Glass Beads

Six-layer glass chevron trade beads
(photo attr. unknown)

One of the oldest applications of glass, perhaps the oldest, is the production of beads. That development took place about 5000 years ago, but in the history of beadmaking, glass is a relatively recent innovation. Before glass was developed, beads were made from clay, metal, wood, bone, shell and stone. Examples are included in some of the oldest human artifacts ever found, as old as 100,000 years, and that number has increased regularly with new discoveries. Moving closer to the present, in 1612 the first printed book on glassmaking was published in Italy and it contains numerous references to beads made of ordinary glass, Venetian style cristallo and what we would now call lead crystal. [2] 

In his 1612 book, L’Arte Vetraria, Antonio Neri describes preparing batches of 300 to 400 pounds of a blue-green colored glass destined for beadmakers [3]. The molten glass was drawn out into thin rods and cooled for use by workers who formed beads by winding the glass around a metal rod over an oil lamp. 

I demonstrated this method of making aquamarine in Florence in the year 1602, at the Casino, and I made many batches of it for beadmaking cane, which always resulted in a most beautiful color. Take note, than in Murano for beadmaking cane they take half crystal frit and half rocchetta frit, and nevertheless still get a nice aquamarine; but in pure crystal it is the most beautiful.

Elsewhere, we learn that Neri supervised the production of beadmaking cane, not only in Florence, but also in Pisa. At that time, glass beads were manufactured for use both within Europe and for use around the world as a trade currency. Locally, beads found use in devotional objects in the form of rosaries, where they were called ‘conterie’ and ‘paternostri’ (literally 'our fathers'). Outside of Europe, in Africa, the Americas, the Far East, and in China, glass beads were used in trade for sugar, spices and other goods. On the darker side of history, they were used to buy men, women and children for the slave trade.

The question of Neri’s involvement in the production of trade beads naturally arises, but it is a question not so easily answered. He makes no direct mention of the intended use of the beads made from his glass, but there are clues. On one hand, the Medici family, for whom Neri worked in Florence and Pisa regularly engaged in trade expeditions, on the other hand Neri himself was a Catholic Priest, with some obligation to the Church. His work could as easily have been destined for foreign shores as for the hands of the laity.

Neri’s good friend, Emmanuel Ximenes came from a family of traders, or “bankers” as they were called at the time. They financed expeditions to Africa, India and the Americas. Glass beads were not the only goods used in trade, but they were relatively inexpensive to manufacture and made a convenient ballast material for ships. Empty vessels needed something heavy in the cargo hold to keep the boat from riding too high in the water. Often rocks or sand was used, but barrelfuls of glass beads served the double purpose of a near universally accepted currency. It is easy to imagine Neri’s friendship with the wealthy banker facilitating trade deals, but no evidence has come to light that anything like this took place. 

Antonio Neri visited his friend Emmanuel Ximenes at his palace in Antwerp and stayed for about seven years. It might seem like an ideal opportunity for bead production, except that the port at Antwerp had been blockaded by their Dutch neighbors to the north for several years. They were fighting a bloody war for independence from Spain and any trade that did occur had to be routed to other ports. Emmanuel’s brother Duarte had a large shipment of sugar confiscated in this period and went to considerable trouble to have it returned. [4] This does not rule out a role for Neri in trade beads, but it does make it less likely than when he was living in Italy.

There is also no evidence that I am aware of that the Ximenes were involved in the slave trade. It is true that Emmanuel was a Knight of Saint Stephen, which essentially served as the Tuscan Navy. They regularly intercepted Ottoman pirate and military ships and when caught, the crew was generally pressed into slavery. However, this was not a profit driven activity and by the time Neri and Ximenes met, the later was well beyond the age of active service. 

[1] Old beads: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090505163021.htm
[2] Neri 1612, chs. 22, 26, 29, 36, 46, 47, 62, 64, 65.
[3] Ibid, ch. 22.
[4] For a full description of the 1602 Sugar Confiscation, see Roitman 2009, pp. 207–229.
* This post first appeared here 17 Dec 2014.

