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Del Monte collaborated with Niccolò Sisti, the grand duke's glass foundry master at Pisa, where Neri also worked for a time. Sisti often provided Del Monte with glassware for Medici customers within the College of Cardinals in Rome. The cardinal's patronage also brought many glassmakers in Rome to the appreciation of the papal court. After his death, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Del Monte's will shows that at his main residence, the Palazzo Madama, he maintained an entire room, "gabinetto dei vetri" [cabinet of glasswork] that housed five hundred pieces of glassware. It cannot go without mention that he was also the proud owner of what has become one of most celebrated pieces of ancient glass, now referred to as the Portland Vase.</span><br /><div><br /></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There are indications in Neri's 1600 manuscript that he visited Rome. If so, it is hard to imagine him not seeking an audience with the cardinal, either at his villa on the Pincio, overlooking the city or at the Palazzo Madama, now offices of the Italian Senate. The palazzo was appointed in fabulous luxury and arranged to accommodate a constant flow of dignitaries from around the world. The villa, on the other hand, was where the cardinal's alchemy laboratory was located. This was a more secluded retreat where the cardinal could entertain guests with more discretion.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYSQei49HjypBqr710lXVcnoJ47rIJqU-rcpk3fq4ofzpKKhwvbhS9QjEFp0PaG9bch3WadLZ9TM0nkrVcbp8M1hy96SmTMMGpE9_3TPZAGZnpAgJfe0gHpRLP_R3A_rrTjZ0cox9_-M/s1600/Caravaggio.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYSQei49HjypBqr710lXVcnoJ47rIJqU-rcpk3fq4ofzpKKhwvbhS9QjEFp0PaG9bch3WadLZ9TM0nkrVcbp8M1hy96SmTMMGpE9_3TPZAGZnpAgJfe0gHpRLP_R3A_rrTjZ0cox9_-M/s1600/Caravaggio.jpg" width="321" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Michelangelo Caravaggio, c. 1597<br />Casino Ludovisi.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As the sixteenth century ended and a new one dawned, Del Monte sheltered the rough-and-tumble painter Michelangelo Caravaggio, whom he set up with an in-house studio and an allowance. However, in 1606, the master of Realism fled Rome after reportedly murdering a tavern waiter over a tennis wager, but not before executing his only known fresco on the vaulted ceiling of Del Monte's own alchemy laboratory. Looking out over Rome, on the panoramic Pincio, in the Villa that later became the Casino Ludovisi and is now known as the Casino dell'Aurora, Caravaggio put his brush to work. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">According to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Gian Pietro </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Bellori,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> the early biographer of artists</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, Caravaggio executed the oil painting sometime between 1597 and 1600. [2] Depicted in the mural are the three brothers Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: the masters of the universe. The image is a double allegory of the three basic chemical substances of Paracelsus (salt sulfur and mercury) and the four Aristotelian elements (air, earth, water and fire). Jupiter with the eagle stands for sulfur and air, Neptune with the seahorse stands for mercury and water and Pluto with the three-headed dog Cerberus stands for salt and earth. Jupiter is reaching out to move the central celestial sphere in which the sun (fire) revolves around the earth. [3] </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><br /><div></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The villa was a relatively secluded retreat where the Cardinal could entertain guests discretely, including his friend Galileo–Del Monte and his older brother Guidobaldo helped land Galileo the chair of mathematics at the university in Pisa. This is also where Galileo demonstrated his telescope for interested dignitaries in Rome. It would be interesting to hear the astronomer’s comments on Caravaggio's tribute to heliocentrism.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">[1] Neri 1612.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">[2] Bellori 1672, pp. 197-216.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">[3] Wallach 1975, pp. 101-112.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">*The material in this post first appeared in a different form on 27 Nov. 2013 and 4 Jul. 2014.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-68136931471894716902021-02-01T00:00:00.003-05:002021-02-01T00:00:04.840-05:00Neri's Travels<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBwhNEfWQtdR1OUvMWKyclSiqT0SJcIiYO1Q9dfduBdqUPSyKBCdD5z2V5mETgyY0cOrHW1Z-XKldXwgwBnjx95mqf5VSoms8GKkaDByg6vj4bgjI1e95Lb4c1DQYGJpfejdkBOhDHkk/s1600/Rome+Neri.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="350" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBwhNEfWQtdR1OUvMWKyclSiqT0SJcIiYO1Q9dfduBdqUPSyKBCdD5z2V5mETgyY0cOrHW1Z-XKldXwgwBnjx95mqf5VSoms8GKkaDByg6vj4bgjI1e95Lb4c1DQYGJpfejdkBOhDHkk/s400/Rome+Neri.jpg" width="350" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">“Roma,” Antonio Neri,</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">from Tesoro del Mondo (Neri 1598–1600).</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The length and breadth of Antonio Neri's travels are far greater in thumbnail biographies and off hand remarks than can be substantiated by actual documentation. While stories of the glassmaker's travels through Europe abound, the truth of the matter is that only a small number of his movements have been verified through contemporary materials. But even if a minority of the wanderings attributed to Neri are true, then he certainly was a man of the world. Writing nearly two centuries after his death, historian Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti claimed the priest left Italy to elude "thugs" in Florence who hounded him for the secret of transmutation. Tozzetti says he fled to England first and then visited Spain, Holland and France. [1] No direct evidence has yet turned up to support any of this. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Other accounts say he "traveled all over Europe" and that he deceitfully posed as a "common assistant" in order to learn scientific secrets that he could not gain access to by other means. [2] One story I have heard making the rounds among glass workers is that Neri was chased to the "gates of Prague" by assassins. This is most likely confusion with a similar story about Venetian glassmakers leaving Murano without state permission to ply their craft elsewhere.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">There are four cities in which Neri is confirmed to have been present: Florence, the city of his birth; Pisa where he worked at the glass furnace run by Niccolò Sisti; Antwerp, where he spent about seven years visiting his friend Emmanuel Ximenes and in Mechelen, at the Hospital of Malines, where he wrote about pioneering medical treatments in a letter to a friend back in Florence.[3] </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In addition, there are other locations that are strongly hinted at in various writings. In his <i>Treasure of the World</i> manuscript, Neri has an allegorical depiction in the form of a simplistic map showing “The Ways to Rome.” It depicts the walled enclave of the Vatican (see illustration) with various paths representing different chemical routes to transmutation. If nothing else, this leaves the door open to a personal familiarity with the eternal city. In his glass book, <i>L’Arte Vetraria</i>, Neri mentions a number of specific locations in northern Italy, but perhaps none as authoritatively as Venice. He comments about the materials and techniques specific to the glassmakers on Murano. There is little doubt that Neri was exposed to Venetian glass workers in Florence, Pisa and Antwerp, so they provide a perfectly plausible source for his knowledge of their distinctive techniques. This would be a sufficient explanation, except that there is also a letter written by his friend Emmanuel Ximenes, detailing a route for Neri's visit to Antwerp; a route that runs through Venice. Below is the passage from a letter, dated 5 December 1602. The glassmaker would be delayed by illness, but the following year he did make the journey. While it seems a good bet that he followed Ximenes' instructions that is another detail in need of confirmation.</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Anyway, the lack of peace in these countries prevents me from recommending them for you to come or not, but if you make up your mind to come, God willing, you will have the same fortunes as we have. Besides, after your arrival, is not a marriage indissoluble, having no other bond than mutual affection? If you decide to come I would recommend that you should go with the courier from Florence to Venice, arriving in Venice in time that you would be able to accompany the merchants who come to the fair held in Frankfurt at mid Lent; you will stay there the length of the fair for fifteen days, which will not displease you for having seen it. After that, you would go in the company of other merchants to Cologne and then with them or others, by land or sea to Holland, ending up at this city. This sea, however, is nothing more than rivers. I recently went by land to Basel and from there by water ending here. But for Your Lordship, who does not speak the German and Flemish languages, I would consider better the way that I say, with merchants from Venice to Frankfurt and then with others by water to arrive here. To this end, if you decide to come, upon giving me notice I will immediately send letters of recommendation to Venice to find a person who will help you to find company that must end up in Frankfurt and another for a friend in Frankfurt to get you started and perhaps it would be the same one with whom Guillelmo Reineri, servant of my brother Mr. Niccolò, came from here. Guillelmo usually goes to every fair by water up to Frankfurt, then back when it ends. He is close to me, a friend and very practical in his travels. This Renieri may give a report of the Frankfurt fair and also details of the voyage, as he made the outward journey for the fair last September. I shall send him a letter by means of my brother to give him the money on my account that would be necessary. But you should decide and advise me immediately, in order to go to Venice in time to find a group. I will wait for your decision, asking God to inspire the best . . . [4]</span></i></blockquote><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[1] <i>“E fatto con prestezza fagotto, la mattina all'aprir della porta uscì el di Firenze e se n'andò in Inghilterra. Girò la Spagna, Olanda, Francia e Germania…”</i> [He packed in haste and in the morning opened his door, left Florence, and went to England. He toured Spain, Holland, France and Germany…] Targioni-Tozzetti 189, p. 149.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[2] See Rodwell 1870.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[3] Neri 1608.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[4] Ximenes 1601–11, 5 December 1602.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">* This post first appeared here on 19 Dec. 2014.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-63636073176406580132021-01-29T00:00:00.002-05:002021-01-29T00:00:03.453-05:00Don Giovanni de' Medici<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicmoO7mAkGG4K3gLnmUoPDcAVNzDiwuN0yIKogVsWxJ4EwxEeN2IQpZn1KMw1EHrM0qXjo9EZ1WKoLu4wW2zQfDxqvmzk5PFgIxq7GtQQ9YOMHQqu5B17EWRNwR8AkcTPKVhVGW-YqWM/s1600/Don-Giovanni-deMedici6.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="755" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjicmoO7mAkGG4K3gLnmUoPDcAVNzDiwuN0yIKogVsWxJ4EwxEeN2IQpZn1KMw1EHrM0qXjo9EZ1WKoLu4wW2zQfDxqvmzk5PFgIxq7GtQQ9YOMHQqu5B17EWRNwR8AkcTPKVhVGW-YqWM/s400/Don-Giovanni-deMedici6.jpg" width="294" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Don Giovanni di Cosimo I de' Medici</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In July of 1621, a man lay dying in his bed, in his palazzo on Murano, the glassmaker's island in Venice. This fifty-four year old had recently become a father and his wife Livia was expecting a second child, but the tumor in his throat meant he would not see his two year-old son Gianfrancesco Maria grow up, nor would he live to hold his yet unborn daughter in his arms. His death would also trigger a series of unanticipated ugly events. Don Giovanni de' Medici was the son of Grand Duke Cosimo I and Eleonora degli Albizzi. He had been general of the Venetian army and before that led Tuscan troops in Flanders, France, Hungary and served as ambassador in Madrid. But he was far more than a soldier; he was an architect who helped design the Chapel of Princes in Florence, he was a strong patron of the arts and he was a devoted alchemist. He plays a somewhat tangential role in the life of glassmaker Antonio Neri, yet their paths cross repeatedly through common associates, interests and locations.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Don Giovanni's palazzo on Murano was the grandest on the island; previously owned by the father of Grand Duchess of Tuscany Bianca Cappello. She spent time at the palazzo as a child and was the mother of Antonio Neri's sponsor, Don Antonio de' Medici. King Henry III of France stayed there on his tour of glass factories on the island. Later, the palace would be the residence of the bishop of Torcello and ultimately, in 1861, became what it is today: the famous Museum of Glass (Museo del Vetro).[1] If, in the winter of 1603-4, Neri followed the route through Venice to Antwerp suggested by his friend Emmanuel Ximenes, then a visit to this palazzo would have certainly been in order, although not yet occupied by Don Giovanni.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Early in his career, in the 1590s, Don Giovanni commanded troops against the Ottomans in Hungary and his young nephew Don Antonio was directly under his command. The two men would both set up alchemy laboratories in their respective Florentine residences; Don Antonio in the Casino di San Marco on the north side of town and Don Giovanni at his Casino del Parione (today the Palazzo Corsini al Parione) along the Arno River behind the Santa Trinita Church. Don Giovanni's was only steps away from </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Antonio Neri's residence, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">the palazzo Bartolini, after his ordination. Santa Trinita was a Benedictine church and the office of yet another alchemy enthusiast: Vallombrosan Abbot-General Orazio Morandi. It is unknown if Neri had any association with this church, but Morandi wrote that times spent in Don Giovanni's laboratory were among his "most cherished memories." Much later, in 1630, Morandi gave testimony at court concerning a Simon Carlo Rondinelli, saying: </span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>I have known Signor Rondinelli for twenty years, from the time I was in Florence. I met him often there in the house of Alessandro de’ Neri. The said Rondinelli is very well versed in astrology.[2]</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The timing places Morandi in the Neri family house when Antonio's younger brother, Alessandro (who had inherited the house), was twenty-one years old. It was shortly before Antonio's return from Antwerp.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While Neri was in Antwerp visiting his friend Emmanuel Ximenes, Don Antonio was leading Tuscan troops nearby, in Flanders, on the side of the Spanish against the Dutch independence movement. Nevertheless, he found time to submit his design for the Chapel of Princes in Florence, and to quarry marble for the project and have it shipped back to Tuscany. It is unknown if Neri and Don Giovanni ever shared a meal in Antwerp, but the decorated soldier/polymath did commission a series of paintings there, for the grand duke, to be hung in the new Medici villa 'La Ferdinanda' at Artemino in Prato. The interior decoration of the public spaces in this villa were being executed by artists Passignano and Poccetti, fresh from finishing their recent collaborative masterpieces; the Neri Chapel and Cestello church on Borgo Pinti, financed by Neri's late father.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] For a full treatment of the history of the Palazzo, see Canal 1909 in the Bibliography (to the right).</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[2] Translation by Brendan Dooley “Morandi's last prophecy and the end of Renaissance politics” (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2002), p. 22.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">*This post first appeared here in a slightly different form on September 25, 2013.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-89501606117101030442021-01-27T00:00:00.001-05:002021-01-27T00:00:04.713-05:00Neri and the Kabbalah <p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKsfcuOli1bWMIsKcX0j8YAsVncITbME3U6Acr1_4bqcluPqKrqOnxsfpprLAa3FlsqKBgHEsG1kvGNCRFZrwNIHE0FueMXwlYBRyJrrD4gxFTCHnaL505oqSEqse1t8rBslYkNWsjWA/s1600/tree_of_life.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKsfcuOli1bWMIsKcX0j8YAsVncITbME3U6Acr1_4bqcluPqKrqOnxsfpprLAa3FlsqKBgHEsG1kvGNCRFZrwNIHE0FueMXwlYBRyJrrD4gxFTCHnaL505oqSEqse1t8rBslYkNWsjWA/s400/tree_of_life.jpg" width="295" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Kabbalistic Sephiroth Tree,</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">from </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Portae Lucis</i><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">, Paulus Ricius (Trans.)</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Augsburg, 1516.