The Rise and Fall of Glass

 

"Merry Company," (1623)

Gerard van Honthorst

The first decade of the seventeenth century was a golden era for glass in Tuscany. The Venetian techniques brought to the region by Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici in the 1570s had been assimilated. The pioneering work of his son, Francesco, in cross pollinating different crafts under one roof, was by now bearing fruit in unique items that included the handiwork of glass artisans. Grand Duke Ferdinando understood the value of glass as a source of prestige and was willing to invest in it. This was the environment in which Antonio Neri first learned to make glass. Delicate drinking glasses were the toast of the aristocracy throughout Europe. The material was critical to the advancement of chemistry, medicine and by the end of the decade astronomy. 

In 1602, Antonio Neri came to work in the shop of Niccolò Sisti in Pisa. While Sisti was making fancy glassware for the Medici court, the nearby Coscetti firm was supplying Pisa with everyday items. Coscetti made glassware for private homes, but also innkeepers, spice and perfume sellers, winemakers and a baker among others. Their wares included cruets for oil, saltcellars, carafes, drinking glasses, containers for holy water, reliquaries, gilded Venetian style cups and English style flasks. 

By the second decade, momentum started to shift and before long, the glass industry in Tuscany fell on hard times. Apparently the demand for glass could not support the number of factories that had started and the rapid succession of leadership in the duchy added uncertainty to patronage of the arts in general. 

Another factory in Pisa was run by Giovanbattista Guerrazzi, who had acquired the exclusive right to make Venetian style cristallo from Neri's old employer Sisti. In 1623, Guerrazzi had problems of a different sort, not directly related to the sales of glass. He appealed to Pisa’s Office of Rivers and Ditches, pleading with them to modify a recent ruling. He explained that he owned three houses next to his furnace, one for his family and the others functioning as sales space and housing for his workers. Since he was the exclusive maker of cristallo, he had employed a number of girls and women to decorate the delicate glassware, and a constant stream of the nobility showed up to watch the work being done. Guerrazzi's problem was that the Magistrate of Public Decency had recently published a list of seven places where women of "ill repute" were allowed to stay. One of these was located next door to his glassmaking operation. He begged for a change in the ruling, to move his new neighbors elsewhere.

The outcome of his appeal is not known, but Guerrazzi was succeeding in the glass business, and at the same time accelerating the demise of his competitors. He bought-out and demolished the furnaces of a number of other glassblowers and planned the same fate for the Coscetti operation, putting all the craftsmen there out of work. In the mid 1620s, after a quarter century of operation, the fires under Coscetti furnace were allowed to go out forever. Furnaces at Leghorn, Pistoia and Prato had shuttered, leaving only the one furnace in Pisa, two in Florence and two at the castle of Montaione. 

*This post first appeared here on 12 Dec 2013.

Filippo Sassetti

 

Goa, India 1509

Later distinguished as a renowned glassmaker and alchemist, Antonio Neri was born into a patrician household. In the Florentine baptism records, his entry was made on a Thursday, the first of March, 1576. He was born the previous evening, to Dianora Parenti and Neri Neri. His godmother is listed in the document as Ginevra Sassetti. Not a great amount is known about her; she was from a prominent family, at the time in her late fifties. However, there are indications that other members of her family interacted with the Neri's. Her nephew Filippo mentions Antonio's father favorably several times in letters, providing a fascinating glimpse into the way disease was diagnosed and treated.

When Antonio was born, his father Neri Neri was in his early thirties, and already a highly regarded physician. Baccio Valori was director of the famed Laurentian Library in Florence and steward of the Medici's simples (medicinal herbs) garden. He was friend to Neri Neri and godfather to Antonio's oldest sister Lessandra. Between 1583 and 1588, Valori received letters from a mutual friend, Filippo Sassetti, who was living in Goa and Cochin – trading settlements in India. Filippo was a native Florentine; he attended university in Pisa with Valori and they became lifelong friends. After Sassetti's father was forced to sell the family home to pay off a debt. Filippo moved to Lisbon and became a spice trader. Not suited for a desk job, he soon set sail seeking adventure in the orient. 

