Unlike the scientists of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the successors of Newton and the great 18th-century French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier limited their objectives in a way that amounted to a renunciation of what many had considered the most important question of science, the relation of man to the cosmos. The rise of modern chemistry engendered not only general skepticism as to the possibility of making gold but also widespread dissatisfaction with the objectives of modern science, which were viewed as too limited. 1560–1601), whose works have long been esteemed for their illustrations, make such a claim.Ĭonventional attempts at gold making were not dead, but by the 18th century alchemy had turned conclusively to religious aims. Neither did the German alchemist Heinrich Khunrath ( c. Rudolf II made the German alchemist Michael Maier a count and his private secretary, although Maier’s mystical and allegorical writings were, in the words of a modern authority, “distinguished for the extraordinary obscurity of his style” and made no claim to gold making. ![]() The situation was complicated by the fact that some alchemists were turning from gold making not to medicine but to a quasi-religious alchemy reminiscent of the Greek Synesius. In 1595 Edward Kelley, an English alchemist and companion of the famous astrologer, alchemist, and mathematician John Dee, lost his life in an attempt to escape after imprisonment by Rudolf II, and in 1603 the elector of Saxony, Christian II, imprisoned and tortured the Scotsman Alexander Seton, who had been traveling about Europe performing well-publicized transmutations. ![]() This was not altogether to the alchemist’s advantage. In “the metropolis of alchemy,” Prague, the Holy Roman emperors Maximilian II (reigned 1564–76) and Rudolf II (reigned 1576–1612) proved ever-hopeful sponsors and entertained most of the leading alchemists of Europe. On the one hand, The Art posed a threat to the control of precious metal and was often outlawed on the other hand, there were obvious advantages to any sovereign who could control gold making. The official attitude toward alchemy in the 16th to 18th century was ambivalent. As rational a scientist as Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) had thought it worthwhile to experiment with it. The possibility of chemical gold making was not conclusively disproved by scientific evidence until the 19th century.
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