THE ICONOGRAPHY OF SIR THEODORE TURQUET DE MAYERNE, M.D., BARON OF AUBONNE, PHYSICIAN TO THREE KINGS—DIPLOMATIST, CHEMIST, AND CLINICAL CASE RECORDER

By THOMAS GIBSON, M.B., C.M. (Edin.)*

KINGSTON, ONTARIO

Fore wo rd James I, in 1611, sent an embassy with IR THEODORE’S Turquet for- letters patent offering Mayerne the post bears were Piedmontese Prot- of chief physician to the royal house- hold. He held the same office during the next reign, and retired to Chelsea after | estants first observed as residents the death of the Royal Martyr, having S of Chieri,1 a town southeast of served royalty for fifty-five years. Turin. The smaller town of Magherno1 He died in his eighty-second year, is not far off, and his branch of the leaving an estate of one hundred and family may have taken their territorial forty thousand pounds.3 His medical cognomen from it. Mayerne is not legacy to posterity was the large collec- known as a place name in Italy. tion of case records and pharmaceutical His parents were citizens of Lyon2 formulae which reveals to us the curious before his birth, and when the slaughter farrago of the medicine of the seven- of St. Bartholomew spread to the prov- teenth century. He was an amateur in inces they escaped into Switzerland, chemistry all his life, and discovered4 at where, at Geneva, Theodore was born least one pigment for the use of minia- in September 1573. (Date of baptism in turists. The black wash of mercurous the cathedral of St. Peter was 1st Oc- oxide is the only preparation of May- tober 1573.) Theodore Beza was his god- erne’s still in our pharmacopoeia. His father. “eau cordiale”5 is still enjoyed as a Precocious as a schoolboy, he took his liqueur at Geneva. degree in Arts at Heidelberg and his The coronation oil, from the time of m.d . degree at Montpellier. Proceeding Edward the Confessor to the Reforma- at once to , he was able, in 1603, tion, had been a mixture of olive oil to purchase one of the posts of “Mede- and balm of Gilead. This did not keep cins par Quartier,” two of whom served well nor smell very fragrant.6 A new oil under the chief physician for three was desired for the coronation of months in each year. Like his com- Charles I. Mayerne, who had recently patriot Paracelsus, he used metallic with Gideon de Laune, a Huguenot medicines and was on this account read refugee, helped to found the Society of out of the Paris faculty, but not out of Apothecaries, was consulted as to the the favour of Henri IV. Visiting Eng- oil. His prescription was used with one lishmen of the Court in due time made minor addition at the coronation of Ed- his reputation known in , so * Professor of the History of Medicine at Queen’s University, Kingston. that when Henri was assassinated, King ward VII. Orange and jasmine Howers court of James I in 1621, when Mayerne are infused in oil of sesame; to this are was forty-eight years of age, a period added essential oils of roses and cinna- which well suits the rendering of the mon, benzoin, ambergris, civet, musk, and spirits of rosemary. It has a rich perfume and a clear amber colour, and it keeps indefinitely. It is the custom to leave one ounce in the ampulla at each coronation, and at the next to fill it up to the full three ounces. So each is sym- bolically linked to each. Mayerne’s prestige as a physician lived after him. In 1690 a committee of the Royal College compiled a practice of medicine out of his case records. This was copied at Augsburg in 1691, at Geneva in 1692, and at Lyon in 1693. In 1700, Dr. George Browne of London published a large folio of Mayerne’s case records and prescriptions which was re- issued in 1701 and 1703.