In a 1586 letter to his old friend Valori, Sassetti discusses an Indian remedy against the plague, with a substance called bezoar. The bezoar stone is a mass that develops and becomes trapped in the digestive systems of certain animals. It often resembles a smooth rock. Some thought ground bezoar to be a universal antidote to any poison. Sassetti was puzzled about how the grindings of bezoar could work to cure the plague. Its Aristotelian elemental properties would not be a match for correcting the imbalance of humors in the body. "This is a principle," he explains, taught to him by Neri Neri. "I have thought about it and I can not understand how it works, because the plague is of the same corruption and this is a lack of heat inherent in the humidity. And the stones, if I recall correctly, they have a cold and dry complexion, hence may not precede the restoration of heat. Messer Neri one time did me the favor of telling me." 

In another letter to Baccio Valori, Sassetti notes that he has collected rare varieties of cinnamon in his travels along the Malibar coast in India. 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." Later he writes that he is sending Baccio the discourse on cinnamon, which he has compiled, along with some plants. These, it later turned out, were water damaged in the journey. He had hoped for some help from Neri Neri on the question of whether the cinnamon he collected from the island of Zeilan [Ceylon], is the same thing as the curative cinnamon of Mantua described by the ancients. Valori was an authority on these matters in his own right. As librarian for the Medici's imposing collection of books and manuscripts, he had vast academic access. As keeper of the simples garden, he had first hand experience in horticulture and its derivative medicinal cures. 

The principles of "humorism" were passed down from celebrated physicians of the ancient world, like Galen, Hippocrates and Dioscorides. It was thought that the cure of disease was dependent on the restoration of balance between four substances in the body: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. In turn, each of these was associated with one of the Aristotelian elements: air, water, earth and fire respectively. Each was further associated with specific symptoms and characteristic traits of the patient, even their psychological outlook and physical complexion. This system formed the foundation of Western medicine and was taught and practiced well into the nineteenth century. Although, within Antonio Neri's lifetime newer experimentally based methods did start to take hold. A decade after his father's death, in a 1609 letter, Antonio boasts about his success in curing disease in Antwerp using the methods of the medical upstart Paracelsus. It is unlikely that his father would have approved.

*This post first appeared here 13 August 2014.

A Gift for the Innocent

 

One of the distinctive roundels designed

by Andrea della Robbia for the facade of the

Ospedale degli Innocenti.

In early 1597, Antonio Neri turned twenty-one. He was in his final year of training for the priesthood in the Catholic Church. The war with the Ottoman Empire in Hungary was winding down and men were returning to Florence from the front lines, among them Don Antonio de' Medici, Neri's future benefactor. At this time, there is no indication of Neri's future activity as a glassmaker, but he certainly had been deeply involved in learning alchemy for several years. It is not surprising since his father was the personal physician to Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici and his grandfather was a celebrated barber-surgeon. He probably grew up seeing the chemical arts practiced on a daily basis. 

This same year, Antonio Neri's father, Neri Neri, was commissioned along with three colleagues from the physician's guild to make a complete revision of the Ricettario Fiorentino. [1] This was the physician and apothecary's reference used throughout Europe and in Tuscany it carried the weight of law; every medical professional was required to own a copy and adhere to its prescriptions. The first edition had been published almost a century earlier; it was revised periodically to keep it current with the latest thinking and remedies. 

Reviewing the book's recipes is of course interesting. The final prescription, for example, is one for the age-old remedy of chicken soup. However, the preparation of this particular recipe with its raw juices would certainly make most modern patients turn a bit green.  An attempt to look beyond the technical methods is also intriguing; we are rewarded with a glimpse into the personalities of the men who wrote the book. One of the authors in particular has a story that illustrates how shrewd maneuvering can be used for good, even in times when self-serving and corruption were endemic.

