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The Life and Work of Michael Sendivogius (1566-1636)

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The Life and Work of Michael Sendivogius (1566-1636) THE LIFE AND WORK OF MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (1566-1636) by Andrew Zbigniew Szydlo University College, London October 1991 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London 1 ProQuest Number: 10609151 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10609151 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract Despite the great popularity of the works of the Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius through the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century, historians of chemistry have paid little attention to the ideas contained in them or attempted to establish why the work continued to find a wide readership well into the period increasingly dominated by the mechanical philosophy. The neglect of Sendivogius is due, in part, to the romantic legends, which are only now being replaced by a more reliable biographical account. In this thesis a revised biography, hitherto accessible only in recent Polish works, introduces an extended analysis and reevaluation of the central concepts of Sendivogius1 major work, the Novum Lumen Chymicum (1604). The work, based on practical laboratory experience and centred on a grand theory involving nitre, played a significant role in shifting the attention of chemists and natural philosophers towards a study of air and its role in manifold processes on the earth, particularly in combustion and respiration. A new and extensively revised bibliographical examination of Sendivogian works has been undertaken, with particular reference to French language editions: i. The Treatise on Salt is analysed, and reasons suggested for its recognition as a genuine Sendivogian work. ii. The Statutes of the Unknown Philosophers is translated and analysed, and the significance of its 2 publication during the period of the Rosicrucian manifestos discussed. An analysis of the ideas of John Mayow (1641-1679) in his Tractatus Quinque (1674) is undertaken to illustrate the continuing influence of Sendivogius' ideas, and similarities and contrasts between Mayow's 'nitro-aerial spirit' and Sendivogius' 'Central Nitre' theory are examined. The thesis presents new evidence for the recognition of Sendivogius* ideas as important for the emergence of a number of seminal modern concepts regarding nitre, air, combustion and respiration. 3 Acknowledgements I am grateful to Professor P. Rattansi for his very helpful comments and suggestions in the preparation of this thesis. Several other people have helped in many ways. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to: my parents, Count Badeni and Dr. A. Ciechanowiecki for financial assistance, Dr. Roman Bugaj for his continued support and encouragement, Hiss A. Folkierska H.A. and Dr. L.G.H.Hall for assistance with translations and with editing, my sister Krystyna, my brother Richard, Edward Hladio, Count Grocholski and Dr. C. Jonscher for technical assistance, Mary Pasinios and Paul Taylor for their helpful advice, and the library staff of the Wellcome Institute and of Edinburgh University, who have provided a very courteous and efficient service. My thanks are also due to the following librarians from American libraries who kindly provided me with useful information: Mrs. Carroll Odhner (Swedenborg Library, Academy of the New Church, Pennsylvania), Jennie Rathbun (Houghton Reading Room, Harvard University) and Susan Stravinski (Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison). Finally I wish to thank my wife Lidia for her interest, her understanding and her support in the preparation of this thesis. 4 CONTENTS Chapter Title page Introduction 7 1 The historical background to Sendivogius 10 and his works 2 Michael Sendivogius: a short Biography 19 3 The works of Michael Sendivogius 29 4 Air, Salt, Nitre and the Universal Balsam 60 5 Michael Sendivogius' Chemical Theory 94 6 A Study of the Statutes and the Treatise 134 on Sal t The Statutes 134 The Treatise on Salt 156 7 John Mayow's medico-physical works - a 173 discussion of his chemical theories, with particular reference to Sendivogius' ideas 8 A summary of the opinions expressed by 229 modern authors, on Mayow's chemical ideas Conclusion 254 Appendix 255 Bibliography 347 5 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. page Table 1 The works of Sendivogius 37 Table 2 A summary of Sendivogius' French 39 language editions. Fig. 1 A graph showing publication dates of the 41 Treatise on the Philosophers' Stone Table 3 Known