</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Kabbalah is a form of mysticism practiced within the Jewish tradition. In the early seventeenth century, there was a great deal of interest in Kabbalistic teachings among Catholic alchemists and natural philosophers. It was recognized that Christian alchemy had its roots in Hermetic and earlier Arabic societies, (the word "alchemy" itself is of Arabic origin.) It was thought that the Jewish Kabbalah was yet another branch of the same traditions of relaying secret knowledge by word of mouth. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In early modern Florence, Italy, there were some interesting connections between the Kabbalah and glassmaker, alchemist and Catholic Priest Antonio Neri. Here is Neri’s own description, of Kabbalah in his 1613 manuscript Discorso: </span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Some call it Kabbalah: in ancient times fathers communicated it to their children only by voice, preserving [this knowledge] for posterity, not for history, but as simple tradition. Others finally gave it the name of 'wisdom' [sapienza] because they rightly believed it was impossible, without this art, to know perfectly the nature and the qualities of natural bodies. In order to achieve the end they wanted, which was the perfection of the bodies, they separated the pure from the impure through various chemical operations, which can all be reduced to six principal phases.*</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He goes on to describe basic chemical operations that were thought to be fundamental to purifying materials, and ultimately to the production of the Philosopher's Stone. These techniques are the same as practiced in Christian alchemy, and Neri uses them in his glassmaking recipes. Clearly, he had more than a passing knowledge of the subject, and it is interesting to speculate on how he might have come to learn about Jewish alchemical traditions. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Early seventeenth century Florence contained a city within a city: the Jewish Ghetto. A walled perimeter encircled what is now the Piazza della Republica. This was the mandated home for all of Florence's Jewish population. Each night, entrance gates were closed and locked from the outside. Within the Ghetto, residents were allowed to live and warship freely, even maintaining a Synagogue. In the daytime, the gates were opened, and residents were allowed to go about their business and leave the city with special passes. Among the Ghetto's most prominent residents was the family of alchemist Benedetto Blanis (c.1580-1647.) Blanis served as librarian to Medici prince Don Giovanni. Giovanni maintained an alchemical laboratory in his residence, which was run by Blanis, located only a short distance from where Antonio Neri was living when he first worked at the Casino di San Marco. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Don Giovanni maintained a close relationship with Neri’s benefactor Don Antonio de' Medici. So close, in fact that when two of Blanis' relatives were implicated in a gambling scheme, Don Antonio hid them at his residence and then spirited them away, out of Florence, in his own coach until matters cooled off. Furthermore, Blanis came from a family of doctors who must have been known to Neri's father, royal physician to Grand Duke Ferdinando. Antonio Neri was probably a couple of years older than Blanis, if they did not meet through mutual connections with the Medici family, then perhaps they met on the street. The walk for Neri, between his living quarters near Santa Trinita, and the Casino laboratories would have passed around or through the Ghetto, and the walk for Blanis to Don Giovanni's palazzo on Via Parione took him past Neri's front door. The paths of the two men may have crossed, but there is not direct evidence.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, in the absence of hard facts, there are many other possibilities of how Antonio Neri might have become acquainted with Kabbalistic tradition. By taking a look at Blanis and his connections to the Medici family, we can at least see an area of cooperation between Jewish and Christian alchemists in what we might otherwise assume to be an inviolable separation.** </span><br /><br />* “Discorso sopra la Chimica: The Paracelsian Philosophy of Antonio Neri”, M.G. Grazzini / Nuncius 27 (2012), p. 337.<br />For more on Blanis, see Edward L. Goldberg, The Secret World of Benedetto Blanis. (2011).<br /><div>** This post first appeared here on 6 January 2014.</div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-74086267493479967312021-01-25T07:35:00.001-05:002021-01-25T07:35:42.654-05:00Knights of Malta<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBSW8BbKlldfxvjS28OU8l3YrDAPZycbCwy-aCSN3kx-GfWT9_NL2f2Ene-79X4UmlZfRr3VoJR2-KiLeZ1ukmFNzyE_cCPcjU0qFMwc1mg1Pr1mAep8p2bGbVUaKYv5XzQiJgx0YKEg/s1600/picCaravaggioKnightGrandCrossw.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="1050" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBSW8BbKlldfxvjS28OU8l3YrDAPZycbCwy-aCSN3kx-GfWT9_NL2f2Ene-79X4UmlZfRr3VoJR2-KiLeZ1ukmFNzyE_cCPcjU0qFMwc1mg1Pr1mAep8p2bGbVUaKYv5XzQiJgx0YKEg/s400/picCaravaggioKnightGrandCrossw.jpg" width="327" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fra Antonio Martelli, Knight of the Order of Malta,</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Attrib. Caravaggio, c. 1608.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Of me, Priest Antonio Neri, Florentine 1598." So starts the inscription on the first of 61 ink and watercolor illustrations in a manuscript titled "<i>Tesoro del Mondo</i>" [Treasure of the World]. It is the earliest manuscript known to exist by the respected glassmaker and alchemist, started when he was just twenty-two years old. Given the Church's rules and the typical length of training for ordination, twenty-two is about the youngest age possible for a priest. In fact, it is likely that the responsibility was granted to him mere months or weeks before the ambitious manuscript was begun, which he dedicates to the exposition of "all of alchemy." </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This scenario raises the intriguing question of which religious order would have taken on the sponsorship of educating a future priest as an alchemist; a mystery that remains unanswered to this day. Recently, we looked at two promising possibilities; the Canons Regular, and the Dominicans. Today we investigate a less conventional possibility: the Knights of Malta. The knights were ancient aristocratic military order that originated during the crusades and in Neri's time ran the papal navy. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Knights of Malta headed two churches in Florence and Neri can be connected to both. With the first, our priest has an indirect association. San Giovannino dei Cavalieri, (formerly called San Giovanni Decollato) is located a few steps from the Casino di San Marco, where Neri made glass at the beginning of the seventeenth century. His sponsor and owner of the Casino was Medici prince Don Antonio, whose daughter Maddalena later served as a nun at the associated convent. [1] The second church, San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini, is directly connected to Neri in a story recorded shortly after his lifetime. [2]</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The following passage contains much that is contradicted by the facts, yet infused enough with the truth to make us wonder. Historian, courtier, genealogist and Florentine senator Monsignor Girolamo da Sommaia [3] recounted that:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>M. Antonio who had died in Florence five or six years earlier and was from San Jacopo in Campo Corbolino,[4] said that he had the [philosophers] "stone," which he found in a pen-written book of secrets and took the paper and showed it to Casa (Agnolo Talducci della Casa, from the reign of Ferdinando I) who said what he was holding was sophistry, but that the cost was very little to try, so he tried it, and saying he succeeded, he told Casa and a goldsmith on the Ponte Vecchio, who did the first assay and later in his presence threw a bag of that powder into the Arno.[5]</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A number of notebooks chronicle Neri's long working association with Della Casa at Don Antonio de' Medici's laboratory. These and other documents cast considerable doubt on the veracity of Sommia's story. Nevertheless, individual details do ring true. Of particular interest is the name of the church, San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini. It still stands today, a block west of the mercato centrale in Florence. The Knights Templar occupied it since 1256 and when that order died out, the Knights of Malta took it over. Neri's affiliation may have been through his work for Don Antonio, who belonged to the order. Another possibility is that Neri was attached to the knights through his father's connections at court. The order maintained a great deal of independence, reporting directly to the pope and curia. Their main presence was on Malta, Neri was not a knight but he could have occupied a place in their clergy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The knights followed the rule of Augustine and enjoyed a close relationship with the Augustinians. The order traces its roots to the crusades [6] and has various associations with alchemy, notably George Ripley. [7] The fifteenth century English physician and alchemist was ordained into the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, but he later joined the Carmelites. He is purported to have used gold produced through alchemy to help finance the Knights of Malta in the war with the Ottoman Empire. [8] Folklore maintains that Ripley learned transmutation as part of his Italian schooling in alchemy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] Luti 2006, pp. 171, 172.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[2] See Targioni-Tozzetti 189.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[3] Girolamo da Sommaia (1573–1635). He served as provost of the university (studio) at Pisa and prior of the convent church of the Knights of Saint-Etienne in the years 1614–1636. He was also a friend and supporter of Galileo.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[4] Today, this church is called S. Jacopo in Campo Corbolini. It was founded in 1206.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[5] Related in Targioni-Tozzetti 189, thanks to Maria Grazzini for pointing me to this passage.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[6] Known variously through history as the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights of Rhodes, the Knights of St. John of Jerulsalem and the Knights of Malta.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[7] Sir George Ripley (ca. 1415–1490), Bridlington, York. Cf. Rampling 2008; McCallum 1996.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[8] Fuller 1840.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-43955002964002178432021-01-22T00:00:00.003-05:002021-01-22T00:00:06.410-05:00Don Antonio de' Medici<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigzs2grNZjBAa1QsUfcmfA7BSxN6uQO1oQxA-DeiWqfGyQmEtScE8IAAYidrBbs-lyQR7mmRmakua9UjyPRLrZ1SNkZ2N2mZqktZOLx45lLM_GqAHadJlkHSHdcvYmrJmXKQn5Kk72YHU/s1600/Don+Antonio.TIF" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigzs2grNZjBAa1QsUfcmfA7BSxN6uQO1oQxA-DeiWqfGyQmEtScE8IAAYidrBbs-lyQR7mmRmakua9UjyPRLrZ1SNkZ2N2mZqktZOLx45lLM_GqAHadJlkHSHdcvYmrJmXKQn5Kk72YHU/s400/Don+Antonio.TIF" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Don Antonio de' Medici</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Frontispiece from Pierfilippo Covoni 1892</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">n 1612, Priest Antonio Neri published his book of glassmaking recipes. <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i> went on to become a primary reference for glass artisans throughout Europe. He dedicated his book to Prince Don Antonio de' Medici the son of Grand Duke Francesco I:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>I have considered dedicating this book to none other than you, most Illustrious Excellency; for you have always been my outstanding patron and you understand this and all other worthy and precious knowledge. In fact, you always practice all the arts requested of a true and generous Prince. I implore you therefore to accept if not my work, then my complete devotion to your great merit and virtue, Excellency. I pray that God will fill you with happiness.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As an eleven year-old, Don Antonio was slated to succeed his father as the next Grand Duke of Tuscany, but that situation changed quickly. In the autumn of 1587 the young prince lost both of his parents in the space of a few days. They both fell extremely ill and died within a short time of each other. Rumors flew that Francesco de' neri and Bianca Capello had been poisoned, but forensic investigators have found pernicious malaria pathogens in Francesco’s remains, a disease with symptoms consistent with the reports of physicians on the scene. Historians trace their infection to an outing in the damp forest a few days earlier, where they had probably been bitten by mosquitoes carrying the disease. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The boy’s uncle, Cardinal Ferdinando took charge, consolidated power and excluded Don Antonio from the royal succession, although he was given a prominent place at court as a diplomat. As part of a deal that he would never marry, he was allowed to keep the title of Prince of Capestrano, to which was added Grand Prior of Pisa, in the Knights of Malta. The deal also gave him possession of the laboratory facility that his father had built and several other properties. That laboratory, the Casino di San Marco would become the prince’s residence and the place where Antonio Neri would learn about glass formulation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Poor health attended Don Antonio from his first months through the end of his life. Doctors and medical examinations were to become a regular part of his routine; they may well have inspired his later pursuit of medicinal cures, as well as his foray into alchemy, which also involved Antonio Neri. At some point, probably as a teenager, Don Antonio contracted syphilis, a condition that may well have been treated by Antonio Neri’s father who was physician to the royal family.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The prince had played a major part in Neri's life, elevating him into the upper stratum of Florentine craftsmen and to the forefront of alchemical research in Europe. However, in another manuscript, <i>Discorso</i>, we see a different side of Neri. On the subject of turning base metals into gold, the priest was less forthcoming:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I would add that God's providence over human affairs must not easily allow many to acquire this art, particularly not the great princes. It should not be made clear and common to the vulgar, because in this way, gold and silver and consequently coins lose their value, so that the good order of human trade will be disrupted and we should go back to the ancient barter of things that are necessary to a civil life, creating great disruption and confusion.</span></i></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Although never allowed to marry, over his lifetime Don Antonio managed to have a number of children; his last three sons were ultimately legitimized by the pope as Medici heirs. In the end, it was the slow, progressive ravages of syphilis that brought him down. He died in 1621, at the age of forty-five, unable to leave his bed. He was given a proper funeral, and interred at the Medici chapel of princes in Florence.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">*this post first appeared here on 12 May 2014.</span></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-1751584438003516962021-01-20T00:00:00.003-05:002021-01-20T00:00:05.086-05:00Eyes of a Lynx<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvsTPJm0fC6JxjNj77M5R7i49x_g2YYqrP13j2-YZN9OSgSQHZE4WdJxogX8mXMVfZlFH_wHdg7_UxhZsShyphenhyphenm50S_JPXF3h_5d0kvulb9kZEY5aIVVPQOYmucxqbtiXS03GEOIjKSLGE/s1600/lincei.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrvsTPJm0fC6JxjNj77M5R7i49x_g2YYqrP13j2-YZN9OSgSQHZE4WdJxogX8mXMVfZlFH_wHdg7_UxhZsShyphenhyphenm50S_JPXF3h_5d0kvulb9kZEY5aIVVPQOYmucxqbtiXS03GEOIjKSLGE/s400/lincei.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">The seal of the Accademia dei Lincei.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the spring of 1612, Florentine priest Antonio Neri published his book on glassmaking. <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i> was the first printed book devoted to the formulation of glass from raw materials, but unfortunately for him it did not exactly take the world by storm, at least not at first. Sales were such that a number of copies still exist from the initial printing; they remain in pristine condition, never bound. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Initially, the book received scant attention, but it was noticed. In fact, within a couple of years word had reached Rome, where Prince Federico Cesi, the founder of a scientific society, asked a Pisan member of his group to obtain a copy. That other member would go on to become one of the most recognized scientists in history. Meanwhile, <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i> gained prestige and readers, slowly but steadily. By the end of the century, Neri’s book would be translated into English, Latin, German, French and then back into English from the French. It became the bible of glassmakers throughout Europe. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1614, the year of Antonio Neri's death, naturalist Prince Federico Cesi wrote to his good friend Galileo. He complained of the difficulties in getting material from the Roman libraries, urging the astronomer to send him a copy of Antonio Neri's book.