The four authors' names do not appear in the book itself, but they are documented in a letter from the college of physicians acknowledging the directive of the grand duke and pledging to purge the text of any preparations that could be dangerous. [2] In addition to Neri Neri and Francesco Rosselli (son of the royal apothecary), the other two co-authors were Giovanni Galletti and Giovan Battista Benadù. [3] Giovanni Galletti, is difficult to pin down. His family resided in Florence and he exchanged letters with a Filippo Galletti in Rome, who may have been a brother or cousin. Adding intrigue to the connection, Filippo was working as a confidential correspondent—read: a spy—for Ferdinando I de' Medici around 1600. [4] The fourth co-author, Benadù, a physician and surgeon from Fivizzano, north of Pisa, died in 1603. [5] His will provided for an annual gift to Santa Maria Nuova hospital [6] and another to the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a gift that amazingly supported the orphanage into the nineteenth century. [7]

Little information exists about these men, it would seem impossible to extract any meaningful insight into their personalities, but perhaps we can take a small step in that direction. Neri Neri's coauthor, Benadù, administered his financial gift to the Ospedale degli Innocenti with a large dose of shrewdness. The measures he took to ensure the purposeful use of his money, even after his death, reveal a man who cared a great deal about the less fortunate. In the 1400s, the wealthy silk merchants’ guild started Innocenti to be responsible for the welfare of abandoned children. By the late 1500s, the orphanage struggled under a mountain of debt. Grand Duke Ferdinando made a concerted effort to improve the situation and it became a well run, efficient institution, although throughout its history, it was not without problems. Over centuries of operation, it had seen the abuse of children and exploitation by both parents and the government. Famine hit Tuscany on a regular basis and less of it was due to natural causes than one might imagine. The grand dukes tended to make large trade deals, with Spain and other states, which depleted supplies and drove the local price of grain beyond what poorer families could afford. In those hard times, the Ospedale degli Innocenti experienced overflows of abandoned children. It was discovered under Cosimo I de' Medici's rule that some desperate families had found creative ways to take advantage. Destitute mothers left their infants at Innocenti, where children were assured of a square meal, a warm bed and an education. The same mothers then sold their milk to the orphanage, in effect collecting a wage to wet nurse their own children.

Florentine accountants invented double entry bookkeeping, and the Medici gave that innovation a good workout. They pioneered the use of municipal bonds, the purchase of which was sometimes made compulsory. At the time, they were a novel approach to fund a city’s development, and selling bonds under the banner of the orphanage was an early bit of marketing genius. It is unfortunate that the money often did not stay with the orphanage, but the obligation to pay off these debts did. The Medici often raided the accounts to pay for other projects both civic and personal. Under Ferdinando, the situation improved, but was far from stable. Through a clever maneuver, Benadù ensured his money went to the orphanage alone and not to bondholders. He left an inheritance for the day-to-day operation of Innocenti, putting control in the hands of the monks at the Badia Fiorentina monastery, where it was beyond the reach of greedy hands.

The 1597 edition of Ricettario Fiorentino produced by Neri Neri, Francesco Rosselli and their colleagues proved so popular that Grand Duke Francesco II [8] ordered it reprinted without changes in 1623. [9]

[1] Neri, Benadù, Rosselli, Galletti 1597. 
[2] Corradi 1887, p. 55.
[3] Giovan Battista di Nicolao Benadù (?–1603), not to be confused with Priest Giovanni Benadù from Lucca.
[4] For more on the Galletti family cf. Crollalanza 1878, p. 222. About Filippo Galletti cf. Zapperi 1994, pp. 50, 71; Liebreich 2005, pp. 67, 281. For letters to Giovanni, see ASR 1591.
[5] He set up a trust fund for his sisters and their female relatives, which was still functioning in the twentieth century. Cf. Arrigoni 1882, p. 34.
[6] Lamioni 1994, p. 530.
[7] Cardini 1968, p. 190. The Innocenti records identify Benadù as both physician and surgeon and his monetary gift played a supporting role in the continued operation of the facility (AOI 1603.) As mentioned above.
[8] Ferdinando II de’ Medici (1610–1670).
[9]  Neri, Benadù, Rosselli, Galletti 1623.

* This post first appeared here 15 Oct. 2014.

Top Physician

 

Frontispiece from Ricettario Fiorentino 1597 ed.

In 1580, when Antonio Neri was four years old, just after the birth of his brother Vincenzio, both his father and grandfather were together granted full Florentine citizenship by Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici. In Tuscany, citizen status was an honor conferred to a small fraction of the population and often through inheritance at around the age of thirty. The fact that Neri Neri gained citizenship at the age of forty and did so together with his father, Jacopo, shows it was not legacy, but perhaps their medical prowess that lead to the award. Antonio's father was a celebrated physician, and his grandfather was a well regarded barber surgeon. This period also corresponds to the first appearance of the unique coat of arms that distinguish this branch of the family. The same arms adorn the central panel of the vestibule ceiling at the Neri's residence. Citizen status bestowed the advantage of direct representation in the government and the right to hold public office. It also carried responsibilities to the city, to its leaders and to the Church. One requirement of citizenship was possession of a domicile within Florence. The baptism register listed 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. 