editions of Harmony 43 Table 4 Editions of the Treatise on Salt 46 Fig. 2 "figura xxvii" from Viridarium Chymicum 123 by D. Stolcius Table 5 Formats of the Sendivogian treatises 157 Table 6 Bibliographic sources of the Frencheditions 267 6 Introduction Until about thirty years ago, the main interest in Michael Sendivogius (1566-1636) was in his remarkable life as a nobleman of Slavic origin who supposedly possessed the secret of transmuting base metals into gold (1). During his lifetime he was supposedly involved in remarkable escapades with emperors and kings which involved him in imprisonment and torture. He thus became a well known personality throughout Europe. In 1867 the Polish artist Jan Matejko painted a famous scene depicting Sendivogius holding a transmuted gold coin in front of king Zygmunt III Waza and his court. Even today, it is possible to buy in Poland a slide strip entitled: Jak Mistrz Sgdziwoj latai, or How Maestro Sendivogius flew which describes his escape from a burning tower in which he was imprisoned. With biographical interest focused on his colourful adventures, it is scarcely surprising that Sendivogius has not been recognised as having contributed significantly to philosophy or science. Nevertheless, historians of chemistry had expressed some interest in him, by virtue of a book entitled Novum Lumen Chymicum (translated into English as A New Light of Alchymie) which was arguably attributed to Sendivogius, and had a wide readership throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The opinions expressed by historians, even Poles, have not been favourable. In 1954 Emilian Ostachowski wrote: "One could therefore divide alchemists into two groups. In the first group one ought to include those who practised the art of alchemy for financial reasons only, and to the other - those whose activity was prompted by the thirst for knowledge. S$DZIw 6 j ought to be reckoned rather among the first group, for he did not enrich the science with any valuable contribution." (2) In his encyclopedic work, A History of Chemistry, John Partington included Sendivogius among the major chemists of his time, but he concluded the short biographical section on him by remarking that: "Even the existence of Sendivogius is doubtful." (3) In the 1975 edition of the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Wiodzimierz Hubicki wrote of Sendivogius: "His alchemical writings had no influence on the development of chemistry, but his treatise De lapide philosophorum is of great value for the history of science." (4) The question therefore arises: why have historians arrived at such a negative assessment of Sendivogius? A partial answer to this issue has recently been provided by Cherry Gilchrist: "Occasionally a legend can actually devalue the work of an alchemist, as in the case of Michael Sendivogius... Careful research by both Professor Hubicki and Professor Bugaj has shown that this story [she had earlier described the legend about Sendivogius and his reputed relationship with the the Scottish alchemist Alexander Seton] is a fabrication, probably invented in the seventeenth century by a Frenchman, Pierre Des Noyers, who had a dislike of Poles in general and of Sendivogius in particular. It has been perpetuated in various histories of alchemy until the present day." (5) A further reason, as I suggest below, was Sendivogius' obsession with anonymity. During the past thirty years or so, scholarly research has shown that Sendivogius was the author of several short works, which had a significant influence on the development of certain branches of natural philosophy throughout Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (6). The aim of the present thesis is to contribute a further 8 reevaluation of Michael Sendivogius* role in the history of chemistry by bringing to light fresh evidence concerning his person and his writings. Notes 1. Numerous accounts exist, of which the better known are: (a) A.E. Waite, Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London, 1888), 175-181. (b) J. Partington, A History of Chemistry (London, 1969), 2, 426-429. (c) J. Ferguson, Biblioteca Chemica (Glasgow, 1906), 2, 368-369. (d) J. Read, Humour and Humanism in Chemistry (London, 1947), 50-65. (e) E. Holmyard, Alchemy (Harmondsworth, 1968), 223-238. 2. E. Ostachowski, "Michael Sendivogius, the Polish Alchemist", Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences 33 (Paris, 1954), 274. 3. J. Partington, op.cit., 427. 4. W. Hubicki, op.cit., 12./ 308. 5. C. Gilchrist, Alchemy. The Great Work . (Wellingborough, 1984), 86-87. 6. (a) W. Hubicki, "Michael Sendivogius' Theory, its
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