</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>The poor management of these libraries in Rome makes me feel continually thirsty for good books that come to light, which I can use for my study of compositions. They are scarcely giving me the titles, and after a long wait, only a tenth of what I asked. […] now I hear that printed in Florence is </i>L'Arte Vetraria<i> by Priest Antonio Neri, and I think there is some good in it. Please, your lordship, send me a copy, and believe me that I will gladly give them trouble.</i></span></blockquote> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Shortly after, having received the book the prince wrote,</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>I thank your lordship for the book on glass, which I find very rich in experiments and beautiful artistry.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1603, Cesi founded the Accademia dei Lincei (Society of the Lynxes), an early scientific society whose members (with eyes as sharp as a lynx's) eventually included both Galileo Galilei and Giambattista della Porta.[1] Within a few months of Neri's death, his book was already on its way to making history.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] In classical Greek mythology Lynceus was the grandson of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perseus, and had preternaturally keen eyesight. See Apollodorus, Bibliotheke I, viii, 2 & </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ix, 16; III, x, 3 & ix, 2.</span><br /><br /><div style="font-family: tinos; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">* This post first appeared here in a shorter form on 1 August 2013.</span></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-34099374030605677382021-01-18T00:00:00.002-05:002021-01-18T00:00:03.538-05:00The Glassmaker and The Astronomer<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJL82OC5fmA7EJ37Oj23X3XxvNifQnwz_-OsLwHf7vLOfMEb0F2FT6eemT1D2LlhJyhQW7_IkN7nisjjf26ZQpFNLe1nOVR3wECheyiwSkQwrqW3DPPxhaZ9AvUPWiWC36qzpxb7KyghE/s1600/Galileo1.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJL82OC5fmA7EJ37Oj23X3XxvNifQnwz_-OsLwHf7vLOfMEb0F2FT6eemT1D2LlhJyhQW7_IkN7nisjjf26ZQpFNLe1nOVR3wECheyiwSkQwrqW3DPPxhaZ9AvUPWiWC36qzpxb7KyghE/s400/Galileo1.png" width="371" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Portrait of Galileo Galilei, 1636 (detail),</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">by Justus Sustermans (1597-1681).</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Galileo Galilei lived almost simultaneously with glassmaker and alchemist Antonio Neri. Both were employed by the Medici royal court in Tuscany and both spent considerable time in Florence and Pisa, possibly also in Venice and Rome. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">No direct contact is known to have occurred between the glassmaker and the astronomer, but their paths did cross many times, orbiting like two celestial bodies in the cosmos - albeit one with a bit more gravitas than the other. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">As a youth, Galileo was taught at the Cestello monastery by court mathematician Ostilio Ricci. This was around 1580 when Galileo was sixteen, and Neri was a four year old toddler, living only a block away and attending the Cestello church with his family. Neri's father and grandfather had just been granted citizen status, already well known for their medical prowess, and his father served on the board of the artist's guild based at Cestello. Galileo would go on to become good personal friends with Prince Don Antonio de' Medici, Neri's sponsor. Later, the astronomer would have telescope tubes made by Jacopo Ligozzi, a regular at the Casino di San Marco, where Neri worked as an alchemist and took his first steps into the craft of glassmaking. As Galileo started to experiment with lenses, Neri was leaving Italy for Antwerp and would be absent for seven years. Meanwhile Galileo landed a job at the Florentine court as mathematics tutor to Grand Duke Ferdinando's son, Cosimo II. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Both Galileo and Neri worked hard for their achievements. In the hindsight of history, innovations are often romanticized into shining moments of inspiration, forgetting the painstaking effort and dogged persistence required to bring those ideas to fruition. For his telescopes, Galileo encountered tremendous difficulty both in the production of suitable glass and in grinding that glass into usable lenses. His celestial observations included sunspots, lunar craters and the planet Jupiter with its moons, which he named "Medicea Sideria" after his Medici benefactors. As these revelations became known, there was a clamor of orders for telescopes from princes throughout Europe and Galileo struggled to keep up. He maintained a circle of trusted craftsmen on Murano in Venice, and elsewhere, but still, the majority of output was unusable.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Initially, he had reasonable success grinding and polishing broken pieces of mirrors. In early 1610, Galileo held a demonstration in Pisa for his former pupil, Grand Duke Cosimo II. A short time later, the grand duke ordered that a special batch of glass be made for Galileo by Niccolò Sisti, for whom Antonio Neri had worked just a few years earlier. At the time, Neri himself was still in Antwerp and would not return until the following year.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Neri returned to Tuscany and wrote his book on glassmaking, <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>, but then turned his attention to other pursuits. This, just as Galileo's quest for high quality glass to make his lenses took off in earnest. Neri’s final manuscript places him in Pisa working on alchemical recipes. There was no more optimal moment for the two men to meet; both were working in Pisa, both knew Niccolò Sisti, Neri had just published his book and the astronomer was becoming desperate for clear flawless glass. If such a meeting ever occurred, it has not been recorded, and shortly thereafter, in 1614, Neri died of an unspecified illness.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">On 20 December of that same year, four days before Christmas, Tommaso Caccini, Neri's childhood next-door neighbor, delivered a scathing denouncement of Galileo from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella church. While the sermon earned Caccini a reprimand, and was an embarrassment to his family, it did also serve as a start to Galileo's troubles with the inquisition.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">While Antonio Neri may have never encountered the astronomer, shortly after the time of the priest’s death, the astronomer acquired Neri's book on glassmaking. One copy was sent to Rome, to Federico Cesi, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, a scientific society to which Galileo belonged, and another copy was saved for the astronomer's personal library. Galileo continued his quest for flawless glass and in his correspondence he takes on the same obsession with purity of ingredients that Neri exhibits throughout his book. </span><br /><br /><div></div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">* This post first appeared here in a slightly different form on 18 Novenber 2013.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-22744174904316757552021-01-15T00:00:00.002-05:002021-01-15T00:00:05.397-05:00Aventurine Glass<p> </p><p><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja7F6L79aXs4CUhMb3UKnsk1q9jHE51AYOkYAEZVix9TTV7UKGLJoIKOIhjRwfHChCcipndLWc91XJTxQLHiQuAPT4uNZf657l2zmOBK5lCgWELZ1H_T0i4ycMJPpVmz0ke1xmBKecxQI/s1600/images.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja7F6L79aXs4CUhMb3UKnsk1q9jHE51AYOkYAEZVix9TTV7UKGLJoIKOIhjRwfHChCcipndLWc91XJTxQLHiQuAPT4uNZf657l2zmOBK5lCgWELZ1H_T0i4ycMJPpVmz0ke1xmBKecxQI/s400/images.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Small amphora in aventurine glass,</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Murano, Salviati.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">With all its glitz and sparkle, aventurine (<i>avventurina</i>) stands out as a flamboyant extrovert among the varieties of glass. Developed and perfected on the Venetian island of Murano, also known as 'goldstone', it consists of a transparent base glass with myriad reflective crystalline "spangles" running throughout. The classical version is a deep golden brown with crystallites composed mainly of metallic copper, with a few related compounds as supporting cast. However, numerous colors have been developed, including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, black and white. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Folklore holds that aventurine was discovered by accident ("<i>a venturi</i>") when unknown monks inadvertently dropped copper or brass shavings into a glass melt as early as the thirteenth century. [1] However, more thorough investigations have recently identified 1620 as a likely date for the first appearance of aventurine glass. [2] No example or written account has been found that dates prior to the seventeenth century. An alternate story accounts for the name aventurine being derived from 'adventure'; referring to the difficulty and uncertainty involved in its production.[3] At first, the formula was a closely held secret among a few glassmakers and subsequently it was lost and then rediscovered not once but twice.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">To complicate matters, natural minerals with a similar appearance were named after the glass, leading to the misconception that they were also discovered after the glass was invented. This is clearly not the case. Early examples of mineral aventurine artifacts date to the Neolithic era [4] and can be found throughout history. First century Roman writer Pliny mentions a type of stone with silvery flecks, a passage that was well known when the glass was developed. The compositions of these minerals were also identified early; either species of quartz that contain flecks of mica, or a type of feldspar (sunstone).</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">[5]</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"> Mineral aventurine turns up as the eyes of Greek statues, in stonework mosaics and later in the 'pietre dure' art perfected by the Medici artisans in Florence around the time Antonio Neri started making glass there. The chances are good that examples of the mineral were known to Neri as well as to the glassmakers on Murano, but a recipe for the glass version does not turn up in Neri’s 1612 book; he was apparently too early by a decade. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The story of aventurine's accidental discovery by monks may well be apocryphal; nevertheless, it is a great entrée to understanding how the formulation works. First, contrary to what the story implies, aventurine is not the result of dumping metallic confetti into glass. The reflective "spangles" (as early researchers were fond of calling them) are actually uniformly sized, mirror-like crystals that are grown in the glass. In truth, the formula is quite similar to recipes already in use by Neri and others; the difference was in proportions and in how the glass was treated after it was in the furnace. The formula for aventurine calls for the addition of copper, iron and tin oxides, to a base that was a hybrid of soda, potash and lead glass. Neri’s recipe #128 is titled "A Proven Way to Make Rosichiero" [6] and provides for all of these ingredients, albeit in lower concentrations. <i>Rosichiero</i> was a transparent tawny red colored glass that was a staple of furnaces throughout Italy. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The secret to producing the reflective "spangles" was to mix the glass and heat it in the furnace in a normal way, but then to slowly reduce the heat while creating a low oxygen “reducing” atmosphere. The furnace draught was shut; the glass pot was fitted with a tight lid and then covered with ashes and allowed to cool very slowly. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Initially, the batch is saturated with copper oxide. This means the glass has dissolved as much copper, iron and tin as it can and any further addition of these powders will simply float to the bottom of the pot. The exact amount of powdered metals able to dissolve is a function of temperature; the hotter the glass the more that will dissolve and the cooler the glass the less that will dissolve. The key concept here is that as the glass slowly cools, the metals start to come out of solution and crystals start to form. There is some complex chemistry happening at the same time; the reducing atmosphere encourage the metals to stay in a pure un-oxidized form, Furthermore any oxygen or sulfur that happens to be present will preferentially combine with the iron, leaving the copper crystals pristine. Once cooled to room temperature, a successful batch would be broken away from the glass pot by workers and divided into smaller pieces. Glass artisans wanting to incorporate the aventurine into their work needed to work quickly. They carefully reheated an appropriate nugget and coated (encase) it in a layer of clear glass; once molten, direct exposure to the air would destroy the glittery effect. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Over time, it was discovered that various colors could be produced with the addition of different chemicals, but the central principal of growing tiny metallic crystals is the same.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[1] The earliest instance of this story in print that I can find is fairly late; Faustino Corsi, Delle pietre antiche: libri quattro (Rome: Salviuccio e figlio, 1828) pp. 166-167. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[2] Cesare Moretti (†), Bernard Gratuze and Sandro Hreglich, “Le verre aventurine (‘ avventurina ‘) : son histoire, les recettes, les analyses, sa fabrication”, ArcheoSciences, 37 | 2013, 135-154.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[3] For instance see Giulio Salviati, “Venetian Glass” Journal of the Society of Arts (Proceedings), Volume 37 (7 June,1889), p. 630</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[4] Neolithic Quartz Aventurine Pendant - 7 Cm/ 2. 76 ", green - 6500 To 2000 Bp – Sahara. Item Id: 106549, Weight: 83 gm. Sahara - Mauritania - Tagant country.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">http://ancientpoint.com/inf/106549-neolithic_quartz_aventurine_pendant___7_cm_2___76____6500_to_2000_bp___sahara.html</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[5] Dizionario del cittadino, o sia Ristretto storico, teorico e ..., Volume 1 pp. 38-39.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[6] Antonio Neri, L'Arte Vetraria (Firenze: Giunti, 1612).</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[7] Sauzay, A. (1870) Marvels of Glassmaking in All Ages. London, 1870 pp. 173 - 175.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-75126314745986784502021-01-13T00:00:00.003-05:002021-01-13T00:00:06.676-05:00The Adventures of Adam Olearius<p> </p><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16ArRS0fgCwgDzg53d18AP0sXgXauFjCgSiBpgCNhcJ3a6u8j8xCEoszIvarYry6Cw01r4FWwqGdFWk0SLe5Y0ENKKC8kALnKXO61WctabH6GZ63TlwWdz01ckojQB9-QLB1090Tkuxs/s1600/Olearius300px_Kopie.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="454" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16ArRS0fgCwgDzg53d18AP0sXgXauFjCgSiBpgCNhcJ3a6u8j8xCEoszIvarYry6Cw01r4FWwqGdFWk0SLe5Y0ENKKC8kALnKXO61WctabH6GZ63TlwWdz01ckojQB9-QLB1090Tkuxs/s400/Olearius300px_Kopie.jpg" width="321" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Adam Olearius</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the autumn of <st1:metricconverter productid="1633, a">1633, a</st1:metricconverter> trade mission heavily laden with gifts headed east from northern <st1:country-region>Germany</st1:country-region>. The great duke </span><st1:place><span style="font-size: large;">of Holstein was sending an ambassador to Moscow to request the czar’s permission for travel rights along the Volga River. Holstein was the northernmost tip of the Holy</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Roman Empire</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, in many ways more closely tied to <st1:place>Scandinavia than to their Habsburg </st1:place>overlords. This expedition was part of an attempt to establish an inland silk-trade route between <st1:place>Europe</st1:place> and the Orient.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Such a route would eliminate the circumnavigation of <st1:place>Africa</st1:place>, shortening the trip and reducing risk. After several years and initial high hopes, it became clear that the effort was doomed to failure. Czar Michael I of <st1:country-region>Russia</st1:country-region> was enthusiastic about the project, but at the southern end of the route, the king of <st1:country-region>Persia</st1:country-region> was not so receptive. Nevertheless, the expedition did become famous for a different reason: a written account of the adventures of the diplomats.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Upon the delegation’s return to <st1:place>Holstein</st1:place>, their secretary Adam Olearius (1599-1671) published a book that chronicled their travels. [1] As a mathematician, astronomer and general polymath, Olearius provides an uncommon perspective of the various cultures, practices and technologies encountered. Ultimately, he was appointed royal librarian and keeper of the duke’s cabinet of curiosities. The book proved so popular that more comprehensive editions soon followed, adding the contemporary accounts of another traveler, Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo. [2]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Glass is not the central theme of his adventures, yet this and related subjects are discussed in a number of different passages, giving us a unique insight into the material’s place in those societies.