Within a few years, Antonio's father's work on cures for paralysis were published. By the end of the decade he was appointed personal physician to the new grand duke, Ferdinando de' Medici, and to the royal family. The 1590's saw Antonio taking vows, and beginning his career in the Church. The road to priesthood ran on a parallel track to an apprenticeship in a trade. The completion of a trial period led to becoming a novice at the age of sixteen, then deacon and finally priest at around twenty-two. Meanwhile, Antonio's father, along with another doctor and two apothecaries was chosen by the entire Florentine College of Physicians to revise and update the famed Ricettario Fiorentino.[1] This book was the gold standard of doctors and pharmacists in Tuscany and throughout much of Europe. The Ricettario was an official reference for medicinal cures and prescriptions. The law required every apothecary to own a copy and to supply its listed formulas to customers. Many regard this volume as the first European pharmacopoeia. It was a systematic standardization of drug recipes and dosages. Throughout the Medici reign, updated editions appeared as knowledge progressed. The book is a major landmark in the history of medicine. The edition authored by Neri's father and colleagues, in 1597, proved so popular that in 1621 it was reissued without change.

There can be no doubt that Antonio's father and his work had a profound influence on the priest. In the introduction to his book on glassmaking, L'Arte Vetraria,[2] he proclaims his desire to publish his own work on chemical and medical [spagyric] arts, saying "I believe there is no greater thing in nature in the service of humanity." In his recipes he uses the terminology of physicians; adding chemicals in 'doses' and measuring 'ana' (in equal parts). In a 1608 letter to a friend, [3] Antonio describes his great success with medicinal cures of Paracelsus, "to the great wonderment of Antwerp." The priest also references experiments he carried out in Brussels and at the Hospital of Malines. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, medicine would continue to be practiced in the Neri family for generations to come. 

[1] Neri, Benadù, Rosselli, Galletti 1597.
[2]Neri 1612.
[3]Neri 1608.
This post was first published here in a slightly different form on 16 October 2013.

Fabergé and Purpurine

 

Fabergé c.1900. Purpurine cherries,

nephrite leaves, gold stalk, rock crystal pot.

Peter Carl Fabergé is known the world over for producing elaborate jeweled fantasy eggs for the Russian royal family in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [1] The artisans of his firm made use of a wide variety of exotic and precious materials in the execution of their commissions and later in items made available to the general public. Among the most exotic and sought after were objects made with an opaque bright red stone-like material known as ‘purpurine’. This was a glass based concoction whose composition was kept a tightly guarded secret. In fact, it was so tightly guarded that the formula was subsequently lost. Purpurine was typically cast into blocks which were then sawed and carved using traditional lapidary and gem carving techniques. The final appearance was of an unknown exotic mineral.

Red Glass Beads, 1st cent. BCE, Tissamaharama, Sri Lanka

The origin story of purpurine begins much earlier than Fabregé, in fact, not hundreds but thousands of years earlier. “The art of making this type of glass seems to have originated in India; glass beads of a similar material have been found in the Indus Valley and were dated to the late 2nd millennium BCE.” [2] In southern Sri Lanka deep red opaque glass beads have been found dating to the first millennium BCE; these turn out to be closely related to purpurine, through a long glassmaking tradition. [3] A version of the bright red glass was made in the Egyptian- Roman era. The first century CE historian Pliny the Elder noted that in Greek it was called ‘haematinon’ or blood-red ware. [4] He implied that this specialty glass, was routinely produced in Rome and indeed archaeologists have recovered numerous examples. The glass was used in a wide range of applications from dinner plates to pieces of elaborate mosaics. Eventually, though, the method of making haematinon was forgotten and remained so for several hundred years.

A small (1cm) Medusa's head in
opaque red glass c.1st. cent. CE.

