Alchemist Priest

"Brother Mauritio" detail from

Tesoro del Mondo  (Treasure of the World,) 

by Antonio Neri 1598-1600, f. 19r.

The fact that Antonio Neri was both a dedicated alchemist and a Catholic priest may seem a bit odd to current sensibilities. If we take a broader view and try to accommodate history, the situation can seem odder still since in Neri's time, the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century, alchemists were sometimes portrayed as practicing sorcery. As far as the Church was concerned, sorcery was a heretical offence. In some quarters, the seemingly miraculous manipulations of alchemists to duplicate or even improve on materials found in the natural world were seen as tapping into divine powers. As the bubonic plague ravaged Europe, finger pointing at suspected culprits for bringing down the wrath of God was not terribly uncommon. Nevertheless, the fact is that Antonio Neri was both a Catholic priest and an alchemist, and in good standing on both counts. To understand how this could occur, we need to scratch beneath the surface of history a little deeper.

Taking an even longer view, we see that both religion and alchemy have been practiced for a very long time, since before recorded history. Both conferred cohesive benefits to society and both required the keeping and passing of secretive knowledge. In this light it becomes very reasonable that the two disciplines might be conducted by some of the same people. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, all have rich traditions of alchemy that stretch back to their beginnings. That religion and alchemy coexisted for so long is really a pragmatic issue; alchemy formed the foundation of medicine, metallurgy, the production of paints and many other arts. It was essential to even very small communities, not to mention the advent of distillation: the art of producing a good stiff drink. When a religion, any religion, was adopted into a community, the practices of the community were also adopted into the religion. From this we can infer that the ancient practices that eventually became alchemy were alive and well in the prehistoric Mediterranean tribes, in Celtic and Etruscan societies and in the Asian states long before written history. 

Now, returning to the early 1600s and Antonio Neri, many Christian orders boasted long traditions of alchemy. The Dominicans had Albertus Magnus, the Franciscans had Roger Bacon and Ramon Llull. It is true that in the fourteenth century, Pope John XXII signed a decree banning the counterfeiting of gold and silver by alchemical means, but this has often been wrongly interpreted as a general prohibition, which it was not. In fact, there is every indication that this pope, a trained physician, was well acquainted with the positive benefits of alchemy. Furthermore, the prohibition did not it stop a long line of chemical experimenters within the Church from trying their hand at gold transmutation. In a more pedestrian vein, monks in far-flung monasteries regularly maintained herbal gardens from which they distilled medicines and spirits, and made pigments for paints using alchemical methods. Monasteries were the repositories of knowledge and within their walls, alchemical texts were studied closely.

Neri's specific affiliation, his sect, within the Church is currently unknown although there are a few good guesses. His sponsor was Medici prince Don Antonio, who maintained a palace laboratory called the Casino di San Marco on the north side of Florence; this is where Neri worked at the beginning of his career. The laboratory was located directly across the street from one of two apothecaries maintained by the Dominicans. It is hard to imagine that there was not some kind of relationship between two facilities, both practicing alchemy mere steps from each other on opposite sides of the same street. This apothecary was part of the San Marco Convent complex, which a century earlier harbored Savonarola. There are strong indications that Neri’s family was sympathetic to his reform minded agenda. Savonarola sponsored the first Florentine pharmacopoeia -- a book of medicinal recipes used by physicians and apothecaries. Neri's father, who happened to be the grand duke's personal physician, presided over a later revision of the same book.

Neri's sponsor, Don Antonio, held high office in the Knights of Malta, a religious military order which reported directly to the pope and had great latitude in the types of projects it pursued. The Knights of Malta ran two churches in Florence and Neri can be connected to both.  The order traces its roots to the crusades and has various associations with alchemy such as George Ripley. One legend tells that Ripley helped to finance the knights through the production of alchemical gold. The knights followed the rule of Augustine and enjoyed a close relationship with the Augustinians.

The Augustinians counted a Francesco Neri as abbot of their San Clemente monastery near the Casino. The same abbot Francesco also worked for Don Antonio de' Medici at the Casino and may have been Antonio's brother. Antonio's aunt, Faustina, apparently entered an Augustinian convent after the death of her husband. 