Portr aits in Oil 1. In the Leicester gallery at Knole, the seat of Lord Sackville, near Seven- oaks, Kent, hangs a large three-quarter personality in the Knole portrait. The length seated portrait which, in 1846, two men must have become familiar was exhibited7 at the British Institution friends about the court, and Mayerne’s as a portrait of Mayerne by William search8 for pigments would be a special Dobson. It was then the property of reason for intimacy. Instances of con- Lady Amherst. fusion in the attribution of portraits by Dobson’s acknowledged portraits Van Dyck and Dobson, where these were painted within the period 1638 to overlap in date, have occurred in several 1646, when Mayerne would have been instances. Such a problem is well sixty-five years old or more. The Knole handled in Booth Tarkington’s recent portrait shows us a virile personality in tale “Rumbin Galleries.’’ A supposed his early maturity, with a plentiful head Dobson in Runibin’s possession is pro- of hair becoming streaked with grey. nounced by a more experienced judge The imperial beard is grey, but the neat to be a Van Dyck, and is valued by him moustache with up-brushed points is at $22,000, a sum which sets Rumbin dark. The Rubens portraits of 1629-30 more firmly on his feet as an art dealer. show a much older man of fifty-seven This talc suggested to the writer that years, completely white-haired and the Knole portrait might be an early much less concerned as to his grooming. example of Van Dyck’s work in Eng- A portrait of Mayerne by Dobson land. A weighty authority, whose name should have shown a still older subject. I am not authorised to mention, has ex- Dobson was the discovery and pupil pressed in correspondence the opinion of Anton Van Dyck, who came to the that it is not impossible that this is the case. He had often seen the picture at low physicians that the king could not Knole, he felt sure that it was not by bear the idea of medication with human Dobson, but had not been convinced as skull and that in his case they must use to its origin, nor is he now. The subject the skull of an ox.11 James was inordi- nately fond of sweet Spanish wines and suffered much from gout. 2. Peter Paul Rubens came to Lon- don as ambassador for the Spanish Netherlands in 1629 and stayed a year. He fell in love with the English country- side and praised the art treasures col- lected in the homes of royalty and nobility. In the National Portrait Gallery there is a three-quarter length seated portrait of Mayerne by Rubens. A statue of Aes- culapius with club and circling serpent stands in the right background, and on the left a seascape of a ship entering safe harbour. The second earl of Arundel was its first owner, then Dr. Richard Mead. At the sale of his collections in 1754 it brought the highest price of all the portraits—one hundred and fifteen pounds, ten shillings.12 Lord Bess- borough was the next owner, then Lord Lansdowne, and lastly Cleveland is obviously a medical person, and his House. It was bought for the Gallety bulky corporation corresponds with in 1912. that displayed in acknowledged por- 2a. John Simon (1675-1751) a Nor- traits of Mayerne. A human skull rests man-French Huguenot refugee, copied upon the right knee, the right hand it in a engraving which ren- holds a probe pointing to a trephine ders some elements of the background opening over the central frontal emi- more perceptible. The legend gives nence. There are several prescriptions Mayerne’s birth and death dates, a year in Mayerne’s case records in which too early in each case. The rest of it scrapings of unburied human skull are states that the original is the work of included. Such objects were on sale for Rubens and that it was studied in the eleven shillings and upwards according collection of Dr. Richard Mead. to size. He considered it a “specific”9 in 3. In 1870, M. Bordier of Geneva epilepsy and useful in gout.10 Perhaps found among the Mayerne manuscripts the circle of bone over the frontal emi- in the a draft of a let- nence may have seemed to the groping ter from the doctor to Rubens, thank- credulity of those days the most likely ing him for a portrait of himself which part to possess mystic potency. had arrived from Antwerp. The date of In a memorandum of remedies which the letter is March 25, 1631. The opin- he had found useful in the treatment of ion of several experts is that this portrait his royal master, Mayerne tells his fel- is not from the hand of Rubens. It may have come from his atelier, the work of and the ship entering a safe harbour— subordinates. It conveys a very different echoes of the Mead portrait—and by view ol the personality of our subject. the bizarre scroll with the legend “Haec