The Renaissance era had been marked by a strong motivation to recover lost knowledge of the ancient world, but many challenges were beyond the technology of the time. However, attempts were made that eventually led to success.  In the second half of the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Vatican mosaic studio to decorate the new Saint Peter’s Basilica, begun by Pope Julius II in 1506. As an aside, this workshop continues today, repairing and conserving the ceilings of St. Peter’s. [5] Having quickly exhausted local talent in Rome, Gregory brought in Venetian masters to teach the art. With the mandate to make the mosaics appear as if painted, the studio developed many new formulations for the glass tesserae – the individual tiles used to form mosaics. It was in this environment that the deep red purpurine [Ital: porporino] was eventually rediscovered.

C. 1st cent. BCE/CE Roman bowl (patella cup) in
red opaque glass (haematinon).

It is still an open question whether the secret was discovered in Rome or brought there. There is evidence that the fabled red glass was being produced in Venice in the eighteenth century and possibly earlier.[6] One (Swedish) source credits Vatican studio employee Alessio Matteoli, in the 1700s, when he oversaw the development of many new colors. In the early 1800s, interest rekindled in the ancient material and by then, analytical methods were up to the task of finding their composition. German chemist, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, analyzed haematinon from the Villa Jovis, a first century palace built by Roman emperor Tiberius on the island of Capri in southern Italy. [7] He correctly found copper, but incorrectly assumed the material was glassy slag, a byproduct of the smelting process. Later, in 1844, Schubarth did further work indicating haematinon was, in fact, a true glass. [8] King Ludwig I of Bavaria intended to build a reconstruction of a Pompeian villa for educational purposes. He assigned Max Joseph von Pettenkofer to the task of rediscovering the method of manufacturing the antique “blood glass,” and the young chemist reported success in 1853. [9] His process fused standard alkali-lead glass with copper oxide and magnetite in the presence of small amounts of magnesium oxide and carbon, followed by very slow cooling of the resultant mass, which would then take on a deep red color.

Roman Mosaicist
Michelangelo Barberi, 1809.

Other sources name one of two students of the famous Roman mosaicist Michelangelo Barberi (1787–1867). Barberi had a long standing relationship with the Russian royal family and accepted Russian pupils at his studio in Rome, he even set up a mosaic shop in St. Petersburg at the request of Tsar Nicholas I. [10] In 1846, these two pupils of Barberi, brothers Giustiniano and Leopold Bonafede were called to St. Petersburg by the tsar to work for the royal court. Giustiniano (1825-66) had served as head chemist at the Vatican studio and both would attain that post for the tsar at the Russian Imperial Glassworks. It is Leopold (1833-78) who is now most often credited with the invention of purpurine as a recreation of the fabled haematinon. His formulation was based on a standard potash lead crystal.

Purpurine taza made at the Russian
Imperial Glassworks, c.1867.
(Shown at Paris Exposition)

The first documented uses in objects of art were five entries of the Imperial Glassworks at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867, for which the glassworks was awarded gold medal status. [11] “After Bonafede's death in 1878, purpurine continued to be made at the factory under the direction of the chief chemist, S. P. Petuchov.” [12]

In 1882, after considerable training and apprentice work, which began when he was a teenager, a 46-year-old Peter Carl Fabergé fully assumed control of his father’s small jewelry shop in St. Petersburg. Within a short time, he was supplying the royal family with his exquisite eggs and many other items made by a growing assemblage of master craftsmen. The first use of purpurine by the Fabergé shop occurs early in Carl’s tenure, perhaps as early as 1880. Initially, they use material supplied by Petuchov at the Imperial Glassworks. Over a period of years, though, the Fabergé shop developed its own recipe based on soda lead glass, more similar in composition to the ancient samples of haematinon.[13]  Other isolated examples of purpurine are known to exist made by competitive jewelers of the time, but no documented recipe has been found. [14] Apparently, Petuchov took the Imperial Glassworks formula for purpurine to his grave. As fame grew for Fabergé, their version is the one that became familiar to a growing clientele in Great Britain and in the United States. When the February Revolution of 1917 brought an end to the Romanov dynasty in Russia, Carl Fabergé fled the country, his company disbanded. In the west, the Fabergé name only multiplied in prestige among the elite and wealthy and items made with purpurine continue to command stratospheric prices.