But there is no shortage of other possibilities; as a child, the priest's home parish church was the Benedictine San Pier Maggiore. His father was buried at a Cistercian church, his grandfather at the Franciscan cathedral. At the end of his life, Antonio Neri's confessor was a Carmelite, but also served as the parish priest of an abbey run by the Canons Regular of the Lateran. Whichever group served as his base of operations, through Antonio Neri, they continued a very long tradition of alchemy practiced within the Church.

Strange Bedfellows

"Brother Mauritio" detail from
Treasure of the World, Antonio Neri, f. 19r.

The fact that Antonio Neri was both a dedicated alchemist and a Catholic priest may seem a bit odd to current sensibilities. If we take a broader view and try to accommodate history, the situation can seem odder still since in Neri's time, the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century, alchemists were sometimes portrayed as practicing sorcery. As far as the Church was concerned, sorcery was a heretical offence. In some quarters, the seemingly miraculous manipulations of alchemists to duplicate or even improve on materials found in the natural world were seen as tapping into divine powers. As the bubonic plague ravaged Europe, finger pointing at suspected culprits for bringing down the wrath of God was not terribly uncommon. Nevertheless, the fact is that Antonio Neri was both a priest and an alchemist, and in good standing on both counts. To understand how this could occur, we need to scratch beneath the surface of history a little deeper.

Taking an even longer view, we see that both religion and alchemy have been practiced for a very long time, since before recorded history. Both conferred cohesive benefits to society and both required the keeping and passing of secretive knowledge. In this light it becomes very reasonable that the two disciplines might be conducted by some of the same people. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, all have rich traditions of alchemy that stretch back to their beginnings. That religion and alchemy coexisted for so long is really a pragmatic issue; alchemy formed the foundation of medicine, metallurgy, the production of paints and many other arts. It was essential to even very small communities, not to mention the advent of distillation: the art of producing a good stiff drink. When a religion, any religion, was adopted into a community, the practices of the community were also adopted into the religion. From this we can infer that the ancient practices that eventually became alchemy were alive and well in the prehistoric Mediterranean tribes, in Celtic and Etruscan societies and in the Asian states long before written history. 

Now, returning to the early 1600s and Antonio Neri, many Christian orders boasted long traditions of alchemy. The Dominicans had Albertus Magnus, the Franciscans had Roger Bacon and Ramon Llull. It is true that in the fourteenth century, Pope John XXII signed a decree banning the counterfeiting of gold and silver by alchemical means, but this has often been wrongly interpreted as a general prohibition, which it was not. Nor did it stop a long line of chemical experimenters within the Church from trying their hand at gold transmutation. Monks in far-flung monasteries regularly maintained herbal gardens from which they distilled medicines and spirits, and made pigments for paints using alchemical methods. Monasteries were the repositories of knowledge and within their walls, alchemical texts were studied closely.

Neri's specific affiliation within the Church is currently unknown, although there are a few good guesses. His sponsor was Medici prince Don Antonio, who maintained a palace laboratory called the Casino di San Marco on the north side of Florence; this is where Neri worked at the beginning of his career. The laboratory was located directly across the street from one of two apothecaries maintained by the Dominicans. It is hard to imagine that there was not some kind of relationship between two facilities both practicing alchemy mere steps from each other on opposite sides of the same street. This apothecary was part of the San Marco Convent complex, which a century earlier harbored Savonarola. There are strong indications that Neri’s family was sympathetic to his reform minded agenda. 

Don Antonio held high office in the Knights of Malta, a religious military order which reported directly to the pope and had great latitude in the types of projects it pursued. The Knights of Malta ran two churches in Florence and Neri can be connected to both.  The order traces its roots to the crusades and has various associations with alchemy such as George Ripley. One legend tells that Ripley helped to finance the knights through the production of alchemical gold. The knights followed the rule of Augustine and enjoyed a close relationship with the Augustinians.

