A Matter of Plagiarism

Francesco Lana Terzi (1631-1687)

The seventeenth century Jesuit scientist Francesco Lana Terzi (1631-1687) is famous for his design of a "flying boat"; he has been immortalized as the father of aeronautical engineering. What is not generally known is that he plagiarized the entire text of Antonio Neri's manuscript Discorso.

The original was never published by Neri, perhaps due to his premature death, but even as a manuscript, it must have circulated widely. It would be interesting to know the history of its diffusion, in order to understand how it became the subject of plagiarism. Lana Terzi, well known in the Italian Academia of the late seventeenth century, published his Prodromo in 1670. The entire chapter 20 is an exact reproduction of Neri's Discorso. Lana Terzi was fascinated by experimentation and manual arts. The Jesuit order refused their members permission to write about magic and alchemy; Jesuits with such esoteric interests could never write books directly devoted to these subjects, however, they could write works on the different aspects of natural philosophy. In this broader context chemical philosophy could be admitted. 

Title page of Lana Terzi's Prodromo

Neri was popular in his own time for his glassmaking knowledge. L'Arte Vetraria was widely read and its reprints and translations appeared over the centuries. Nevertheless, Neri enjoyed a considerable reputation among his contemporaries also for his 'chemical philosophy'. Discorso is a complete treatise on the subjects of chemistry and philosophy, to all appearance not different from many others written during the sixteenth century. It holds a similar structure, with an introduction defining the subject and the description of procedures. The final part lists possible objections raised against the validity of chemistry and gives Neri's timely responses. In this sense Discorso belongs to the alchemical traditions and Neri shows his deep knowledge of the Paracelsian doctrine and literature. Even so, the main features of the new 'scientific' mindset are present in Neri's treatise: the study of "the great book of nature" and the value of experimental practice. The traditional reliance on the authority of ancient wisdom loses its legitimacy. "We should not so easily give credence to all the histories," Neri claims, but we should "prove the possibility of this art of transmutation with certain […] experiences". Knowledge is acquired "with the practice of many experiences." It does not come from a divine revelation or from the study of many books.

There is no contradiction between the alchemist Neri and the glass-conciatore Neri; the will of gaining a deep knowledge of nature, based on the observation and experimentation, is common to both. Neri is always 'the technician' and never 'the philosopher'. Alchemy, the "Great Art," is the result of a deep study of nature and its aim is not to give an imitation of nature, but to make it perfect.

The 'modernity' of Neri can also be understood in his way of talking about chemical philosophy. He does not pretend to teach eternal truths, but only to indicate the way to achieve greater knowledge, by "understanding the modus operandi of nature." Consequently, the writer does not use the form of a dogmatic essay, but that of a conversational chat, or 'discourse'.

It would be interesting to discover how Lana Terzi came into possession of Neri's manuscript. Perhaps he was attracted by the mixture of old and new which was also a predominant theme of his time, when different models of knowledge coexisted and intertwined. Discorso offered him the chance of introducing the topic of alchemy without being accused of magism.

-M. G. Grazzini

Conciatore is pleased to welcome our first guest writer, independent researcher Maria Grazzini. Maria holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Florence, where she studied Antonio Neri under the late Prof. Paolo Rossi, philosopher and historian of science. Recently, she published an annotated English translation of Neri's manuscript Discorso in the journal Nuncius. By day, she runs the hotel Albergo Natucci, in Montecatini Terme, with her husband Vincenzo. Please join me in welcoming Maria to Conciatore:

Cardinal del Monte

Portrait of Francesco Maria del Monte.Ottavio Leoni (1578–1630)

In the early seventeenth century, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte was 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 Neri's employer Don Antonio de' Medici.

There is a chance that he met Glassmaker Antonio Neri in person; in 1602 he visited the Casino di San Marco, where the glass foundry was located and returned in 1608, although by then Neri was in Antwerp. 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.

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. Thanks to the cardinal's patronage, many glassmakers in Rome were brought to the appreciation of the papal court.  

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 Del Monte's main residence near the center of Rome, 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 his alchemy laboratory was located. This was a more secluded retreat where the cardinal could entertain guests with more discretion.

The Portland Vase

Del Monte's will shows that at the palazzo 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.

Tin into Silver

The Alchymist, (Joseph Wright of Derby, 1771)

In Discorso sopra la chimica, a manuscript written by Antonio Neri in 1613, he discusses his philosophy of chemistry and gives several examples of recipes for the transmutation of metals. An instructive example is his conversion of tin into silver. He starts with a ball of pure English tin. He encases it in lute—clay that can withstand high temperatures—and then forces it below the surface of a bath of molten silver. After a time, the ball is removed and cooled. The clay is then cracked away to reveal that the tin inside is now silver. Neri explains that the "spirit" of the silver has penetrated the clay ball and its noble properties have converted the tin. 

In the light of current knowledge it is not hard to assign a more accurate understanding of what was taking place. Tin is a much less dense metal than silver and melts at a lower temperature. By forcing the luted ball down into the liquid silver, the tin inside quickly melts and its buoyancy forces it out of any small holes or cracks in the clay, even if microscopic in size. Much the same way as a sealed rubber balloon filled with helium deflates over time. As tin escapes the rigid ball it is replaced by silver from the surrounding melt, pushing inward. Once the tin escapes the clay, it will rise to the surface, but it also mixes, diffusing into the silver. Depending on the quantities and the temperature of the melt, a thin layer of alloyed silver-tin might form on the surface and some would evaporate into the air. Neri describes this as "malignant fumes" of the tin and goes on to say anyone discovering something "that would repress these vapors would have a very great secret."