Significant analytical work has been done on the ancient haematinon as well as purpurines of the Imperial Glassworks and of Fabergé. [3,5] The technical differences could easily be the subject of a separate treatment; suffice it to say that knowing the composition of a glass is not the same as knowing the recipe. (Just as knowing the composition of a cake does not mean that one can bake it.) The exact method for making the glass must have involved a long period in which snowflake-like crystals of cuprous oxide (Cu2O) would be encouraged to form, grow and spread throughout the glass forming a tightly interlocking network in the glass. One interesting point is that unlike many other opaque glasses, the ingredients of purpurine do not include a discrete opacifier; it is a clear glass base, which is so loaded with deep red cuprous oxide crystals that light does not pass through even small or thin pieces of the material. Another point is that this glass was not suitable for blowing on a blowpipe and therefore did not take forms typically expected for glass. Perhaps because of this, it has been largely overlooked.

The history of purpurine is a reminder of the fragility of human knowledge; it was discovered in ancient times, lost, rediscovered and lost again in modern times.


[1] Peter Carl Fabergé =Карл Густавович Фаберже. For more, see Abraham Kenneth Snowman, The Art of Carl Fabergé, Faber & Faber, 1974.(original ed 1953). Also see
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carl_Faberg%C3%A9
[2] Gowlett, J.A.J.: High Definition Archaeology: Threads Through the Past, Routledge, 1997, pp. 276–277. Quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purpurin_(glass)
[3] Rösch, Cordelia; Hock, Rainer; Schüssler, Ulrich; Yule, Paul; Hannibal, Anne. “Electron Microprobe Analysis and X-ray Diffraction Methods in Archaeometry: Investigations on Pre-Islamic Beads from the Sultanate of Oman” in: European Journal of Mineralogy, 9 (1997), 763–783. (Specifically, beads found at Tissamaharama, pp. 771,772). http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/volltexte/2009/305
[4] Natural History, xxxvi, LXVII, 198.
[5] For more, see http://www.30giorni.it/articoli_id_10283_l3.htm
[6] RR Harding, S Hornytzkyj, A. R. Date. “The composition of an opaque red glass used by Fabergé”in the Journal of Gemmology, 1989. No.5, pp. 275-287.
[7] Klaproth M.H., Beiträge zur chemischen Kenntnis der Mineralkörper Vol. VI (1815), p. 136
[8] Schubarth. "Einige Notizen über rothes und blaues Glas." Journal für Praktische Chemie Vol. 3 (1844), pp. 300-316
[9] Pettenkofer, M. "Ueber einen antiken rothen Glasfluss (Haematinon) und über Aventurin-Glas." Abhandlungen der naturw.-techn. Commission der k. b. Akad. der Wissensch. I. Bd. München, literar.-artist. Anstalt, 1856. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purpurin_(glass)
[10] Alessio Matteoli https://nononsensejewellery.wordpress.com/tag/purpurin-faberge/ , for more on Matteoli see http://www.aiellomosaics.com/about-mosaics/techniques-and-materials/roman-or-byzantineglass-or-marble-tilesmicromosaic-or-glass-enamels/ .  On Michelangelo Barberi, see Renata Battaglini Di Stasio, “Michelangelo Barberi” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani – v. 6 (1964)  http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/michelangelo-barberi_(Dizionario_Biografico)/
[11] Catalogue Special de la Section Russe a l'Exposition Universelle de Paris en 1867, p. 44, Classe 16, no.111.
[12] See http://art.thewalters.org/detail/77444/pair-of-tazzas/
[13] Op cit. RR Harding, S Hornytzkyj, A. R. Date, 1989.
[14] For more on competitive jeweler’s purpurine, see: Géza von Hapsburg: “Some of Fabergé’s Other Russian Competitors” in Fabergé, Imperial Craftsman and His World, London: Booth-Clibborn, 2000, pp. 323-325.

Neri and the Inquisition

 

Insignia of the Inquisition, 1574.

The mandate of the Catholic Church's inquisition was to stamp out heresy. Although empowered to impose sanctions that included torture and execution, such extreme measures were not imposed casually. Typically, they operated within communities as an extra layer of bureaucracy.  Nevertheless, the Holy Office of the Inquisition  was not an organization with which to trifle. In 1600, just over a decade before Antonio Neri's glassmaking book was printed, former Dominican friar Giordano Bruno was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori market, albeit after nearly a decade of confinement and numerous opportunities to recant. Shortly before that, the inquisition ordered Neapolitan polymath Giambattista della Porta to disband his group of scientific investigators and to cease all publication without special written permission from the Church, an order with which he readily complied. Famous French essayist Michel de Montaigne complained of having books confiscated upon entering Rome, although in Florence he was welcomed with open arms by Francesco de' Medici at the Casino di San Marco, where Antonio Neri would later work.