Mayerne’s brilliant parts and long ex- non sine Numine,” which we might perience of primacy in his profession paraphrase, “All this comes not without may have fostered traces at least of ex- divine assistance.’’ travagant self-assertion and flamboyance Mayerne’s letter is profuse in thanks which the keen eye of Rubens could not and in deprecation of the flattering sug- fail to observe. Did he venture to sug- gestions referred to. He must surely gest here this side of his friend’s per- have valued the portrait or he would not sonality by the violently be-frogged have willed it to the niece, one of whose gown, the raised dogmatic finger, and heirs gave it to the library at Geneva the outspread left arm holding a cane in 1711, where it still hangs in the right in line with the club of the god Lullin gallery.13 of healing? Did he at the same time Certain variants in the Genevan por- cloud these sarcastic touches by the flat- trait are important. I he sculptured fig- tering suggestions of the Aesculapius ure of Aesculapius is complete: he holds the club in his left hand and in the right the figure are shown: the club is in the he holds a pine cone upright.14 In the right hand and there is no pine cone. N. P. G. portrait scarcely two thirds of In the Genevan portrait the subject wears a black skull-cap. 3a. When Theophile Bonnet pub- lished Mayerne’s “Tractatus de Arthri- tide” at Geneva in 1674, he asked Fran- cesco Diodati (1647-1690) to engrave for its frontispiece a version of the Genevan portrait leaving out the Aesculapius.15 It is not a distinguished performance. The pose of the head is altered, and the air of authority and vivacity is much less dominant. The burning Pharos and ship entering harbour are still more dis- tinct here. 4. In the British Museum there is an unfinished three-quarter length stand- ing portrait of Mayerne by Rubens, the finished form of which he kept in his printed around the margin as though private collection till his death. upon the frame of a miniature. 'Ebe ma- 5. This was numbered 100 at the sale terial lining the back of the chair is of his effects in 1640, and was bought by Lord Lansdowne. Subsequent own- ers were John Hoppner, the portrait painter, John Wanamaker, and the late Dr. Aspell. Since his death it has been on sale in New York.* It finely renders the dignified, force- ful personality of the royal physician burdened but not crushed by the cares of his office. It would seem legitimate to conclude that Rubens considered this his best portrait of his friend Mayerne. 6. In the home of the Royal College of Physicians, London, hangs a three- quarter length standing portrait of Mayerne in a pose of exposition by a painter unknown. He holds a human skull in his left hand, while on the table at his left is a scroll of notes. A volumi- nous skull-cap covers much of the scalp and ears. This suggests that baldness is now pretty complete. The face looks old and is dull and expressionless. On the whole, unhappily for the College, this is the least adequate of all the present- fastened by a single row of long-shaped ments of Mayerne. How fine it would be studs. (Brit. Mus. P 4-170 “very rare.”) if they could purchase the best of the 7a. When a committee of the Royal Rubens portraits. College compiled a practice of medicine There is an engraving in line of this out of Mayerne’s case books, in 1690, portrait by William Elder. William Elder, the Scotch engraver (fl. 1680-1700), who, we are told by the Engravi ngs and a Miniat ure writer in the D. N. B., was in the habit 7. In the year 1636, when Mayerne of copying extant engravings for his was sixty-three years of age, an unknown frontispieces, appears to have repro- artist engraved upon wood a very duced the engraving we have just de- charming portrait15 of the doctor seated scribed, signed with his own name, as a in an armchair holding a skull in his frontispiece for the “Praxis Mayer- right hand and pointing to it with his niana.”15 The same legend is written left forefinger. In this and all that fol- below the portrait and the decorative low, the black skull-cap is present but fastenings on the back of the chair are a does not cover the ears. In the field of double row of round studs. The face is the right background Aet. 63 is printed, pleasing and full of genial strength, but near the left cheek. The legend is there lacks a certain dignity present in * In the Mortimer-Brandt Gallery, 22 East the prototype. 56th St., New York. 7b. In the 1691 pirated Augsburg edition of the “Praxis,” Elder’s frontis- “Theo. Turquet de Mayerne, Eques piece is reproduced unsigned. The Auratus, Patria Gallus, Religione Re- spandrel is pinched in so that the arm formatus, Dignitate Baro, Professione Alter Hippocrates, ac trium Regum (exemplo rarissimo) Archiater, Erudi- tione Incomparabilis, Experientia nulli Secundus; et quod ex his omnibus re- sultat Fama late vagante Perillustris. Anno Aetatis 82.” The finger pointing to the skull in these engravings appears to be a re- minder to the onlooker of the words in the Book of Job: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.”

of the chair is not seen below the right hand. In these three engravings the legend is the same: “Theo, de Mayerne, Eques Auratus, Baro Albonae, in Aula Mag- nae Regis Britanniae Archiatrorum Comes.” In the two last the words “Anno Aetatis 82” are added. This was his age at death. The date upon the anonymous engraving should have been repeated upon the others. 7c. In 1700 Dr. George Browne of London published a folio of chosen Mayernian case records, letters, and pharmacal formulae. The frontispiece here is an enlarged and reversed copy of the foregoing group. Which one hap- pened to be chosen who can now decide? In any case this is the least pleasing and the least psychologically interesting of 8. Mayerne’s Genevan compatriot, all. The skull-cap partly covers the ex- Jean Petitot (1607-1691), came to Lon- posed left ear. The legend below is don in 1635, under the patronage of much more extended and laudatory: Charles I, who gave him quarters in Whitehall. He became the most famous his courtesy title of Baron of Aubonne, miniaturist in enamel of all time, and his country seat near Lausanne. for him Mayerne provided “a prepara- Petitot left London when the royal cause was in eclipse and retired to the court of Louis XIV, where in rooms at the Louvre he practised his art till the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. He ended his days at Vevey on the Lake of Geneva at the age of eighty- four, when a stroke of apoplexy seized him while painting a miniature of his wife.