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In August of 1634, the group arrived in <st1:city>Moscow</st1:city>. Having been granted audience with the czar, Olearius describes the procession of the entourage and enumerates a long list of the gifts they brought. Among them was “a great looking-glass, being an ell and a quarter high and half an ell broad, in an ebony frame, with boughs and fruits carv'd thereon in silver, carried by two Muscovites.” [3] An ‘ell’ was the northern european equivalent of a cubit or about <st1:metricconverter productid="25 inches">25 inches</st1:metricconverter>, so the mirror measured about <st1:metricconverter productid="12 inches">12 inches</st1:metricconverter> wide by <st1:metricconverter productid="30 inches">30 inches</st1:metricconverter> tall, not enormous by current standards, but quite an achievement in the seventeenth century. Glass workers would have to blow a large cylindrical bubble, cut it open and lay it flat on a polished marble surface. To be usable, the sheet of glass would have to be made without waves or defects and it would have to be cooled slowly, over a period of many hours in order not to form cracks. Silvering the back was a whole other ordeal performed by an artisan schooled in alchemy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Speaking of the chemical arts, gifts from the duke of Holstein to the czar of Russia also included “an ebony cabinet, garnish'd with gold, like a little apothecaries shop, with its boxes and vials of gold, enrich'd with precious stones, full of several excellent chymical extractions, carried by two Muscovites” [4]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While in <st1:city>Moscow</st1:city>, Olearius put on a demonstration of optics for some locals. “I shew’d them upon a wall of an obscure chamber, through a little hole I had made in the shutter of the window, by means of a piece of glass polish’d and cut for optics, all was done in the street, and men walking upon their heads: This wrought such an effect in them, that they could never after be otherwise persuaded than that I held a correspondence with the devil.” [5] Here he is describing a ‘<i>camera obscura</i>’ in which scenes from outside are projected upside-down onto the wall of a darkened room.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A couple of years later, after a return to <st1:place>Holstein</st1:place> to ratify a treaty with the czar, the delegation arrived in <st1:country-region>Persia</st1:country-region>. They were treated to a sumptuous meal by the king’s chancellor. “The walls were all set about with looking-glasses, to the number of above two hundred, of all sizes. So that when a man stood in the midst of the hall, he might see himself of all sides. We were told that in the king’s palace, in the apartment of his wives, there is also a hall done all about with looking-glasses, but far greater and much fairer than this.” [6]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>“For the teaching of astronomy they have neither sphere nor globe, insomuch that they were not little astonished to see in my hands a thing which is so common in </i><st1:place><i>Europe</i></st1:place><i>. I asked them whether they had ever seen any such before. They told me they had not, but said that there was heretofore in </i><st1:country-region><st1:place><i>Persia</i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i> a very fair globe which they call ‘felek’, but that it was lost during the wars between them and the Turks. They haply meant that which Sapor, king of Persia, had caused to be made of glass, so large, that he could sit in the center of it, and observe the motions of the stars and must no doubt be like that of Archimedes, where of Claudian speaks in the Epigram which begins thus: </i>Jupiter in parvo cum cerneret aehera vitro<i>.” [7]<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Olearius goes on to describe the Persian army in some detail, including this account of an early form of chemical warfare. “At the siege of <st1:country-region>Iran</st1:country-region>, in the year 1633, they had the invention of casting into the place with their arrows, small glasses full of poison, which so infected the air that the garrison was extremely incommodated thereby and made incapable of handling their arms for the defense of the place.” [8]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1637, near <st1:place>Tehran, <st1:country-region>Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place>, he describes a royal tomb “adorn’d all about with glass of all sorts of colors, which are preserved by iron grates.” [9] And in the same area,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>“At Kimas, in the province of Kilan, there was one of these mountebanks, who having found out the trick of setting cotton on fire by means of a crystal cut in half-round and held in the sun like a burning-glass, would have people persuaded that by operation, which he affirmed to be supernatural, that he was of the kindred of Mohammed. After our return to Holstein, I shew’d the Persians, whom Schach-Sefi [king of Persia] sent thither, that it was the easiest thing in the world to get fire from the sun, and I lighted paper in the very depth of winter by means of a crystal full of cold water, or a piece of ice, which I had made half round in a pewter dish. They were astonish’d at it, and said, that if I had done as much in </i><st1:country-region><st1:place><i>Persia</i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i>, I should have pass’d there for either a great saint, or a sorcerer.” [10]<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As an addendum, in later editions of Olearius’ book, the recollections of Johan Albrecht de Mandelslo (1616–1644) were added. He accompanied an unrelated trade mission to <st1:place><st1:city>Isfahan</st1:city>,<st1:country-region>Persia</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and then split from his group to continue touring the region. He traveled through <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>, and then down the African coast. In 1639, the German traveler passed through <st1:country-region>Madagascar</st1:country-region>. He commented on the inferior quality of European glass trade-beads, compared to those of <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>, which he acquired earlier in the trip.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>“The glass-bracelets, beads and agates, we had brought from the </i><st1:place><i>Indies</i></st1:place><i> [</i><st1:country-region><st1:place><i>India</i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i>] were incomparably beyond what they were laden with out of </i><st1:place><i>Europe</i></st1:place><i>; so that it was resolved ours should not be produced, till the others were sold. By this means, we bought every day four oxen for forty pair of glass bracelets, which the inhabitants call ‘rangus’; a sheep for two, and a calf for three ‘rangus’; and for a brass ring, ten or twelve inches about, a man might have an ox worth here six or seven pound.” [11]<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Much has been made of the use of glass trade-beads by Europeans around the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In <st1:country-region>Madagascar</st1:country-region> and along the trade routes of the <st1:place>Indian Ocean</st1:place>, European traders were fairly late to the party. For a thousand years earlier, [12] beads had been used as the currency of choice among disparate cultures from Indonesia and China to India to Africa who did business with each other.[13] The above quote from Mandelslo’s diary provides a fascinating firsthand account of transactions with beads. The passage also hints at the superior quality of Indian glass beads. Today, glass beadmaking continues on an industrial scale there, and the glass bracelet industry still survives, notably in <st1:city>Firozabad</st1:city>, northern <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">[1] Adam Olearius: <i>Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise</i>, (<st1:place>Schleswig</st1:place>: 1647).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[2] Adam Olearius, John Davies, Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo, Philipp Crusius, Otto Brüggemann: <i>The Voyages and Travells of the Ambassadors Sent by Frederick Duke of </i><st1:place><i>Holstein</i></st1:place><i>, to the Great Duke of </i><st1:place><i>Muscovy</i></st1:place><i>, and the King of </i><st1:country-region><st1:place><i>Persia</i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i>...</i> (<st1:city>London</st1:city>: John Starkey, and Thomas Basset, 1669).<i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal">[3] <i>Ibid</i>, p. 11.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[4] <i>Ibid</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal">[5] <i>Ibid</i>, p. 58.</div><div class="MsoNormal">[6] <i>Ibid</i>, p. 212-213.</div><div class="MsoNormal">[7] <i>Ibid,</i> p.252. <i>Jupiter in parvo quum cerneret æthera vitro</i> [When Jove a heav’n of small glass did behold,] see Henry Vaughan: <i>Silex scintillan, Hermetical physick, Thalia redivava, Translations, Pious thoughts and ejaculations</i>. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914) v. 2, p.635.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[8] <i>Ibid</i>, p. 271.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[9] <i>Ibid</i>, p 182.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[10] <i>Ibid</i>, p. 280-281.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[11] <i>Ibid</i>, p.204.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[12] For example warring states beads in <st1:country-region>China</st1:country-region>, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Chinese_glass<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[13] Carla Klehm has a nice post on the subject of trade beads used around the <st1:place>Indian Ocean</st1:place>; see “Trade Tales and Tiny Trails: Glass Beads in the <st1:place>Kalahari Desert</st1:place>” in <i>The Appendix, </i>Jan. 2014, v. 2, n. 1. http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/1/trade-tales-and-tiny-trails-glass-beads-in-the-kalahari-desert</div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-61091481218065282762021-01-11T00:00:00.003-05:002021-01-11T00:00:05.934-05:00What Goes Around Comes Around<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS9A00r0UUVYrKVjM5fgUmUEpPIcxJuszWK92gO4FbL1ywfxBCQcmVTV2KHXR31TZRFICtYUhYqXSUxh7Ddg3sil8hiZWO5B2isUqLlN378kB4bK6uvg2lwqqZUlFJw-Wr6serEoN17j0/s1600/ulm1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="395" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS9A00r0UUVYrKVjM5fgUmUEpPIcxJuszWK92gO4FbL1ywfxBCQcmVTV2KHXR31TZRFICtYUhYqXSUxh7Ddg3sil8hiZWO5B2isUqLlN378kB4bK6uvg2lwqqZUlFJw-Wr6serEoN17j0/s400/ulm1.jpg" width="395" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">The German city of Ulm in the 16th century</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Georg Braun, Franz Hogenberg 1570-78</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">(Click image to enlarge.)</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the spring and summer of 1525, peasants and farmers throughout German speaking Europe staged a popular revolt now called the <i>Deutscher Bauernkrieg</i>. [1] At the heart of the matter was an oppressive system of taxation run by the Roman Catholic Church, in which little or none of the revenue was used to improve life locally. Often, action was lead by Protestant clergy, but to little effect against the mercenary armies hired by the aristocracy. In the end, up to 100,000 of the poorly armed and organized peasants were slaughtered.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Along the banks of the Danube River in southern Germany lies the ancient city of Ulm. Besides being the birthplace of Albert Einstein, Ulm was, in the sixteenth century, near the center of the Peasant’s Revolt, which brings us to a curious story which traces the migration of a technical recipe from Ulm over the alps to Venice, then to Sienna and finally Florence. The recipe is for the metal alloy to make mirrors, and it is told from one friend to another while chatting amiably in Venice.</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Among other things, he said that he had made one [concave mirror] almost half a braccio across [about 13 inches], which extended the clear rays of its brightness more than a quarter of a German league when he caught the sun with it. One day, when for amusement he was standing in a window to watch a review of armed men in the city of Ulm, he bore with the sphere of his mirror for a quarter of an hour on the back of the shoulder armor of one of those soldiers. This not only caused so much heat that it became almost unbearable to the soldier, but it inflamed so that it kindled his jacket underneath and burned it for him, cooking his flesh to his very great torment. Since he did not understand who caused this, he said that God had miraculously sent that fire on him for his great sins. [2]</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The story was told to Vannoccio Biringuccio, who recalls it in 1540 in his <i>Pirotechnia</i>, the first printed book devoted to metallurgy. Specifically, the recipe is a variant of what today we would call white bronze, which as Biringuccio states is similar to the metal used to cast bells. He recites ancient formulations that used three parts copper and one part tin. To this was added 1/18th part of antimony and optionally 1/24th part of fine silver to give it a neutral color. Indeed, other ancient formulations for what was known as speculum metal specify a 3:1 ratio of copper to tin. He continues,</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>But nowadays most of the masters who make them take three parts of tin and one of copper, and melt these together. When they are melted, for every pound of this material, they throw in one ounce of tartar and half an ounce of powdered arsenic, and let them fume and melt and incorporate well. </i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Biringuccio’s version reverses the copper and tin ratio from the classical composition. Compare it with Antonio Neri’s prescription which appears half a century later, it is almost identical:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Have 3 lbs of well-purified tin, and 1 lb of copper also purified. Melt these two metals, first the copper, then the tin. When they fuse thoroughly, throw onto them 6 oz of just singed red wine tartar, and 1½ oz of saltpeter, then ¼ oz of alum, and 2 oz of arsenic. Leave these all to vaporize, and then cast [the metal] into the form of a sphere. You will have good material, which when you burnish and polish, will look most fine. This mixture is called acciaio and is used to make spherical mirrors.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">To be clear, the tartar, saltpeter and alum act as a surface flux - they form a layer that floats on the liquid metal, preventing oxides from forming, which can foul the melt. their addition does not change the base alloy composition.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The similarity of the two recipes alone is not enough to draw any conclusions. Biringuccio himself reports that the contemporary artisans favored the tin rich formulation. However, there are other details to consider. The Sienese born Biringuccio was something of a hero in Florence where Antonio Neri was raised. The famous metallurgist helped cast cannons, mortars and guns for the Florentines to defend themselves in the late 1520s, when the city was under siege, just a few years after Biringuccio’s conversation in Venice with his German friend from Ulm.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Neri was definitely familiar with Biringuccio’s book <i>Pirotechnia</i>. In fact, the introduction to Neri’s own book <i>L’Arte Vetraria</i> is patterned after the metallurgist’s survey of glassmaking. In his chapter 14, book 2 Biringuccio wrote:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>… it [glass] is one of the effects and real fruits of the art of fire, because every product found in the interior of the earth is either stone, metal, or one of the semi-minerals. Glass is seen to resemble all of them, although in all respects it depends on art. [3]</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">And here is the opening to Neri’s introduction a half century later in 1612,</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Without a doubt, glass is a true fruit of the art of fire, as it can so closely resemble all kinds of rocks and minerals, yet it is a compound, and made by art. [4]</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Both passages go on to cover much of the same ground, albeit with a change in focus reflective of new thinking about chemistry and nature. In one sense, Neri is paying homage to his distinguished predecessor, and there can be little doubt that he read Biringuccio’s book and its technical recipes closely. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Lastly, the story of the burning mirror itself mimics a widely known story about the Greek polymath Archimedes. About 200 BCE during the siege of Syracuse, he is said to have set invading Roman ships on fire with a concave mirror, which focused the radiation of the sun.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In fact a depiction of this scene was painted in Florence on the walls of the Uffizi Palace in 1600, when Neri was at the height of his employment for the ruling Medici family. This particular rendering would have been all but impossible for him to miss. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiPHSI4-Zwsa5mnSddQYMUED6wEYF4cO_gCxBoe52L8wnt6wXq0vANPmpe0Pvk3KFKt_8DGIRAhzxMO_m_P-P_22FgR97okdJTlFpZ9Hp-B4QF9G6cmQsYwfozH4Fqc6XdaMzl5Gi8WI/s1600/Archimedes-Mirror_by_Giulio_Parigi.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiPHSI4-Zwsa5mnSddQYMUED6wEYF4cO_gCxBoe52L8wnt6wXq0vANPmpe0Pvk3KFKt_8DGIRAhzxMO_m_P-P_22FgR97okdJTlFpZ9Hp-B4QF9G6cmQsYwfozH4Fqc6XdaMzl5Gi8WI/s400/Archimedes-Mirror_by_Giulio_Parigi.