The Augustinians counted a Francesco Neri as abbot of their San Clemente monastery near the Casino. He also worked for Don Antonio de' Medici at the Casino and may have been Antonio's brother. His aunt, Faustina, apparently entered an Augustinian convent after the death of her husband. 

But there is no shortage of other possibilities; as a child, the priest's home parish church was the Benedictine San Pier Maggiore. His father was buried at a Cistercian church, his grandfather at the Franciscan cathedral. At the end of his life, Antonio Neri's confessor was a Carmelite, but also served as the parish priest of an abbey run by the Canons Regular of the Lateran. Whichever group served as his base of operations, through Antonio Neri they continued a very long tradition of alchemy practiced within the Church.

A Question of Religion

Ordination of St. Augustine,
Ambrogio da Fossano (Il Bergognone).

In 1612 Florence, Italy, Antonio Neri wrote L'Arte Vetraria, the first book entirely devoted to formulating and producing glass. Since glassmaking involved an intimate knowledge of chemistry, it is not so surprising to learn that he was an alchemist. However, many are surprised to learn that Neri was a priest in the Catholic Church. In fact, based on the timing of his first manuscript on alchemy, he is almost certain to have learned his craft while in training for the priesthood. 

As historian Luigi Zecchin pointed out, the Florentine Archdiocese records for this period were destroyed in a fire. Unfortunately, no other mention has been found that would confirm the particular sect to which Neri belonged, but there are intriguing clues. First, there are a few common sense deductions: We have the fact that he spent a great deal of his time in laboratories and glass foundries, which makes him an unlikely candidate to have led a parish. He is described in several sources as poor, but we know he came from a wealthy family; his father was the personal physician to the grand duke of Tuscany. This suggests that his sect required a mendicant oath of poverty. These are interesting clues, but they do little to narrow the field; there were at least a dozen sects in Florence that met this description, among them Carmelites, Benedictines, Dominicans, Augustinians and the Knights of Malta.

After Neri’s death, his sponsor Prince Don Antonio de' Medici had a number of associates questioned in an attempt to recover the priest’s secret recipe for the philosopher's stone. From the testimony, we know that Neri's confessor was Benedetto Vanda, of the Carmelite run Santa Maria Maggiore church. The story is that Vanda's relatives were suspected of pressuring Neri for the precious secret on his deathbed.

Another tantalizing passage is written by scholar Girolamo da Sommaia, a historian and prior of the convent church of the Knights of Saint-Etienne. Da Sommaia criticizes Neri for his claims of transmutation, but at the same time drops a very interesting clue about the priest’s affiliation.  "Antonio [Neri] who had died in Florence five or six years earlier and was from San Jacopo in Campo Corbolino [church], said that he had the 'stone,' which he found in a pen-written book of secrets." San Jacopo is a church that the Knights Templar occupied since 1256 and when that order died out, the Knights of Malta took it over. They were a military order for whom Don Antonio de’ Medici held the title of Grand Prior of Pisa. 

Another possibility for Neri was the Dominicans. While it is true that they ran the feared Inquisition, they also ran two apothecaries in Florence that catered to the royal family. One was directly across the street from the Casino di San Marco, where Neri made glass at the beginning of his career. Any training for apothecaries would also have broad applicability to the field of alchemy. 

Closer to home, the Neri family's neighborhood church was at the Cistercian monastery Cestello (a Benedictine offshoot), and their parish church was the nearby Benedictine cathedral of San Pier Maggiore. The Cistercians did provide a young Galileo with his early mathematical training and notable among the Benedictines in Florence was Abbot General Orazio Morandi, who harbored a strong interest in alchemy. But any implication here to Neri’s home order is tenuous at best. 

Evidence suggests that one of Antonio's sisters became an Augustinian nun and a brother may have become an Augustinian Abbot, suggestive yes, but nothing that could be called conclusive. 

Was the famous glassmaker Antonio Neri Carmelite, Benedictine, Dominican, Augustinian, a Knight of Malta? Until more convincing evidence comes to light, for now we must say that we simply do not know.