Refer enc es 1. Letter front Mons. Gustave Vaucher, sous- archiviste, Geneva. 2. Journal Helvetique, August, 1752. 3. Memoirs of the Verney Family, Long- mans, 1892-99, Vol. Ill, p. 195. 4. La France I’rotestante. Edited by E. and E. Haag. Paris, 1857. Article on Theo- dore Turquet de Mayerne. 5. Mons. Vaucher, in correspondence. 6. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medi- cine, History of Medicine Section, Vol. XXXI, pp. 649-654. 7. Letter from Lord Sackville. 8. There is a voluminous MS. of Mayerne’s in the British Museum (Sloane MSS. No. 2052) which treats of painting and other arts. It is entitled Pictoria, Sculp- tion of copper” of his own devising toria, Tinctoria, et quae subalternarum which enabled Petitot to render face artium Spectantia in lingua Latina, coloring to his satisfaction for the first Gallica, Italica, Germanica conscripta time. a Petro Paulo Rubens, Van Dyke, One of the most brilliantly lifelike Somers, Greenberry, Jansen, etc., fol. No. XIX, a .d . 1620. See note at foot of portraits of Mayerne is the miniature in p. 33 of Vol. II of the Warnum-Dal- enamel,16 one and a quarter inch by one laway edition of Walpole’s “Anecdotes inch, now the property of Sir St. Clair of Painting,” London, Chatto and Win- Thompson, m.d ., of London. Petitot dus, 1876. There was a proposal by Mr. neither signed nor dated his works. This Robert Hcndrie, Jun. to print this one belongs somewhere in the ten year treatise in the middle eighteen-seven- ties, but it was not carried out. period of his sojourn at the Court of g. Opera Mcdica. Edited by Browne, 1700. Charles 1635 to ’645- Liber Primus, p. 102. The treatment is fresh and pleasing; 10. Op. cit., p. 301. Pulvis Arthriticus:— the skull-cap neater and less enveloping; Recipe: Cranii Humani non sepulti, the hair Hows gently from beneath it Turbith, Hcrmodactyl, Sennae, Jalap., and the beard is gracefully brushed out Tartar Cremor, Diagridii, optime praepar. Caryophyllor. ana 3 j, Miscc, upon the Elizabethan ruff. Over the left Fiat Pulvis subtiliss. cujus Dosis sit a shoulder is a decorative sash or ribbon, 3 j ad scrupula quatuor, c Jusculo, Vino perhaps relating to his knighthood or to albo, hordeato, Sero Lactis, cujus hans- turn amplum superbibere Operae Pre- pine, olive and laurel. Sometimes a tium fuerit. Sumitur circa Plenilunium, wreath of mixed medicinal herbs was quum maxime Humores turgent. depicted, and once a bunch of pop- Turbith represents Convolvulus, pies, perhaps in allusion to the prac- Hermodactyl was probably a species of tice of the temple-sleep in the porches Colchicum. Diagridium represents of the Asclepieia, during the half-wak- Scammony. ing state following which the priest 11. Loc. cit., p. 301. used to instil healing thoughts into the 12. From a list of the sale in the collection of patients’ minds, as is so beautifully de- the late Dr. Harvey Cushing: Courtesy scribed in Pater’s “Marius the Epicu- of Dr. Arnold Klebs. rean.” 13. Mons. Roch, archiviste d’Etat, Geneva, In the exhaustive article upon Aescula- kindly sent a copy of this portrait. An pius in the “Real Encyclopaedic,” interesting account of the portrait, and edited by Wissowa and published by a copy of Mayerne’s letter to Rubens Metzlerschet, 1894, there is no mention will be found in Mons. Aug. Bouvier’s of pineapple in this connection. The article in Geneva, IV, 1937, Geneva, object under discussion, therefore, is Kundig. probably a large pine-cone. 14. The object in the right hand of the pic- 15. For a photograph of this engraving I am tured Aesculapius has been thought by indebted to the kindness of Dr. Arnold some to represent a pineapple, but it Klebs. lacks the plume of leaves emerging 16. For a photograph of this miniature in from the top of the fruit. The plants enamel, facsimile as to size, I am in- which were associated by Greek artists debted to the kindness of Dr. Arnold with the god of healing were cypress, Klebs.

[Les Sonnets du Docteur.J