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, Wall painting</span><br /><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">showing the Greek mathematician Archimedes' mirror </span><br /><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">being used to burn Roman military ships. </span><br /><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">Painted in 1600 by </span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">Giulio Parigi.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the years leading to the publication of Neri’s book, he left his home in Florence and traveled to visit a friend in Antwerp. If he had read the book on metallurgy early, perhaps as part of his education, then he was already familiar with the mirror alloy recipe. If he followed the route suggested by his friend, he would have taken the recipe back to Venice, and then over the Alps and likely through Ulm on his way north to the Low Countries, where he would spend the next seven years before returning to Italy. [5]</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[1] For more on the German peasant wars of 1524-25 see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants%27_War</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[2] Vannoccio Biringuccio, Pirotechnia. Ed., Tr. Cyril Stanley Smith, Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp. 385-390. (Original Italian published in 1540.)</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[3] Antonio Neri, L’Arte Vetraria (Florence: Giunti, 1612). p. iv.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[4] Ibid, p.126 (in original, ff.41r-44v).</span><br /><div style="font-family: tinos; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[5] Special thanks to Jamie Hall (@PrimitiveMethod) for inspiring this post.</span></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-23928186745236352021-01-08T00:00:00.003-05:002021-01-08T00:00:06.015-05:00Reflections on the Mirror<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCbB_gDyU-SpveAwCmwm0UXZJFPKqaoDFoLX09bAS7TscUwvXa3_dWRGaFirlUeOxbQ2xDWZBKaEh-fKm3211RpppTZa5k9geGByHtxBooSfbr2mfgefmwheUV6qxyj4sPN41wj7c7Yc/s1600/300px-Van_Eyck_-_Arnolfini_Portrait.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="292" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCbB_gDyU-SpveAwCmwm0UXZJFPKqaoDFoLX09bAS7TscUwvXa3_dWRGaFirlUeOxbQ2xDWZBKaEh-fKm3211RpppTZa5k9geGByHtxBooSfbr2mfgefmwheUV6qxyj4sPN41wj7c7Yc/s400/300px-Van_Eyck_-_Arnolfini_Portrait.jpg" width="290" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Jan van Eyck</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">The Arnolfini Portrait (1434)</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>L’Arte Vetraria</i>, Antonio Neri's 1612 book, would eventually become the glassmakers' bible throughout Europe. By 1900 it had been translated into five different languages besides the original Italian; English, Latin, German, French, and Spanish (and in this century Japanese). Because of its seminal importance in the spread of glass technology, often overlooked are a few recipes at the back of the book, which have only a tenuous connection to the main subject.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Among these is a metallurgical formula for making convex mirrors. Neri gives instructions for producing what we would now call a "white bronze" that may be cast into a rounded form and polished to take on a highly reflective surface finish. This "spherical" form of mirror was popular throughout the Renaissance. It reflected a wide-angle view of the space in which it was hung, but at the cost of distorting the image. Nevertheless, upon looking into such a mirror, objects are still quite recognizable. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Here is Neri's prescription:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>A Mixture to Make [Mirror] Spheres:</i><i><br /></i><i>Have 3 lbs of well-purified tin, and 1 lb of copper also purified. Melt these two metals, first the copper, then the tin. When they fuse thoroughly, throw onto them 6 oz of just singed red wine tartar, and 1½ oz of saltpeter, then ¼ oz of alum, and 2 oz of arsenic. Leave these all to vaporize, and then cast [the metal] into the form of a sphere. You will have good material, which when you burnish and polish, will look most fine. This mixture is called </i>acciaio<i> and is used to make spherical mirrors.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Of note is the fact that the word Neri uses for this alloy, <i>acciaio</i>, translates to "steel." Over the intervening four centuries, the meaning of this term has been refined so that today it denotes not simply a hard white metal, but a specific range of alloys containing iron and carbon, which Neri's alloy does not. </span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">This recipe and a few others in the book show the breadth of Neri's experience in arts other than glassmaking. It is a conclusion greatly amplified by a perusal of his other manuscripts on alchemy and medicine. There is good evidence that our priest was a voracious reader, however he was also quite cautious about repeating techniques only after he had verified them personally. Besides, artisans never wrote down much of this knowledge – only passed in confidence between trusted parties – since, in a very concrete way, superior knowledge represented a competitive advantage over ones rivals. Even if Neri was in the business of divulging secrets, it is safe to assume that many of the artisans and craftsmen he interacted with were decidedly not. Apparently, Neri was not familiar with the process of mirroring glass directly with mercury/tin amalgam; a process for which Venetian glassmakers had already become famous for perfecting. It is an interesting omission from his book, since he almost certainly would have seen examples in Florence and in Antwerp.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Two centuries before Neri, the beginning of the fifteenth century saw the invention of moveable type printing in Germany, but also the mastery of perspective illustration in Italy. The contribution of printing to early modern science is well documented, less obvious is the role playerd by artists and perspective illustration. Moveable type made possible the mass production of books; what did get committed to paper now stood a much better chance of survival and transmission. Perspective illustration played a more nuanced role, one that ultimately brings the convex mirror back into the discussion.</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi57FMmAuIfmhp13YL0DTXlub5sIX9qqL8a5WiQO0yiPPuDBr1waP4E2Ff9dXXE9M97vgXaD-KyyYN-sPoVN5k2-Js5N29rlTcmIB8L2wiCj1HOpEcmbkszSAr53Aj6tqIC5mZWtJ786d4/s1600/PAINTING-Mirror-rosary.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi57FMmAuIfmhp13YL0DTXlub5sIX9qqL8a5WiQO0yiPPuDBr1waP4E2Ff9dXXE9M97vgXaD-KyyYN-sPoVN5k2-Js5N29rlTcmIB8L2wiCj1HOpEcmbkszSAr53Aj6tqIC5mZWtJ786d4/s1600/PAINTING-Mirror-rosary.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Jan van Eyck<br />The Arnolfini Portrait (detail).</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In Venice and especially in Florence (Neri's hometown), perspective drawing became the rage among artists, largely due to the Italian translation of a book entitled Deli Aspecti, or "Alhazen's Book of Optics." Suddenly, paintings were made to look three-dimensional, with a realistic sense of depth to them. The new techniques were largely kept in Italy, but interest spread across Europe. Patrons placed great value on work depicting scenes in correct perspective, and in excruciatingly accurate detail. </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In Flanders, in 1434, Jan van Eyck produced "The Arnolfini Portrait," (above). Behind the main subjects, hanging on the wall is a convex mirror. The reflection in the mirror shows the backs of the two subjects, but also two other figures further back, one of which is thought to be the artist himself, and beyond him a strong light source. The image in the mirror is distorted exactly as one would experience in real life. </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">There is growing speculation that among the secrets of "realist" (or naturalist) painters was a growing arsenal of optical tools and lenses used to map out and understand the attributes of perspective. The mirror, in the Arnolfini Portrait was a sort of boast of the artist's proficiency in recreating reality on the canvas.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The point is that here is a case where art led science into new realms. Painters started to take great pains in reproducing reality "as it is" on canvas. Soon minor experimenters like Neri and major luminaries like Galileo were taking great pains to do the same. They strove to observe nature "as it is," not as was prescribed in ancient texts, or dictated by authority. Once that process started, awareness of the world grew and there was no turning back.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Finally, it is amusing to note that in his many manuscript illustrations, Antonio Neri himself never quite mastered perspective drawing, although he did try.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">* This post first appeared here 17 January 2014.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-76178602687583728442021-01-06T00:00:00.003-05:002021-01-06T00:00:03.950-05:00A Band of Alchemists<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_5A9mEFO1SuQhyphenhyphenlrveLptVFk1g1yrQAbbp_fhW7s7BL7Hq3waAzgZcih0rtb3eP7Ia-D0m2-iW_murrT5CBckThepFF0XtgBGe8nif6PWhcjBg0EqkmhiO9XEqbMOYAqGN1TpsULd-g/s1600/breughel.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="400" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_5A9mEFO1SuQhyphenhyphenlrveLptVFk1g1yrQAbbp_fhW7s7BL7Hq3waAzgZcih0rtb3eP7Ia-D0m2-iW_murrT5CBckThepFF0XtgBGe8nif6PWhcjBg0EqkmhiO9XEqbMOYAqGN1TpsULd-g/s400/breughel.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">"The Alchemist" 1558, Pieter Brugle the Elder.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mention the word 'alchemist' and the images that spring to mind are likely the same ones that have been around for centuries. Perhaps you will imagine something like Pieter Brugle’s 1558 depiction; a fool, whose head is filled with fantasies of conjuring gold. He spends all his earnings on exotic chemicals while his children go shoe-less, the cupboard goes bare and his family starves. No? Then perhaps a more classical rendition; a white bearded mystic stirring a cauldron in a deserted castle, summoning unearthly forces, bending the will of nature. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is true that outlandish characters like these have existed, but as a fringe element at best. For every secluded wizard or "get rich quick" schemer there were many more alchemists who lived otherwise unremarkable lives and went to work every day. They interacted with colleagues and used their knowledge to provide valuable services like making painter's pigments or medicines or refining metals. Seventeenth century glassmaker and Catholic priest Antonio Neri fell into the latter category. Another departure from the typical caricature of alchemy is that it was very much a plural endeavor; it was practiced </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">not primarily </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">in isolation but by well connected networks of people, at least in late sixteenth century Florence.</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsvNReE7Y6PvLH83szG8x4lpXJzw1k2uGEVQbrIVAe4N3PeryhvGboNbCnpIIuEi17CZAS-oNU6YtmU_cglWwM-i-xZnl14DwjWfmgjifMaodF7FcMTK_jLBtyzNV8eCDf4WoFCKJZrKY/s1600/Frg67-025+blog.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsvNReE7Y6PvLH83szG8x4lpXJzw1k2uGEVQbrIVAe4N3PeryhvGboNbCnpIIuEi17CZAS-oNU6YtmU_cglWwM-i-xZnl14DwjWfmgjifMaodF7FcMTK_jLBtyzNV8eCDf4WoFCKJZrKY/s320/Frg67-025+blog.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Anibal and Martin<br /><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Neri's <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">"Tesoro del Mondo" 1598-1699</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Neri's father was the chief physician to the grand duke of Tuscany, and as such probably had something to do with Antonio's education and with the position that he landed in Florence at the renowned "Casino di San Marco," the laboratory of Medici prince Don Antonio, inherited from his father grand duke Francesco. Even before his prestigious appointment, Neri wrote an illustrated manuscript in which he shows a number of young men and some women his own age working at the business of alchemy. A few of them are identified by name and must have been Antonio’s friends: Anibal, Martin, Hiroem and Pietro. [1] </span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNdiyXGEb_bVKLpcYvzG1A2tlGhPM-rnwZmjYwTBTcjuAClDxFBoOhihL5ZpsQRtP4HW0h5Wo9npGq4DsSNQPVsuch49tThwUWFxyr2OFzkdHdQvDMbTlz7xN_cuSP9H1i3BSkJ6YUEso/s1600/blog+028.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNdiyXGEb_bVKLpcYvzG1A2tlGhPM-rnwZmjYwTBTcjuAClDxFBoOhihL5ZpsQRtP4HW0h5Wo9npGq4DsSNQPVsuch49tThwUWFxyr2OFzkdHdQvDMbTlz7xN_cuSP9H1i3BSkJ6YUEso/s320/blog+028.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Female alchemist depicted in Neri's<br />"Tesoro del Mondo"</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The female alchemists depicted in the manuscript are not specifically identified, but a strong possibility is that they were nuns from one of the nearby convents. These facilities often maintained their own pharmacies and ran cottage industries that produced and sold goods to raise funds. Alchemy practiced by women is an area of study which still needs much research, but it is known that convents used alchemical techniques to distill their own medicinal remedies and produced their own paint pigments. The famous painter Suor Plautilla Nelli resided in the Dominican convent across the street from the Medici's Casino laboratory. Sculptor Suor Caterina Eletta was a nun at the same convent around Neri's time and was the daughter of Stefano Rosselli, the royal apothecary, another profession steeped in alchemy. Her uncle Fra Anselmo ran the Dominican's apothecary at San Marco, literally a few steps from the laboratory's front door. Suor Caterina was surrounded by relatives deeply involved in alchemy, how could she not be familiar with the subject?</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At Don Antonio's laboratory, the Casino di San Marco, or the Royal Foundry as it also became known, Neri worked closely with Agnolo della Casa, another Florentine of the same age. In fact, all three men, Neri, Della Casa and Don Antonio were all born within a year of each other around 1576. Della Casa took notes on Antonio Neri's experiments in Florence over a period that spanned more than a decade. He filled literally thousands of pages. Much of this material is devoted to transmutation and the philosophers stone, both were subjects dear to Don Antonio de' Medici, their boss. The notebooks also indicate a lively correspondence with other chemical experimenters around Italy and wider Europe. Neri himself carried on a correspondence with his friend Emmanuel Ximenes who lived in Antwerp, a city that would become Antonio's home for seven years. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The network of alchemy in Florence reached outwards to other experimenters and it also reached forward in time. Knowledge was passed from one generation to the next by schooling children in the art. From another branch of Della Casa's family came two brothers, Ottavio (1596) and Jacinto (Giacinto) Talducci della Casa (1601). As youngsters they were said to have learned alchemy at the knee of Don Antonio. A century later, historian Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti chronicled that these boys would go on to serve Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici and continue the work by directing the Real Fonderia when, after Don Antonio's death, it was moved from the Casino to the Boboli Gardens. Ottavio would become director of the Royal Foundry. [2] </span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7APU1m9xeDoYXX5XpizddM9HWbb1ZJ-Zf3TsEVlM1bjX7eQKf6w_cTpSXGK-UqLm79bm_iV77xBC2dEQzpzZU07HL4oMl-yJt6A17_vQjIpkf9Njjco12d3iz_PxeqKXfMABdiifPEM/s1600/justus-joost_sustermans.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7APU1m9xeDoYXX5XpizddM9HWbb1ZJ-Zf3TsEVlM1bjX7eQKf6w_cTpSXGK-UqLm79bm_iV77xBC2dEQzpzZU07HL4oMl-yJt6A17_vQjIpkf9Njjco12d3iz_PxeqKXfMABdiifPEM/s320/justus-joost_sustermans.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Jacinto Talducci Della Casa</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jacinto became a parish priest a few kilometers east of Florence, but he was pressed back into service as an alchemist after his brother died. He succeeded Ottavio as director of the Royal Foundry under Francesco Redi. Little is known about Jacinto's contributions to chemistry, but it must have been a remarkable life. He saw the germ of experimentalism really take hold; it would continue to grow and become the basis of our own modern science. Jacinto died in 1700 at the age of 99, he was the last surviving member of Don Antonio's band of alchemists and quite likely the last living soul to have personally met Antonio Neri.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] Neri 1598-1600, ff. 22r, 23r, 24r.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[2] Targioni-Tozzetti 1780, p. 127. Don Antonio de' Medici died in 1621.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">* This post first appeared here on 26 September 2014.</span></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-62147894569176031782021-01-04T00:00:00.004-05:002021-01-04T07:34:29.422-05:00Art and Science<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN7EiO29Bp-fjACMskxPVlEOggwoAv6j9nDs4keeaXF932YvSrUvAO-9oSwuECc5bzk53_hLhb58eo7pl3-p_MLxz4RLBLNDDaXgvqVnZb-QbbqiWgmi2xBtwkTAd9YziMylwqWDpzw50/s1600/ligozzi.