The Inquisition paid special attention to books and pamphlets because they carried the potential to 'corrupt' large numbers of people over a wide geographic area. In the Church's view, heresy was considered a disease of the mind, the devil's work. Books were seen to be a potential source to spread the infection, especially books from the Protestant quarters of Europe, but also from the 'misguided' notions of early scientific investigators. Antonio Neri was an alchemist with deep knowledge of materials that, to the unsophisticated, could easily be viewed as "magical" and therefore heretical.

The last page of Neri’s L'Arte Vetraria [The Art of Glassmaking] is devoted to the official permissions that were necessary to print and sell the book. Here we read that Pie[t]ro Niccolini, Vicar of Florence (a man destined to become the archbishop) ordered Canon Filippo del Migliore of the Florentine archdiocese to review the manuscript. Upon doing so, he found nothing that "contrasts with Christian conscience." Next, it was passed to the Holy Office of the Inquisition, where the head inquisitor of Florence, Fra Cornelio Priatoni from Manza, assigned that the manuscript be reviewed by Agostino Vigiani, Regent of Servants. Final approval came from Florentine Senator Niccolò dell’ Antella.

Within a few years, Cornelio Priatoni would  be embroiled in the investigation of Galileo. In fact, the reviewers of Neri's glass book reads like a cast of characters from the initial investigation of the famous astronomer. The Galileo case would also include Ferdinando Ximenes, the brother of Antonio Neri's good friend Emmanuel. Ferdinando was prior of Santa Maria Novella where the inquisition was based. In fact, Emmanuel's uncle, after whom he was named, also worked in the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Florence and would later give testimony in the Galileo affair.

Writing perceived to defy the Church's teaching was a serious concern for authors in Italy, even those under the protection of the liberal Medici family. Although not overtly heretical, Neri's other manuscripts could have easily fallen into this category. Thankfully for our alchemist and glassmaker, upon reading Neri's book, Vigiani stated "I have not found anything repugnant to the Christian conscience and good customs, but [a book] full of things and natural secrets, no less useful than curious." Neri's book went on to become known throughout Europe. Over the next two centuries, it was translated into English, Latin, German, French and Spanish. L'Arte Vetraria became an indispensable reference for scientific, artistic, and practical glassmakers everywhere. 

This post is based on one that originally appeared here in a slightly different form on 13 November 2013.

Descendants of an Alchemist

 

Ecce Homo by Titian, circa 1570-1576

Antonio Neri was the son of a royal physician and the grandson of a well respected barber-surgeon. At the turn of the seventeenth century he pursued a career as a priest in the Catholic Church, but with the rare distinction of alchemy as his specialty. He is best remembered for his book on glassmaking, but he also wrote on the subjects of chemistry and medicine; an area of study that his family had embraced and would continue to practice  for several generations. 

According to Florentine genealogy records, Antonio's mother died in 1594, at the age of 42. She had given birth to ten children; Alessandro was the youngest, born in 1587. The same year as her death, the family would loose, Antonio's grandfather Jacopo, the barber surgeon. He had moved the family back to Florence after the turbulent 1520s; the years of what would be the final attempt to re-establish a self governing republic.  In 1598, just as Antonio finished seminary his father died leaving his ten children orphaned. A year later fifteen year old Emilio died on Christmas day.  Details of how the family survived this series of calamities may never be known, but in the end it was the youngest child, Alessandro who inherited the family house and fortune. Only eleven years old at the time of his father's death, an administrator was appointed by the court to oversee his and his siblings interests until they were of age. By all indications, the Neri children were well cared for; the list of godparents reads like a who's-who of the Florentine elite, including wealthy bankers, lawyers, senators and curia officials at the Vatican.