Fall from Grace

Felice Fontana
(Attribution unknown)

In 1790, two centuries after the life of glassmaker Antonio Neri, his name appeared in an unlikely place: in the annotations of a Swedish manuscript that was translated into Italian by one of Florence's leading scientists.[1] On second thought, perhaps its appearance is more unexpected than unlikely. Torbern Bergman was the celebrated Swedish chemist responsible for the manuscript and the translator was Felice Fontana, the founding director of Florence's Natural History Museum (La Specola). Fontana took the opportunity to annotate Bergman’s History of Chemistry in the Middle Ages with a list of Renaissance era materials collected in the Grand Ducal library in Florence (now the BNCF). Figuring prominently among the documents was alchemist Antonio Neri.

Below is an excerpt from one such letter, penned by Don Stefano Giraldi, the prior of San Pancrazio Church in Florence, addressed to "Your Excellency." In the passage notable characters are Don Antonio, Neri's long time benefactor — the Medici prince who ran the Casino di San Marco laboratory where the priest first made glass. Also, Francesco Orlando Lorenzi (Count Lorenz, active 1793) was third count of Lorenzana and the minister of France at the Florentine court in the time of Louis XV.

Among those who abused the credulity of the Prince D[on] Antonio by leading him to understand they knew how to make gold, the most famous was Florentine Priest Antonio Neri, who, if he could not make gold, did know how to make many other beautiful and useful things, and has secured eternal fame with his work on the Art of Glassmaking, which also found prestige in the Tuscan language…  

Of other works of Preist Neri, I do not know if they have been published or even if the manuscripts have been found. Uniquely, Father Maestro Arrighi, [Augustinian] Serviette and Alchemist, in 1735 bought books that Count Lorenz had sent to France. Among them was a large manuscript in quattro by Antonio Neri. He told me that it contained a method of making the philosopher's stone and that there was a preamble  in which Neri confessed to have copied this method from a manuscript found in an old library. He  tried [the recipe] several times and always  failed.  To raise hope for others to enjoy much treasure, he had copied the method by characters in a cipher he invented and burned the old original. P[reist] Arrighi never let me see the manuscript, which was four fingers high as he assured me that the bookseller had sold it to him for the price of 5 lire; and no doubt, there will be other things besides the process of the philosopher's stone, which occupied[only a]  few page.

This flaw in Priest Neri to pass himself off as the possessor of the philosopher’s stone detracted much from his esteem. Nearby, his countrymen were wise and enlightened, and therefore he never attained the good image he should have had in his country, his mercy was the real merit of so many other good things; indeed always absent [making] gold, though he wanted to give the impression that he could, he incurred various dangers, and was forced to spend some time wandering.[2]

This gem of a letter has many interesting facets. First, it establishes that 150 years after Neri’s death, his name was still on the lips of royal courtiers and his manuscripts commanded a dear price from booksellers. It also establishes a route that his unpublished work took in leaving Italy, through France. 

The letter also provides us with insight to the changing narrative about alchemy. Neri was being distanced from the less palatable aspects of his work. "[I]f he could not make gold, [he] did know how to make many other beautiful and useful things, and has secured eternal fame with his work on the Art of Glassmaking." His sponsor Don Antonio’s portrayal as gullible about the possibility of transmutation kept the prince's reputation intact, even if somewhat diminished. (Popular history seems to have little conscience when it comes to making those who came before seem stupid.) Both Neri and Don Antonio were dedicated experimenters and they knew the proof of transmutation lay in actually making gold and they tried relentlessly. The narrative presented in the letter makes an appealing, face-saving story line, but we need only cast a sideways glance for it to start crumbling. According to the writer,  Florentines were too sophisticated to be drawn into alchemical gold-making schemes, yet a little later we find out Neri was forced to "wander" Europe, chased out of Florence by those demanding the secret of transmutation. Which was it?

The work of Neri's countryman and contemporary Galileo had established the natural sciences as Tuscany’s great patrimony. In the mid eighteenth century, when the letter was written, experimenters were as eager as ever to separate themselves from the charlatans and mountebanks who sold miracle cures and fueled impossible dreams. By then, it was agreed by researchers that transmutation was not possible, but even in the nineteenth century, there was no theoretical foundation to back up this supposition, which made it a sore point. Because of the acclaimed glass book, Neri earned a place in the pantheon of Italy's 'great men', but at a cost. His now 'embarrassing' work on transmutation caused the rest of his legacy to be largely written out of the history books.