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="324" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN7EiO29Bp-fjACMskxPVlEOggwoAv6j9nDs4keeaXF932YvSrUvAO-9oSwuECc5bzk53_hLhb58eo7pl3-p_MLxz4RLBLNDDaXgvqVnZb-QbbqiWgmi2xBtwkTAd9YziMylwqWDpzw50/s400/ligozzi.jpg" width="323" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Jacopo Ligozzi,1518, fanciful glass vessels,</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">ink and watercolor on paper.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Antonio Neri's writing on glassmaking and alchemy was distinguished from that of many contemporary authors in that his work was all deeply rooted in hands-on experience. He worked in the early 17th century, when art and science were different sides of the same endeavor to understand the world. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His contemporaries were often content to repeat century's old teachings about the four Aristotelian elements; that chemical interactions could be explained through an analysis of the balance between hot and cold, dry and wet. But more and more, these notions were being discarded and replaced. It is common to cite the invention of instruments, and other technical developments; these factors certainly did contribute to advancement. But many different forces worked toward the emergence of early modern science, and one in particular is so obvious that it is easily overlooked: artists.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Working with hot glass was a profession in which attention to nature was essential: artists did not have the luxury of fanciful explanations of physical processes. They were obliged by their work to learn the ways glass mixed, moved and behaved in the furnace, not as they imagined it should, but as it actually did. The only way to achieve the complex forms and vessels for which master glassblowers were renowned was through long experience. Failure to understand the glass and predict its properties accurately resulted in failure of the piece.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Neri was immersed in this environment and the same principles applied to his own work in formulating the glass. Ancient theories had little value if they did not accurately predict nature. Like the glass artists, the way forward for Neri was careful attention and hands-on experience. He learned the value of starting with highly purified ingredients for his glass melts. He learned that too much glass salt resulted in a putrid 'gall' that would need to be skimmed off the molten surface. Substituting salts made from fern plants, for the Kali based ones from the Levant, produced a more lustrous glass, yet it stiffened more quickly for the glassblowers.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">A glass artist's work also serves as a kind of narrative. For those familiar with the techniques, a finished piece of glass work can be 'read' like a story: The handles were put on last, before that, perhaps a thin bead of color was applied to the lip of the vessel. And the work started as a blown bubble of glass, shaped and opened with special tools. Each step is an insight into the artist's technique, but also into the way nature itself operates. Each motion was a well practiced negotiation between the artist and the properties of the material.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">On one hand, an artist's job was to produce objects contemplated for their physical beauty and cultural significance. On the other hand, the act of producing these objects created an environment where accurate reasoning flourished. By collecting artists and employing them together, the Medici rulers of Tuscany were creating a cauldron effect where experiences collected, stewed and nature's secrets unraveled.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>* This post first appeared here on 23 October 2013.Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-20738186688246708252021-01-01T00:00:00.002-05:002021-01-01T00:00:04.762-05:00Emerald Green Glass<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtOtb73NAFcRRMtarjhiR-lf062fRe9Dt1bsE8pdIdJ5a-AAI6Ru-1Im2rvg_gnFaRIR1Ye9UylVSv9F6qy331_vYyLfGrFDVvqPifXlGmCSsUwJUBp07b0niivtVWoniU3btewUFCI4/s1600/693px-Assisi-frescoes-entry-into-jerusalem-pietro_lorenzetti+blog.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtOtb73NAFcRRMtarjhiR-lf062fRe9Dt1bsE8pdIdJ5a-AAI6Ru-1Im2rvg_gnFaRIR1Ye9UylVSv9F6qy331_vYyLfGrFDVvqPifXlGmCSsUwJUBp07b0niivtVWoniU3btewUFCI4/s400/693px-Assisi-frescoes-entry-into-jerusalem-pietro_lorenzetti+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, walking on palm leaves.</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;"> Pietro Lorenzetti </span><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.1875px;">1320</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For Western Christians, Easter week begins with "Palm Sunday," a feast day that falls on the Sunday before Easter and celebrates Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. His procession is said to have included his followers laying palm tree leaves before him along his path. The connection to seventeenth century priest and glassmaker Antonio Neri is this: In his book <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>, Neri describes his very best green glass with a colloquial expression; saying the recipe "carries the palm" for all other greens. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyEEk_cVTV3GBycef1ynQb-0BeCDvKGjd-ugO-ZuERsFop12jwaTYSj1Xn9vRhDB4HU-oP31pI0z14kv-sM5amr6R3p8QHd5JnkoG90UCpNa7tXM-5pvu0J0XF1DRW4X21oHlX4b0KyLc/s1600/blog+2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyEEk_cVTV3GBycef1ynQb-0BeCDvKGjd-ugO-ZuERsFop12jwaTYSj1Xn9vRhDB4HU-oP31pI0z14kv-sM5amr6R3p8QHd5JnkoG90UCpNa7tXM-5pvu0J0XF1DRW4X21oHlX4b0KyLc/s320/blog+2.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Saint Justina of Padua with a palm frond,</span><br /><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Bartolo Montagna 1490s</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In his book, Neri presents a string of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">recipes for variations of green glass. Finally, in chapter 35, he presents his ultimate green, which he titles: "Another Green, Which 'Carries the Palm' for All Other Greens, Invented by Me." The phrase "carries the palm" alludes to the biblical story of Jesus entering Jerusalem, in which the people welcomed him by laying down cloth and palm branches on the ground in his path. Even before that, the palm branch served as a symbol of victory; in ancient Greece, palm fronds were awarded to victorious athletes. Later in history, Roman lawyers who won a case decorated their doors with palm leaves.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW0Mg5Ay5d_66NCw8cmcgfQfLWx_8erFCdLskVmhuDgDJzpUh1ythzdrn54M-h5NiG_nZJIxaNLpL1mbB8evhm07G1YeFgObHvxKiHZ_Ka_TfqY0VDJv51NHOMwoI0ZP1q6K4I5_zzG3g/s1600/585px-Copper_sulfate+blog.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW0Mg5Ay5d_66NCw8cmcgfQfLWx_8erFCdLskVmhuDgDJzpUh1ythzdrn54M-h5NiG_nZJIxaNLpL1mbB8evhm07G1YeFgObHvxKiHZ_Ka_TfqY0VDJv51NHOMwoI0ZP1q6K4I5_zzG3g/s200/585px-Copper_sulfate+blog.jpg" width="195" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Copper Sulfate (vitriol of copper)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Cristallino was a mid-grade glass made with a soda based plant ash from the Levant which Neri called "rocchetta." For this recipe, he blends it with common glass, and adds red lead oxide to the mix, in effect forming an early </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">version of what we now call lead crystal. He "cleans" the glass by using the well-established technique of flinging the molten glass into a large tub of clean water. This had the effect of "washing out" excess glass salt (flux). In addition, it provided the opportunity to sort through the fragments to remove any undissolved metallic lead. Lead that did not go into the glass had the tendency to collect at the bottom of the clay crucible as lumps of molten metal. It could then eat a hole in the vessel, resulting in a glass-shop disaster, as Neri warns: </span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>All lead precipitating out of the glass must be removed with diligence, throwing it away, so that it does not make the bottom of the crucible break out, as can happen. Return the glass that was thrown in water to the crucible and leave it to clarify for a day. Then add the color using the powder, made chemically by the dry distillation of vitriol of copper [chapter 31]. Also, add a little crocus of iron, but very little. The result will be a most marvelous beautiful green, the best that I ever made. It will seem just like an emerald of ancient oriental rock, and you can use it in every sort of job.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The "crocus of iron" mentioned above is simply iron oxide or 'rust' as it is more commonly known. The "vitriol of copper" he refers to is copper sulfate. Neri forms it in a laborious process that involves cutting copper sheet into small, coin-sized pieces, mixing it with sulfur, heating in the furnace and then reprocessing it several times. The result is then added to water and the soluble part is further processed, filtered and evaporated. The final product is a pure blue crystalline material that has uses for our alchemist that go far beyond glassmaking, as he alludes to in the final sentence of the book:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Although I have placed here the way to make this powder with much clarity, do not presuppose that I have described a way to make something ordinary, but rather a true treasure of nature, and this for the delight of kind and curious spirits.</i></span></blockquote>*This post first appeared her in a slightly different form on 25 October 2013.Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-84504468127360162332020-12-30T00:00:00.010-05:002020-12-30T00:00:04.491-05:00Turquoise Glass<p> </p><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZSb0KuQifVV4ycGgWPMvtSG9yHqedd8C0j6-z-FQyjtDEOwWoIx3m1I_WPS8Seh_YMSoEi_nuQ7SjhqMOUum4W8ZXGDJ5BWOy1Kwky6i2ZUBBTXXP57ZBsp9VhZwq5eL8ibDeCjswF8/s1600/Turquoise.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1163" data-original-width="1174" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZSb0KuQifVV4ycGgWPMvtSG9yHqedd8C0j6-z-FQyjtDEOwWoIx3m1I_WPS8Seh_YMSoEi_nuQ7SjhqMOUum4W8ZXGDJ5BWOy1Kwky6i2ZUBBTXXP57ZBsp9VhZwq5eL8ibDeCjswF8/s400/Turquoise.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Turquoise glass stamp</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">of calif Mustadi c.1170.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">It is estimated that turquoise is among the earliest gems ever mined. With colors that vary from pastel green to a bright sky blue, it has adorned Egyptian sarcophaguses of 5000 years ago, 3000-year-old Chinese art, Aztec death masks and the domes of Persian palaces. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">When traders brought it to <st1:place>Europe</st1:place> from the <st1:place>Mideast</st1:place>, it became known as "turks" or "turquoise" after the old French for "Turkish." While it has never been mined in <st1:country-region>Turkey</st1:country-region>, the most highly valued Persian stones were imported there and used extensively for trade. Polished pieces were famously mounted on Turkish equestrian saddles, in the belief that the material conferred sure-footedness and protection from injury during a fall.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">As one of the first gems to be collected and traded, turquoise was also one of the first to be imitated. Egyptian faience blue is an early forerunner of glass. It is more porous than glass, but it contains all the same ingredients and could be cast into forms that look just like solid turquoise. In the seventeenth century, the genuine mineral and its imitation continued to hold importance. In Antonio Neri's book <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>, the subject is mentioned several times;</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"> h</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">e offers one recipe to restore faded stones by soaking them in almond oil. For turquoise colored enamels he presents two different shades. On the subject of glass, he notes that "Sky Blue, or more properly turquoise, is a principal color in the art of glassmaking" and "I have made this color often, because it is very necessary in beadmaking and is the most esteemed and prized color in the art."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">To make his imitation turquoise glass, Neri starts with a batch of high quality transparent aquamarine blue, to which he adds a specially prepared variety of common salt. "Add it little by little, until the aquamarine color loses its transparency and diaphany becoming opaque."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Take the sea salt known as black salt or rather coarse salt, since the ordinary white salt that they make in Volterra would not be good. Put this salt in a frit kiln or oven to calcine, in order to release all moisture and turn white. Next, grind it well into a fine white powder. This salt now calcined should be stored for the use of making sky blue or rather turquoise color as described below.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Sea salt is mostly composed of sodium chloride, which is like table salt that we use for food. However, it can include significant additional minerals, as implied by Neri’s description of it as "black salt." Additional elements can include sulfur, potassium, manganese and more. Regrettably, he leaves us with no further clues to its identity, nor does he explain why the recipe would not work as well with the salt available from Volterra. He goes on to advise that the mix should be used quickly, because if left to sit in the furnace, the glass would start to revert to an ugly transparent color. The remedy for this is to add more salt. He finishes with some practical advice for glassmakers about adding salt to molten glass:</span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">The furnace conciatore should take careful note here, when you add this salt, if it is not well calcined it always bursts. Therefore, you should be cautious and shield your eyes and vision, because there is a danger you could be hurt. Add the doses of salt little by little putting in a bit at a time pausing from one time to the next until you see the desired color. With this, I do not rely on either dose or weight, but only on my eyes. When I see that the glass reaches the desired level of color, I stop adding salt. This all comes with experience. </span></i><br /><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">* This post first appeared her in a slightly shorter form on 9 April, 2014.</span></i></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-13693648716887382572020-12-28T00:00:00.003-05:002020-12-28T05:32:14.874-05:00Golden Yellow Glass<blockquote class="tr_bq"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVWKf49mr6B1Q9WPaY0Xb3x8IRNbvjZGZF3q2Vmph9mgTXO_TzlRFBdu5lsEc41BAg5rv7W16J4h3Brich02K-MPNqO1F1_xZsCT1IduM-jUI3fGj2KnOnk4jECVNwLXIOIYy2s_KPr8/s1600/801f.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZVWKf49mr6B1Q9WPaY0Xb3x8IRNbvjZGZF3q2Vmph9mgTXO_TzlRFBdu5lsEc41BAg5rv7W16J4h3Brich02K-MPNqO1F1_xZsCT1IduM-jUI3fGj2KnOnk4jECVNwLXIOIYy2s_KPr8/s400/801f.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Yellow Neon Chandelier, 1995</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Dale Chihuly.</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">(Columbus, Indiana Visitors Center). </div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;">"</span><span style="font-size: large;">Very few people know how to make colors like golden yellow and solid red well. These are difficult and troublesome in the art of glassmaking, since in making them you must stick precisely to the doses, the timing, the details and the materials as prescribed. The smallest error will cause everything to be ruined, and the colors to be irreparably spoiled. Therefore, you must be on guard not to make mistakes. [1]</span></i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So says Antonio Neri in his groundbreaking 1612 book of glass recipes, <i>L’Arte Vetraria</i>. Elsewhere he warns in several places not to add “tartar” to any glass destined for yellow pigmentation. Tartar was a common additive to boost the ‘sparkle’ of a glass because it contained a high level of potassium carbonates. These converted to potassium oxide in the melt, which has a higher refractive index than the usual glass flux, sodium oxide. However, his actual glass recipes tend to contradict this advice. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Neri says of his “fern glass,” which is entirely potassium based:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>…This frit can be given a wonderful golden yellow color provided there is no tartar salt within, as described in the caution, because then golden yellow will not emerge. This crystal is given to a golden yellow that is far more beautiful and pleasant than can be achieved in cristallo made with Levantine polverino salt and with this crystal unlike the other, every kind of job can be done. [2]</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Polverino” was a sodium based plant product used in many of Neri’s glass recipes, which he says was derived from the Kali plant grown in the Levant. The plot thickens when, for yellow, he recommends substituting ‘rocchetta’ another soda based Kali derivative. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His primary recipe for golden yellow is #46, in which he reveals two ingredients responsible for the color, paradoxically, one of them, in direct contradiction to his previous advice, is tartar: “For every 100 pounds of [glass], add 1 pound of tartar from the dregs of red wine. Use large pieces well vitrified naturally in bottles of wine, because the powder is no good. Crush these raw dregs well, and pass them through a fine sieve. For every 1 pound of these dregs, add 1 pound of prepared Piedmont manganese…” [3] To this he adds the advice that “the powder is always given in parts and given [to the frit], not to the fused glass, because then it will not tint.