Alessandro would become the royal physician’s main heir. We might expect this honor to fall to the eldest son, and how the youngest of the seven brothers could end up in this position is a matter ripe for conjecture. Antonio and perhaps Francesco were in the clergy and therefore ineligible. We can surmise that the first of the sons named Jacopo died in infancy and if the second Jacopo survived he along with Vincenzio were somehow also out of consideration. One compelling scenario passes the family inheritance to fifteen-year-old Emilio, who would also die within a year leaving the mantle to Alessandro. Not yet of legal age, the family assets would have been held in trust, perhaps by his mother’s brother, notary Agostino Parenti.

Future research will likely uncover more details about the family after Antonio's death in 1614, however, a nice outline is already in place. In 1620, Alessandro inherited a second house from his uncle Agostino. It was located outside the city walls in a wealthy neighborhood, just to the southeast of Florence. It was along the old road called Via del Ponte a Ema.

In a 1630 court case in Rome, Orazio Morandi, abbot general of the Vallombrosans gave testimony. One  incidental remark he made indicates he was a Neri family friend; he told prosecutors that when he lived in Florence he often saw fellow astrologer Simon Carlo Rondinelli at the home of Alessandro de’ Neri. [1]

Although the exact date is not clear, Alessandro would marry Caterina di Becci and have three children; Neri, Dianora and Filippo. We can speculate, the first two were named after their grandparents, and the third after distant cousin Saint Philip Neri, canonized in 1622. Dianora was married to Ottaviano Buonaccorsi and had a son named Alessandro.

The bloodline would continue for another generation through Alessandro's son Neri, who would enroll in the medical program at Pisa and become a physician in his own right, taking a degree in 1646, where his diploma is still on file. [2] He in turn would marry Margherita Scalandroni who gave birth to Ottaviano. Alessandro, Francesco and Caterina.

At the end of the seventeenth century, historian Giovanni Cinelli wrote about our glassmaker’s nephew, who at the time had been practicing medicine for twenty years:

Succeeding M. Neri Neri, is a grandson [Neri di Alessandro], alive today, [1677] a man of good taste, who is delighted by pictures and sculpture, who has imitated his grandfather Neri, by [collecting] many paintings and gallant statues by talented artists. Two small bronze horses by Giambologna, many works of [Simone] Pignoni and others, among which are two marvelous holdings; a waist-up Ecce Homo by Titian and a Satyr of beautiful ancient bronze which is wonderfully captivating; it is of the Greek manner and expresses an attitude of prompt movement that recalls liveliness, the muscles are very well prepared. Finally, a statue of Cupid flanked in marble in the best Greek style. [3]

The elder Alessandro’s daughter, Dianora, would marry Ottaviano di Camillo Buonaccorsi, who gave birth to seven children. Her son named Francesco would marry into the Medici Family, coupling with Aurelia de’ Medici, daughter of Luigi di Francesco.

In 1768, historian Domenico Maria Manni wrote about the family. [4] In a short pamphlet about ancient Christian tombstones, he reports on the lineage of his patron, Girolamo Neri, a Camaldolese abbot. It traces the family back through two centuries, back to our doctor Neri Neri and to Antonio the glassmaker. Manni connects Girolamo to the family through the elder Antonio, the brother of Jacopo Neri, the barber surgeon.

Although further work is needed, all indications are that our glassmaker’s branch of the family died out by the end of the eighteenth century. [5] The family arms do not appear in use again, nor is there any evidence of a Neri tracing his heritage to the noble family of physicians. It seems finality is provided by Manni. He references a court judgment which awarded inheritance of the property of the extinct branch to Girolamo Neri’s kin. 


[1] Dooley 2002, p. 32. Dooley states that Alessandro is not related to Antonio Neri, but I feel otherwise; the name, timing, and circumstances are a perfect fit. His conclusion may be based on the scant family history available to him. Cf. ASR 1630.
[2] Mazzatinti 1917, p. 44, n. 549.
[3] Cinelli 1677. 
[4] Domenico Maria Manni, a member of the Messina scientific society known as the Accademia Pericolante. Manni was a prolific historian, although has on occasion been accused of careless work. For instance, he misidentifies Antonio’s mother as ‘Dianora di Ser Agostino di Ser Francesco Parenti’ Manni 1763, p. i-vi.
[5] Mecatti 1754, p. 77; Manni 1763, p. v.
*This post first appeared here on  29 Oct 2014.