[1] Bergman, Tofani 1790. (Fontana was writing under the pseudonym Giuseppe Tofani.)
[2] Ibid, pp. 99 - 101.
* This post first appeared here 24 December 2014.

Neri's Travels

“Roma,” Antonio Neri,
from Tesoro del Mondo (Neri 1598–1600).

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. 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 evidence has yet turned up to support any of this. 

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.

There are four cities that Neri is confirmed to have visited: 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] 

In addition, there are other locations that are strongly hinted at in various writings. In his Treasure of the World 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, L’Arte Vetraria, 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.

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]

[1] “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…” [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.
[2] See Rodwell 1870.
[3] Neri 1608.
[4] Ximenes 1601–11, 5 December 1602.
* This post first appeared here on 19 Dec. 2014.

Francesco's Studiolo

The Studiolo of Francesco de' Medici,

Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
(click to enlarge)

In all likelihood, Antonio Neri started his glassmaking career around 1601 in the laboratory palace of Medici prince Don Antonio. The Casino di San Marco is located on the north side of Florence, not far from where the old city walls once stood. It was purpose-built as a laboratory by Don Antonio’s father, Grand Duke Francesco and stands on the former location of the sculptural school that Michelangelo attended as a boy. The Casino is a remarkable structure in the history of science, however, our subject today is not the laboratory but one of its primary inspirations, located across town in the Palazzo Vecchio; The Studiolo of Francesco de’ Medici.

Books of secrets, like Neri’s L’Arte Vetraria exposed methods to transform nature. Cabinets of curiosities, on the other hand, celebrated the finished products as well as nature’s ready-made treasures. These so-called cabinets were a sort of physical counterpart to books of secrets. Starting as small collections of exotic objects, princes and nobles strove to out-do each other and the largest examples encompassed entire rooms. In the early 1570s, at around age thirty, Francesco de’ Medici initiated a special project; he constructed a secret room in the Palazzo Vecchio. [1] Accessible through a concealed staircase in his bedroom, this small, but opulent, study chamber was devoted to natural curiosities and secrets. The “Studiolo” contained his collection of rare gems, exotic seashells, animal horns, chemicals, potions, scientific instruments and other strange and wonderful treasures collected from around the world. 

From floor to barrel-vaulted ceiling, paintings and niched sculptures covered the chamber walls. Celebrated artist Giorgio Vasari designed and constructed the secret room in partnership with Vincenzo Borghini, a Benedictine priest and close Medici advisor. [2]  In all, thirty-two of the city’s artists contributed to the project, although most had no idea where their work was destined to hang. Francesco organized paintings such that each wall was themed by one of the four Aristotelian elements: air, earth, water and fire. Behind nineteen of the lower paintings, cabinets housed the treasures of Francesco’s collection. From within the Studiolo two other secret passages were accessible from behind concealed panels. One leads to a smaller private treasury once used by Francesco’s father, Cosimo and another leads down a stairs to an unmarked outside door on the street. [3]

Part study and part museum, Francesco used the Studiolo to escape public life and explore the secrets of nature. This menagerie and ones like it were an outgrowth of the wunderkammer or “cabinet of curiosities.” Early in their evolution, they took the form of single pieces of furniture for the display of collections. Monarchs and nobles throughout Europe boasted collections of ever-increasing size and diversity. In a way, the Casino di San Marco was the next evolutionary step; from a cabinet of curiosities, to a study room, to an entire facility devoted to nature’s secrets. 

The paintings in Francesco’s Studiolo depict various religious, mythological, historical and industrial scenes. [4] Some of them show various royal workshops documenting activities as diverse as goldsmithing and wool dying. A 1571 painting by Giovanni Stradano [5] is entitled the Alchemy Studio. It shows Francesco I in the Uffizi surrounded by laboratory equipment and workers. 

[1] Constructed between 1567 and 1675, cf. Feinberg 2002, Edwards 2007.
[2] Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), Vincenzo Borghini (1515–1580).
[3] Via della Nina.
[4] Feinberg 2002.