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He also offers advice to add more or less pigment depending on the intended use of the glass: more for thin items, less for heavier ones. “For larger [thick] spit beads, it is said that at Murano they reduce the dose of [wine] dregs and manganese by nearly half.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For Neri’s lead glass, he uses a different combination, this time pairing copper sulfate with iron oxide: “Take 16 pounds of cristallo frit and 16 pounds of lead calx. Mix them well and pass them through a sieve. To this material, add 6 ounces of thrice cooked copper, made with flakes of the kettle-smiths [chapter 28], and 2 pennyweight of iron crocus made with vinegar [chapter 17].” He goes on to advise, “If it leans toward greenishness, add a little iron crocus, which will remove the greenishness and will bring out a yellow color of the most beautiful gold.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yellow is one of several colors that iron oxide can form in glass, and is used frequently in low-fire pottery glazes. In that realm, it has a reputation as a difficult, unstable color, as Neri alludes to in his warnings. But in modern, higher temperature borosilicate glass, iron oxide is relied on for a nice yellow. In modern soda-lime glass, cadmium, titanium or the exotic praseodymium are more likely choices. They produced bright reliable color that is stable at the higher temperatures of modern operations. In lead glass, selenium is the modern favorite for yellow.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[1] Neri 1612, ch. 45.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[2] ibid, ch 5.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[3] ibid, ch 46.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-50005040794494590562020-12-25T00:00:00.002-05:002020-12-25T00:00:05.209-05:00Ultramarine Blue<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQr60g7wH9AQptV60UTrpdTvT8J6Uaqd16EsYilAmU8sYyyy9dV3gN_3MM6ssFtByorOI6jhaC4qNz1Hq5sTI8RcKP4gfwXdwXUl1Db3pxPySsh6tHR4ZvtI-iYd94pH82-M7cLbhX_fk/s1600/q3304815.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="758" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQr60g7wH9AQptV60UTrpdTvT8J6Uaqd16EsYilAmU8sYyyy9dV3gN_3MM6ssFtByorOI6jhaC4qNz1Hq5sTI8RcKP4gfwXdwXUl1Db3pxPySsh6tHR4ZvtI-iYd94pH82-M7cLbhX_fk/s400/q3304815.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Scrovegni Chapel, Padua</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Frescos and ultramarine ceiling, Giotto 1306.</span></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In his fifteenth century handbook for painters, Cennino Cennini said, "Ultramarine blue is a color illustrious, beautiful and most perfect, beyond all other colors; one could not say anything about it, or do anything with it, that its quality would not still surpass." The ancient Egyptians used ultramarine to decorate the sarcophaguses of their pharos. Later, Marco Polo reported that it was made at a lapis lazuli mine in Afghanistan. Its name alludes to these far-flung origins: <i>ultra-marine </i>= "beyond the sea." Venetians were probably the first in Italy to learn the extraction technique and import the raw lapis. Producing the rich blue pigment from the rock was no simple task; success required an elaborate set of steps. Because of the difficulty, for a time, an ounce of ultramarine was valued more highly than an ounce of pure gold. In the legal contracts drawn up for commissioned paintings, patrons often stipulated exact amounts of the precious material for the artist to use. Beyond its beauty, its presence in a painting signaled the wealth of its owner.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">In the last part of his book, <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>, Antonio Neri presents his recipes for a variety of paints, including one for ultramarine. In glassmaking, drinking goblets adorned with delicate paint-work raised their value and elevated them into the realm of art. Unlike enamels, which fired into the glass, most paint, including ultramarine could not survive the furnace, requiring application only after a piece was finished. The number of different paint and lake recipes in the book indicates Neri's familiarity with the craft. This, combined with his willingness to use other painter’s materials like "smalt" in his glass formulations, hints at a still unknown chapter in the alchemist's life. Perhaps, for a period in Antwerp, he worked directly with fine artists. Here is Neri’s ultramarine:</span></span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Take fragments of lapis lazuli, which you can find plentifully in Venice and at low prices. Get fragments that are nicely tinted a pretty celestial color and remove any poorly tinted fragments. Cull the nicely colored fragments into a pot and put it amongst hot coals to calcine. When they are inflamed throw them in fresh water and repeat this twice. Then grind them on a porphyry stone most impalpably to become like sifted grain flour. </i><i><br /></i><i>Take equal amounts, three ounces each, of pine pitch, black tar, mastic, new wax and turpentine, add one ounce each, of linseed oil and frankincense. I put these things in a clay bowl to warm on the fire until I see them dissolve and with a stirring rod, I mix and incorporate them thoroughly. This done, I throw them into fresh water, so they will combine into one mass for my needs. </i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">For every pound of finely powdered lapis lazuli, ground as described above, take ten ounces of the above gum cake. In a bowl over a slow fire, melt the gum, and when it is well-liquified throw into it, little by little, the finely powdered lapis lazuli. Incorporate it thoroughly into the paste with a stirring rod.</span></i></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Cast the hot incorporated material into a vessel of fresh water and, with hands bathed in linseed oil, form a round cake, proportionately round and tall. You should make one or more other of these cakes from the quantity of the material. Then soak these cakes for fifteen days in a large vessel full of fresh water, changing the water every two days. In a kettle, you should boil clear common water and put the cakes in a well-cleaned, glazed earthen basin. Pour warm water over them and then leave them until the water has cooled.</i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Empty out the water and pour new warm water over them. When it has cooled, pour again, replenishing the warmth. Repeat this many times over, so that the cakes unbind from the heat of the water. Now add new warm water and you will see that the water will take on a celestial color. Decant the water into a clean glazed pan, pour new [warm] water over the cake and let it color [the water].</i><i><br /></i><i>When it is colored, decant it and pass it through a sieve into a glazed basin. Pour warm water over the cake, repeatedly until it is no longer colored. Make sure that the water is not too hot, but only lukewarm because too much heat will cause the blue to darken, hence this warning, which is very important.</i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Pass all this colored water through a sieve into the basin. It still has the unctuosity of the gum, so leave it to stand and rest for twenty-four hours; all the color will go to the bottom. Then gently decant off the water with its unctuosity, pour clear water over it and pass it through a fine sieve into a clean basin.</i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>Pass the fresh water through the sieve with the color stirred-up so that this color still passes through and therefore a great part of the filth and unctuosity will remain in the sieve. Wash the sieve well and with new water again pass the color through. Repeat these steps three times, which ordinarily leaves all the filth on the blue resting in the sieve. Always wash the sieve each time, cleaning it of all contamination. Put the blue in a clean pan. Gently decant off the water and then leave it to dry. You will have a most beautiful ultramarine, as I have made many times in Antwerp.</i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>The amount per pound of lapis lazuli will vary. It depends on whether the lapis has more or less charge of color and on the beauty of its color. Grind it exceedingly fine on the porphyry stone, as described above and you will succeed beautifully. </i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">For a quite beautiful and sightly biadetto blue that mimics ultramarine blue, take ordinary blue enamel and grind it exceedingly fine over the porphyry stone, as above. Incorporate it into the gum cake with the dose described above and hold it in digestion in fresh water for fifteen days as with the lapis lazuli. Follow the directions for the lapis lazuli, in all and for all, until the end. These blues are not only useful to painters, but they also serve in order to tint glasses par excellence.</span></i></blockquote><p> </p>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-8759215333242627192020-12-23T00:00:00.002-05:002020-12-23T00:00:04.799-05:00Gold Ruby Glass<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLetj2cFz7jkTt0gxfYPswJuECTfiYp8BevcJ-WHhVpGAHjIOfGK60cNPhE1UDGV4aivDrABWWcqQ-6jB2FeVLb0OC4zwDmDHyW0oEKajSsVCVC0lN1tWFq5bDEuYDzKNTpTTQvJcHrY8/s1600/imageQ8E.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLetj2cFz7jkTt0gxfYPswJuECTfiYp8BevcJ-WHhVpGAHjIOfGK60cNPhE1UDGV4aivDrABWWcqQ-6jB2FeVLb0OC4zwDmDHyW0oEKajSsVCVC0lN1tWFq5bDEuYDzKNTpTTQvJcHrY8/s320/imageQ8E.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 10.8192px; line-height: 16.2288px;">A gold florin.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 10.8192px; line-height: 16.2288px;">Legend claims gold ruby glass</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 10.8192px; line-height: 16.2288px;"> was discovered when a nobel threw</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 10.8192px; line-height: 16.2288px;">a gold coin into a glass maker's crucible.</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Antonio Neri is best remembered for writing <i>L'Arte Vetraria</i>. It was the first printed book entirely devoted to the formulation of glass, which he published in Florence, Italy, in 1612. If we were to single out just one of his more than a hundred recipes, covering glass, lead crystal, paste gems and enamels, it would have to be his prescription for "Transparent Red" ruby glass made with gold. This recipe still captivates glass artists today, as it has since Neri wrote the book. In fact, gold ruby glass is closely tied to the lore of alchemy and has intrigued experimenters as well as artists and collectors since the Roman Empire, possibly before.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Alchemists had long thought gold to be the perfect metal and that all other "lesser" metals (read: lead, tin, copper, iron, mercury and silver) could be coaxed to fully "mature" into gold. Experimenters thought that if they could capture the "essence" of the king of metals, it could be used to "seed" the other metals, and transmute them into pure gold. This is where ruby glass comes into the discussion. In general, glass is colored by the addition of finely powdered metals. Depending on the metal and how it is treated, a whole rainbow of colors can be produced in glass. Alchemists were convinced that the color was an indication that this "essence" of the metal had been released into the glass. </span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmoUUGlUKZKaJVB8hMy6p7Z_n8F7xHjSIpdYVW1OHBGx0SaBfwY7HVhPeqEo_5mRBWs1o4WG-i6hTiKtdBV9uxgEHc-CokVB59NFzLtTYrcT3AV1xEQumXzOycvVs7ruVEEj2Nau26FD4/s1600/goldruby.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmoUUGlUKZKaJVB8hMy6p7Z_n8F7xHjSIpdYVW1OHBGx0SaBfwY7HVhPeqEo_5mRBWs1o4WG-i6hTiKtdBV9uxgEHc-CokVB59NFzLtTYrcT3AV1xEQumXzOycvVs7ruVEEj2Nau26FD4/s1600/goldruby.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Cranberry glass or Gold Ruby<br /> treasury chamber of the Wittelsbacher , Munich Residenz.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For artists and collectors, gold ruby is simply a very attractive color; the difficulty of producing it and working with it only adds to its cachet. Transparent red in glass can be produced other ways, notably with copper, but copper red has a slightly more orange color. Gold ruby, on the other hand, has a characteristic red color that can have slight hints of purple. It can be made light and ethereal or dark and heavily saturated, but viewed next to its competitors, it has a very distinctive hue that experts pride themselves on recognizing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Neri’s recipe involves moistening gold powder with "aqua regia," which we know as a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids. He then spreads this wet mixture on an earthenware pan and heats it in the furnace "until it becomes a red powder, which will take place after many days." Here is that color change that alchemists looked for as an indication of transformation; we know today that Neri was producing gold chloride. This is one of the very few chemical compounds that gold forms and in fact, this is one of the main things that makes gold so special: it does not rust, nor corrode or tarnish, which are, in the end, all chemical reactions between the metal and its environment.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Neri directs his readers to sprinkle, little by little, the gold chloride into the glass melt. He says to "Use fine <i>cristallo</i>, thrown in water many times." <i>Cristallo</i> is the exceptionally clear glass invented by Venetian craftsmen, and "washing" was a technique to remove excess water soluble flux and other contaminants. He finishes his instructions abruptly by saying this method "will make the transparent ruby red glass; but you must experiment in order to find it." In other recipes, Neri goes to great lengths to explain his methods in detail, here he seems content to barely scratch the surface. Much speculation has taken place over the reason for this surprisingly short recipe. Was he ordered, perhaps by his Medici overlords, to keep details to a minimum? Some have wondered if Neri even knew how to produce gold ruby; the short recipe may have been a cover for his lack of knowledge.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Doubts about Neri's gold ruby glass recipe grew after his death, when it was discovered by other experimenters that the addition of small amounts of tin into the mix produced the ruby color quickly and reliably. This compound of tin and gold chloride was called "Cassius purple" after one of its inventors and its color. In some circles it was thought that the tin was an essential ingredient, a lost secret that had been rediscovered. The argument was that gold chloride alone could not produce the color, it must be combined with tin in the form of Cassius purple. However, this is not the case. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In an 1846 edition of the Journal of the Franklin Institute (ser. 3, v. 11), professor of chemistry and natural philosophy, E. L. Schubarth, cites numerous investigators who demolish this theory. He wrote:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>It must not be imagined from this, as some persons have lately stated, that it is necessary to use gold </i>[combined with tin]<i> in the state of Cassius purple.</i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Neri, at the end of the sixteenth and commencement of the seventeenth century, stated, that in order to stain glass a ruby color, it was only necessary to employ calcined chloride of gold. At a later period, Libar wrote to the same effect, and Merret certified that he had proved the efficacy of the process. In 1834 Golfier Besseyre stated, in the Journal of Pharmacy, that Douault Wieland colored his paste with perchloride of gold only. Lastly, in 1836, Fuss writes, that in Bohemia all the ruby-colored glass was prepared with chloride of gold only, and that glass might be stained red as well with metallic gold, as with oxide of gold or Cassius purple.</i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>It is therefore a fact known for some time, that glass may be stained red, without either Cassius purple or oxide of tin, with </i>[only]<i> metallic gold or preparations of gold. In the glass-works of Bohemia and Silesia perchloride of gold only is used, without the addition of oxide of tin, in order to produce their fine rose or carmine-colored glass.</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of the men cited, Douault-Wieland was a Parisian jeweler who was famous for his artificial gems and crystal glassware. He was praised for his skills by Napoleon. Paul Golfier-Besseyre was a well respected French chemist. Besides many other endeavors, he worked for the glass industry and performed numerous experiments on the formulation of glass. He produced a gold ruby using the same ingredients as Neri. He determined good color could be achieved by letting a new batch of the glass age for a protracted period of time at temperatures below the melting point of gold. Periodically, he removed the glass from the furnace and poured it into water to wash it. The result was a yellowish glass when molten, but when a gaffer finished a piece it was gently reheated and the ruby color developed. </span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-61209573147786567302020-12-21T00:00:00.003-05:002020-12-21T00:00:02.820-05:00Flexible Glass<p> </p><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmcrAdLwL5hIHg5sH5nrXPC8ke4ke6pefHpQYSoxMcI2LDWVo1b6VaKgJ7AtS5gKl449ZxoB-l-KSEZif_KmzHPVjXqvwZKAEQ9XTB3Y4zxaDmDIW5luAPB1k1KvtDVJZLr_iMMAVrH4/s1600/tiberius.