Even though the clay encasement might appear to be a solid barrier, buoyancy forces cause much of the tin to escape the ball and to be replaced by silver. If the process of mixing were allowed to complete, the comparatively small amount of tin in the ball would disperse throughout the much larger silver melt. An assay would reveal a high silver content in the luted metal. Given the historical lore of alchemy and the level of scientific knowledge at the time, this was a very persuasive argument in favor of transmutation, even for seasoned experts. A valid criticism of Neri's explanation is that he was simply not skeptical enough; the presence of silver inside the sealed ball does not, in itself, prove transmutation. Indeed, a careful accounting of all the materials involved would have revealed to him that the total amount of silver had not changed in the experiment. 

For the viewers of such a demonstration there are other considerations. There was an unmistakable theatrical flair to these events. Audiences often included princes and other royals. Even before the demonstration begins, there is an air of anticipation, the expectation to witness something extraordinary. It is not hard to imagine the same sort of performance atmosphere for Neri's demonstration that was and is still a critical part of legerdemain and conjuring acts. Even if not intentional, this charged setting leads to a suspension of disbelief. It can have a powerful effect on our perceptions. The same state of mind that allows us to be amazed by a "magic act" can blind us to seeing nature as it is in truth. Despite his interpretation, Neri’s experiment does involve repeatable chemistry, conducted without trickery that has a legitimate explanation, even if not the same one advanced in the early seventeenth century.

For further reading, see M. G. Grazzini 2012, p. 351.

Transmutation

Hermes Trismegistus,
 floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Siena

In the introduction to his book, L’Arte Vetraria, Antonio Neri is quite direct about his interest in matters other than glassmaking. Speaking about the potential of chemistry in medicines, he writes, "These are matters of nature to which I believe there is no higher calling in the service of humanity." As the son of a renowned physician, and the grandson of a surgeon, it is not surprising that Neri would be occupied with thoughts of healing injuries and curing disease. 

In a 1608  letter to a friend in Florence, Neri wrote that he spent time working in Mechelen in Flanders, at the Hospital of Malines, and describes his great success with medicinal cures of Paracelsus, "To the great wonderment of Antwerp."

Within the realm of alchemy, it was commonly thought that a substance known as the "philosopher's stone" could be used to cure all disease and perhaps even arrest the process of aging. The philosopher's stone was an ancient concept, said to be discovered by an Egyptian priest, Hermes Trismegistus, and then subsequently lost. It was believed to be a substance which manifests such a harmonious balance of the four elements, air, water, earth and fire, that it would spontaneously form a fifth element or "quintessence." Besides curing disease, it was thought to have the power to turn base metals into gold in what Neri thought was the acceleration of a natural maturation process of the metal.

In his manuscripts on alchemy, it is clear that Neri studied the work of many famous alchemists. He expresses disdain for those who pursued the stone seeking personal profit, and was convinced that he himself had found the secret. With special material from a mine, the importance of which he did not realize until later, he says he successfully transmuted gold, but that ultimately, the ability for the method to work is determined by divine providence, which he called "the gift of God." 

Neri held his gold transmutation methods close, but for lesser metals, he did leave us with lucid descriptions. We can see from these, how the subtleties of physics and chemistry conspired to convince honest thoughtful men that transmutation was not only possible, but could be easily verified in the laboratory. In his manuscript Discorso sopra la Chimica, Neri describes his method for turning tin into silver. In the next post, we will take a closer look.

Cinquantesimo

At the Neri Chapel in Florence.

Today marks the fiftieth post to this blog. It may not be a momentous event, but certainly worthy of a short pause to reflect. I would like to express gratitude to all my readers, regular and occasional, who have taken the initiative to stop by and read about the life and times of Antonio Neri. What started as a promotional platform for my forthcoming book, Conciatore (Feb. 2014), has begun to breathe on its own, with a slightly different rhythm from the book. It is my hope that through either, the book or the blog, a bit of my enthusiasm for the subject will rub off and you will seek to learn more about the fascinating history of glassmaking, alchemy and early modern science.

One thing that I find wonderful about Neri's era, the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, is that we can easily recognize aspects of daily life, it was not so long ago, yet it was a period when alchemy and Aristotle's four elements (earth, air, fire and water) still loomed large. At the same time, men like Galileo were busy laying the foundations for what we now call modern science. It was a time fraught with apparent contradictions, and in taking a closer look at them, we can discover some surprising things about our current attitudes towards art, science, religion and a host of other topics. 

American man of letters Guy Davenport once wrote "Religion, science, and art are all alike rooted in the faith that the world is of a piece, that something is common to all its diversity, and that if we knew enough we could see and give a name to its harmony." By extending our knowledge of history to include Neri's era, we can make some progress toward naming that harmony. In his time, it was commonly thought that one metal could be purified (transmuted) into another, and that the "essence" of a substance could be transferred through physical manipulation. It is astonishing that sophisticated chemistry was performed successfully and regularly, albeit based on a model that would soon crumble into dust. 

Armed with this, our own history, we cannot help but look at our current concept of the universe, and wonder about which pieces are destined to crumble, despite our technological successes. Knowledge of the past gives us the perspective of time, the space to broaden our view of the world and our place within it. Taking a moment out of our hectic lives to learn a bit of our past can provide a little oasis for the contemplation of larger ideas. I urge you to continue to join me here, and to think big.

Galileo and Glass

Portrait of Galileo Galilei, 1636 (detail),
by Justus Sustermans (1597-1681)

No known direct contact occurred between Antonio Neri and the astronomer Galileo Galilei, but the two men lived simultaneously in Florence and then in Pisa. Their paths crossed many times, orbiting around each other like planets. 

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. 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 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. 

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.

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.

Neri returned to Tuscany and wrote his book on glassmaking, 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.

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.

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.