[5] Giovanni Stradano, also called Jan van der Straet (1523–1605).

Royal Apothecary

Fresco, early 16th century speziale,Castello di  Issogne, lower Aosta Valley, Italy.

As physician to the Medici royal family, Antonio Neri’s father (Neri Neri) worked closely with the other medical professionals in Florence. Among them was Stefano Rosselli, the royal pharmacist, who owned the Speziale al Giglio in the center of town.  We would readily recognize this shop today; rows of labeled jars lined the walls holding exotic remedies and ingredients from around the world. Freshly made sweets, cakes and other confections sat on the counter to entice customers. 

One of several such shops located around the city, ‘speziali’ dealt with medicines and herbal remedies, but also a wide variety of other needs, from pigments for artists, to the distillation of spirits, to the rental of funerary equipment, to raw materials for alchemists. Each shop had its own specialty to distinguish itself from the others. To some extent, they also competed with private operations run by convents and monasteries. Rosselli’s shop was famous for catering to the Medici family and courtiers, and as such he could command premium prices. But the function of these shops was not all business; they also proved popular meeting places for the local intelligentsia. Poetry, literary and other groups with various interests often congregated in the back rooms of the speziali.

Stefano Rosselli came from a family that was a mixture of artists and pharmacists. His father Romollo, with a degree from the university at Pisa, was a specialist in herbal remedies (simples). His brother Antonio (Fra Anslemo) worked at the pharmacy of San Marco, directly across the street from the Casino where Antonio Neri would later make glass. Their grandfather Bernardo Rosselli was a painter, a favorite of Michelangelo. Stefano’s daughter Fiametta joined the Dominicans as a nun, and became the famous sculptor Suor Caterina Eletta. A distant cousin was Cosimo Rosselli, who returned from Rome with a small fortune, earned painting for the pope. Biographer Giorgio Vasari noted that Cosimo could have lived comfortably on those earnings had the passion for alchemy not overtaken him. 

Stefano proudly maintained a proprietary list of treasured recipes gathered over a lifetime of experience. Some were given to him directly by Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, his son Francesco and daughter Isabella. Between 1589 and 1593 when Rosselli was in his late sixties, he started to compile these into three notebooks, which he eventually passed down to his sons and today have survived the ravages of time. The three books are devoted to medicines, perfumes and confections. Antonio Neri was a teenager in this period, and it is easy to imagine an occasional visit to the Speziale al Giglio for a piece of something sweet, perhaps one of Rosselli’s excellent pistachio calissons.

For a transcription and French translation of the recipes see: Rodrigo de Zayas, Mes Secrets, à Florence au temps des Médicis 1593 (Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1996).

This post first appeared here on 4 December 2013.

Yellow Glass

Yellow Neon Chandelier, 1995

Dale Chihuly.

(Columbus, Indiana Visitors Center). 

"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]

So says Antonio Neri in his groundbreaking 1612 book of glass recipes, L’Arte Vetraria. 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, the reason for the mismatch is not clear, since Neri also says of his “fern glass,” which is entirely potassium based:

…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]

“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. 

His primary recipe for golden yellow is #46, in which he reveals two ingredients responsible for the color: “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.”

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.”

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.

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.

[1] Neri 1612, ch. 45.
[2] ibid, ch 5.
[3] ibid, ch 46.

The Knights

Fra Antonio Martelli, Knight of the Order of Malta,

Attrib. Caravaggio, c. 1608.

"Of me, Priest Antonio Neri, Florentine 1598." So starts the inscription on the first of 61 ink and watercolor illustrations in a manuscript titled "Tesoro del Mondo" [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." 

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. 

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]

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:

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]

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.

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.

[1] Luti 2006, pp. 171, 172.
[2] See Targioni-Tozzetti 189.
[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.
[4] Today, this church is called S. Jacopo in Campo Corbolini. It was founded in 1206.
[5] Related in Targioni-Tozzetti 189, thanks to Maria Grazzini for pointing me to this passage.
[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.
[7] Sir George Ripley (ca. 1415–1490), Bridlington, York. Cf. Rampling 2008; McCallum 1996.
[8] Fuller 1840.