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmcrAdLwL5hIHg5sH5nrXPC8ke4ke6pefHpQYSoxMcI2LDWVo1b6VaKgJ7AtS5gKl449ZxoB-l-KSEZif_KmzHPVjXqvwZKAEQ9XTB3Y4zxaDmDIW5luAPB1k1KvtDVJZLr_iMMAVrH4/s1600/tiberius.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">Roman Emperor Tiberius - Glass paste cameo</div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"> c 20CE by "Herophilos, Son of Dioskurides"</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the first century CE, references appear in the literature for a malleable form of glass --that is to say flexible-- the method for which is reported as lost. This '<i>vitrum flexile</i>' was a material that supposedly could be worked with a hammer like metal; not brittle but plastic, yet retaining the other favorable properties of glass. In the ancient world, historians Strabo (c. 63 BCE–24 CE), Pliny (c. 23–79 CE), Petronius (c. 27–66 CE) and others recount the story of a hapless artisan who brought his great discovery to Roman emperor Tiberius. Fearing the devaluation of his wealth, the emperor had the glassmaker executed on the spot and his workshop destroyed. The implication being that the inestimable value of a malleable glass would crash the markets for gold and silver. [1]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Since then, the legend has resurfaced in various forms, notably at periods in history of technological upheaval; times when innovative knowledge threatened to 'disrupt' the established order. One incarnation has the sophy of <st1:country-region>Persia</st1:country-region> gifting a set of malleable drinking glasses to the king of <st1:country-region>Spain</st1:country-region>, Philip III, around 1610. Just then, new trade deals with the <st1:place>Middle East</st1:place> rattled the European </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">economy and Venetian glass craftsmen fanned out through Europe, disrupting local glass furnaces and guilds with their superior techniques. [2] Another version tells of a French sculptor bringing his malleable glass-work to Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), of Dumas' <i>Three Musketeers</i> fame. According to the story, that particular artisan’s reward was life in prison. The tale takes place in a tumultuous political period in French history and appears in print at the dawn of the so-called industrial revolution. [3]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Chronologically, this last story aligns nicely with the publication, in southern <st1:country-region>France</st1:country-region>, of a Latin book of alchemical recipes by royal physician <span lang="EN">Pierre-Jean Fabre (1588-1658). Contained in his volume is a prescription for a malleable form of glass, presumably the fabled</span><i><span lang="EN"> </span>vitrum flexile</i><span lang="EN">. Fabre's book was titled <i>Palladium Spagyricum</i>, 1624. [4] <i>Spagyricum</i> is a reference to spagyrics, the specific brand of chemistry practiced by sixteenth century alchemist-physician Paracelsus. <i>Palladium</i> translates to 'protector' or 'savior'. As an aside, it is interesting to note that Fabre developed an elaborate philosophy which integrated chemistry as a 'sacrament' to Catholic theology, but that is a story for another day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">In 1685, Fabre's recipes were nicely translated into English and tucked into the end of a book otherwise devoted to the art of drawing, by William Salmon [5]. Here is the full recipe "To Make Malleable Glass" as rendered in Salmon's book:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>I.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Take oyl of Luna, twenty drachms: oyl of Mercury, or its water seven times rectified, one pound: mix them together and distill them.</i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>II.</i><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic;"> </span><i>Repeat this distillation till the </i>oleum Lunae<i> rises with the water of Mercury in distillation.</i></span><i> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">III.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Distill this water again until it is fixed, and converted into a fixed oyl, and this repeat four times.</span> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">IV.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>In the fourth time the oyl of Luna is fixed with the oyl of Mercury, so that they render glass malleable; for so great is the viscosity in your oyls, that it removes the brittleness of the glass, and so leaves it of a malleable temper.</span> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">V.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>The reason is, because that the radical moisture of the glass is multiplied by the radical moisture of the metals. Which is plentiful and turgent or swelling in the oyls of Luna and Mercury.</span> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">VI.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>And if [in] this oyl made volatile, diamonds should be dissolved, and then digested into a fixt oyl, it would transmute all glass into diamonds, only by projecting this oyl onto melted glass.</span> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">VII.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>There are also other precious stones comprehended within this oyl, when it is made volatile, and digested, and fixed again by digestion continually for the space of a year.</span> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">VIII. Also this oyl can turn glass into precious stones of any kind whatsoever, if therein (being made volatile) precious stones of the same kind have been dissolved, and digested with it into a fixed oyl.</span> </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>IX.</i><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic;"> </span><i>For as metals are included in their fixed oyls: so are precious stones in theirs, as </i>Raymundus Lullius<i> doth witness in many places; the which thing we shall teach you in the following chapter.</i></span><o:p><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">Elsewhere in the book, it is explained that 'oyl of Luna' is silver dissolved in acid, and 'oyl of Mercury' is a sublimation of mercury and saltpeter. [6] From a purely technical standpoint, the formula would have been regarded credible by 17th century and earlier practitioners in that both mercury and silver were successfully used as additives to glass and they do integrate into the matrix. Notably, Antonio Neri used both of them in his chalcedony glass. In Neri's case he was using these metals to produce color, although he does not attribute specific tints to the ingredients. Under some circumstances, silver is known to produce an attractive blue. It should also be noted that Renaissance glassmakers used similar silver-mercury formulas to produce the reflective layer on finished glass mirrors, in a process that resembled gilding. They formed what was known as "mercury glass." It is not beyond the pale to speculate that experiments would have been conducted by alchemists to add such concoctions directly to the glass melt. In the end, though, there is no indication that these additives would produce a malleable glass. Last, we should note that prolonged exposure to mercury vapor causes irreversable neurological and organ damage. It undoubetly contributed to the demise of alchemists, gilders, milliners and many others who worked with it throughout history. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">As far as I am aware, this is the first example of a specific recipe for malleable glass uncovered in the literature. If nothing else, it is an important marker for further research into the history of glassmaking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[1] Strabo: <i>Geography</i>, v. 8; Pliny: <i>Naturalis Historia</i> XXXVI.lxvi.195; Petronius: <i>Satyricon</i> 50.7; Also recounted by Casius Dio (c.150–235 CE): <i>Historia Romana</i> 57.21.7; Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636 CE): <i>Etymologiae</i> XVI.16.6, ‘De vitro’; Suetonius; Ibn Abd Alhokin; John of Sailsbury.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[2] Knolles, Grimstone, Johnson: </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Richard Knolles' The General Historie of the Turkes</i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> (</span><st1:city style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">London</st1:city><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">: Adam Islip, 1621).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[3] Neri 1697 (Introduction). A French translation of Florentine glassmaker Antonio Neri’s 1612 book </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">L’Arte Vetraria</i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> [The art of making glass] by Jean Haudicquer de Blancourt. Also see my earlier post here <a href="http://www.conciatore.org/2014/07/flexible-glass-reprise.html">http://www.conciatore.org/2014/07/flexible-glass-reprise.html</a> .</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[4] Pierre-Jean Fabre: </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Palladium spagyricum Petri Ioannis Fabri doctoris medici Monspeliensis ... </i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">(</span><st1:city style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Toulouse</st1:city><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">: Bosc, 1624), p. 276. Later translated into several English editions, see note [5].</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[5] William Salmon</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">: Polygraphice: Or the Arts of Drawing, Engraving, Etching, Limming, Painting</i><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> … (</span><st1:city style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">London</st1:city><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">: T. Passenger & T. Sawbridge, 1685), pp. 598, 599.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">[6] To more adventurous readers: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, or anywhere else, ever. Vaporized mercury is a powerful neurotoxin. Small amounts can cause permanent brain damage and multiple organ failure. Furthermore, this recipe uses powerful acids and nitrates, which are extremely dangerous even in a controlled laboratory setting. Even if you have little regard for your own health and safety, consider those around you; this includes loved ones, family, children, pets, neighbors and the emergency workers who will inevitably be left to clean up your mess.</span></div>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3448259307836351996.post-61547459297384637742020-12-18T00:30:00.000-05:002020-12-18T00:30:06.630-05:00Don Giovanni in Flanders<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXASEqoLgdi35JAjpHM0vF2uwxwuX_h5MZWeR7u-Yvpt7dE9V7YgeuuBnyQLZxExwDwrtG8-f4oN7rPMaxLlRKcHXHmrbJBoCaSnUyeCnph5_MsQvcXwyDLN9n1yG3dc7bGQK9JL6ZyzI/s1600/flemish+war.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="400" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXASEqoLgdi35JAjpHM0vF2uwxwuX_h5MZWeR7u-Yvpt7dE9V7YgeuuBnyQLZxExwDwrtG8-f4oN7rPMaxLlRKcHXHmrbJBoCaSnUyeCnph5_MsQvcXwyDLN9n1yG3dc7bGQK9JL6ZyzI/s400/flemish+war.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: x-small;">Spanish attack on a Flemish village,</span></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: x-small;">Attr: Pieter Snayers. (click to enlarge)</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the winter of 1603-04, Glassmaker Antonio Neri embarked on what would become a seven-year-long visit to Antwerp, possibly the most productive period of his career. He was to stay with his Portuguese friend, Emmanuel Ximenes, one of the richest men in that city. But Neri was not the only Florentine courtier in Antwerp; Don Giovanni de' Medici, Florence's top military commander was already there, prosecuting a war. He was uncle and friend to Neri's sponsor Don Antonio, as well as an alchemist in his own right. There is no known record of a meeting, but it is not hard to imagine Giovanni as a dinner guest at the Ximenes household.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Neri had moved from the safety of the Tuscan hills into the very center of a bloody war for Dutch independence. The Dutch wanted freedom from Spain, which was allied with the Holy Roman Empire through a single ruling family: the Habsburgs. Within the previous thirty years, Antwerp had been burned and pillaged by Spanish soldiers that had gone unpaid by their employer. The carnage cemented a regional rebellion that would last for most of a century. The so-called "Low Countries" were divided by religious lines into the Protestant "North", and the Catholic "South". The northern territory, known as the Dutch Republic, had seceded from Hapsburg rule in 1581. As Neri started his journey in late 1603, the southern territory, Flanders, was caught in the middle between warring factions. The North had become a haven for protestant Calvinists and Lutherans who streamed in from surrounding countries. In the South, Catholic Antwerp was near the center of the conflict. The city was blocked from sea-trade by their Dutch neighbors. Armed confrontations with imperial Habsburg forces demolished surrounding towns; fighting threatened to spill into the city that Neri would call home for the better part of a decade.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The troops on both sides of this conflict were not monolithic armies, but patchworks of borrowed forces and paid mercenaries. On the imperial side, an early attempt to break the blockade had been under the command of Don Giovanni de' Medici on behalf of his half-brother, Tuscan Grand Duke Ferdinando. Florence owed its allegiance to the Habsburgs. Don Giovanni was anxious to secure Catholic Flanders for Spain and secure a military success for himself. However, in truth, the situation was more nuanced. The Medici were privately sympathetic to the Dutch cause. They were friendly with the French Bourbons as well as the English who were both secretly financing the Dutch resistance, neither of whom wanted to see a strong imperial presence in the Low Lands. Flemish Catholics themselves lost no love for their Spanish overlords, who had already destroyed Antwerp once. Furthermore, trade and commerce continued between the North and South even if sometimes rather covertly. In 1604, Don Giovanni was back to help prosecute the siege of Ostend, under Don Ambrogio Spinola. This was a conflict so bloody that it ultimately leveled that city and took the lives of thirty-five thousand men. Ostend was the last remaining stronghold of the Dutch on the North Sea coast between Sluys and Nieuport. It was only sixty miles (95km) west of Antwerp.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As bloody as it was, war in the seventeenth century followed the seasons. In the winter, Don Giovanni found time to submit a design for the Chapel of Princes in Florence. He also had Flemish marble cut for the project, and shipped back to Tuscany using, yes, Dutch traders in Amsterdam. During the lull in fighting, at the behest of Grand Duke Ferdinando he commissioned paintings of famous contemporary battle scenes by Flemish masters, which were also shipped back to Florence on Dutch ships. One set of seventeen pictures, fully paid for by the Ximenes family, was destined to hang in the new Medici villa 'La Ferdinanda' at Artemino in Prato. The interior decoration of the public spaces in this villa were being executed by artists Passignano and Poccetti, fresh from their recently completed collaborative masterpieces; the Neri Chapel and Cestello church on Borgo Pinti, financed by Antonio Neri's father. After some delay, the paintings finally shipped to the Tuscan port of Livorno, in April of 1604, just as Antonio Neri was settling into his new quarters on the most fashionable street in all of Antwerp; the Meir.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">By June of 1605, fighting was on Antwerp’s doorstep, Don Giovanni de' Medici was dispatched to London. He saw the King (James I) several times, but the reception was somewhat less enthusiastic than he had hoped (at least according to reports sent home by the Venetian ambassador). Three weeks later Giovanni left for Paris with the promise of a British royal ship to bring him across from Dover to Calais. Finding no such escort, he commissioned a Dutch captain for the voyage. </span><br /><br /><div></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Don Giovanni's behavior, at first blush, seems quite odd; perhaps even treasonous. Commanding troops under the Spanish flag, he left the front lines at Antwerp. Using enemy (Dutch) transportation, he traveled first to the English and then the French royal court, both powers recently at war with Spain and both sympathetic to the Dutch. However, Giovanni was in constant contact with Grand Duke Ferdinando and undoubtedly acted on direct instructions. While technically subjects of the Spanish crown, the Tuscan duchy had close economic and strategic ties with all the countries involved and had every reason to pursue a diplomatic solution that would avoid another bloodbath in Antwerp. A few years earlier, Giovanni had successfully stalled the Spanish infantry from a potentially devastating invasion of France and had military experience in the Low Countries that spanned two decades. Historically, Giovanni's part in any diplomatic negotiations has not been established, but within two years, a temporary truce was reached that would eventually result in Dutch independence. In April of 1607, a temporary eight month ceasefire was negotiated, which was later extended to cover conflicts at sea. For all intents and purposes, the war was winding down.</span>Paul Englehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12112332768470669999noreply@blogger.com0