The Chemistry of Alchemy Page 5

  When we move to the fourteenth century we will find more alchemical voices speaking, at least those that survived the great disaster of the 1300s, the Black Death, along with warlords with their concomitant cruelty, and more senseless Crusades. Dodging between raiders and the draft for Crusades, the commoners cast a skeptical eye on the Church, and we begin to hear about the practice of alchemy. Who's doing the talking? The friars. Having sampled the simple life of Jesus, some returned to the ways of the world. We also find alchemy has assumed a framework built on the sulfur/mercury composition of metals, the separation and ultra-purification of ingredients for recombination into desired product, and the development of medicines—elixirs—to cure imperfect metals and turn them into perfect gold.

  By the fifteenth century the Renaissance was in full flow, bolstered by the printing press and reconquest of Spain by the Christians. A burst of alchemical activity would swell the repertoire of techniques and materials available to the alchemist—but move them no closer to their goal. Consequently, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, along with reform of religion and a reorganization of government, there would be a redirection of alchemy.

  And, in the 1500s, a wandering German adept by the name of Paracelsus stumbled onto the scene with paradigm-bursting ideas. Unfortunately, genius rarely has an easy path, and Paracelsus's last bed would be a tavern floor. But before he died, he showed a new way and passed the torch.

  In me Capocchio's shade thou'lt [see], Who forged false coin by…alchemy…

  the money…I made [was] counterfeit,…therefore [I] left my body burnt.

  Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, ca. 1310*

  The historian Barbara Tuchman once wrote, “History is made by the documents that survive,”1 and in the opening years of thirteenth-century western Europe, the practicing alchemists didn't produce many surviving documents.

  There were reasons. First, books were still handwritten, and writing a book by hand is a huge undertaking. Books were copied one at a time in the monasteries and only in daylight. Artificial light consisted of candles, and a fire in a scriptorium would be more than the usual disaster. Before the booksellers went through the trouble of having books copied, they no doubt wanted to make sure it was worth the effort. Inquisitors didn't always stop at burning books. Sometimes the booksellers took the heat, too.

  Second, while thirteenth-century western Europe embraced new ideas in mathematics, navigation, commerce, and optics (it's hard to condemn something that makes you money and keeps you from getting lost at sea), when it came to speculative material such as the philosophy of Aristotle and alchemy, the Roman Catholic Church was reticent and expressed its reticence in condemnations. Yet, to keep step with the populace upon whom it relied for existence, in the mid-1200s Pope Gregory IX laid out a solution: he commissioned the rewriting and reworking of Aristotle and other imports to align them with Church teachings.2 The brave souls who took on the task of interpretation were new groups of mendicant, or begging, friars: churchmen who lived and preached in the world and survived on charity: the Dominicans and Franciscans.

  There had been similar groups before, such as the contemplative Carmelites, but the new friars sought to emulate the life of Jesus in preaching and in their rejection of worldly goods. They were militant with the mission to combat heresy and perpetuate the gospel as they saw it.

  With preaching being a focus for the new friars, education gained emphasis, too. To preach, one had to read and study the scriptures, so these new friars went to the new universities. The Church realized it had an educated, passionate, volunteer workforce in its midst, so it enlisted the friars to read, comment on, and reconcile the translated works of the Islamic authors and other ancient thinkers. Famous among these friars were Albert the Great (Dominican), Thomas Aquinas (Dominican), and Roger Bacon (Franciscan).

  ALBERT THE GREAT

  For young Albert (ca. 1200–1280),3 born about the same time as the founding of the mendicants, the Dominicans were the latest and greatest thing. Albert's relations were lesser nobles in Bavaria, and they did not care for the radical new Dominican order. But Albert joined, became a priest, and was sent to teach at the University of Paris.

  Once the condemnations were lifted, his order asked Albert to read and comment on the newly imported information. They asked the right guy. He set out to read, interpret, and comment on all the new information he could lay his hands on, including alchemy. His work was so comprehensive that this less-than-five-foot friar, who kept with the spirit of his order by always walking barefoot, came to be called Albert the Great.

  However, he cannot be our hero. Albert did not do alchemy, just reported on it. He examined a bit of alchemical iron and found it was not magnetic. He managed to obtain samples of alchemical gold and silver, tested them, and found they survived a few firings but then turned to dust.4 From this he concluded the alchemists would eventually make gold—but they weren't there yet. (We will test a bit of our alchemical gold in the demonstration that accompanies this chapter and find ours fares worse than Albert's.) Interestingly, the remarks on alchemical gold, silver, and iron were among Albert's more critical observations. Many times he accepted impossibilities as fact (such as a snake with a human face and a small fish that stopped a ship by clinging to its keel) because he believed in the authority of the source.

  Albert was a rock hound. He collected specimens from sites of evacuations or mines he came across in his travels and cataloged their properties. In his work De Mineralibus (The Book of Minerals), he mentioned alchemy again and said it was “a beggarly union of genius and fire.”5 Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274),6 Albert's student, concurred with Albert's conclusions: alchemists could probably make gold, but it was “a difficult art.”7 Albert and Thomas, however, advocated a philosophical separation of secular science and theology, a bold stance for the day, and in a quiet way showed the alchemists the Church's interest. A Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, did the same thing, but a bit louder.

  Figure 3.1. A sixteenth-century engraving interpreted to be Roger Bacon balancing the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. (Image used by permission of Edgar Fahs Smith History of Chemistry Collection. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.)

  ROGER BACON

  There seems to be little information on the youth of Roger Bacon (ca. 1219–1292) other than his own report that his family was “impoverished”8 by one of the many wars of the era. Nonetheless, he was able to attend university, so he must have meant impoverished in a relative sense. He became a university lecturer before he entered the Franciscan order and seems to have joined so he would have time and support to write his own works as well as make commentaries. Unfortunately, he was mistaken. The current pope, Bonaventure, was interested only in theological studies and thought astrology and alchemy were a waste of time. Roger Bacon did not.

  Prohibited from publishing without approval, he made friends with Cardinal Guy le Gros de Foulques, and when the cardinal became the pope, Roger asked his friend to order him to write, and his friend did. Roger wrote three major compendiums, including discussions of optics, astrology, and alchemy…and then his friend died. A few years later the firebrand friar had his activities curtailed again when he was placed in prison (it may have been house arrest), though before he died he was able to continue his studies.

  Roger Bacon's imprisonment may have resulted from his opinionated approach as much as the content of his opinions. He wrote extensively, and critically, on methods for Church management as well as teaching at the universities—and he had some valid points. For one, he advised students who showed talent in mathematics should be given training in mathematics rather than military training for the Crusades.9 He advocated the study of languages so that the books could be read in their original form and not just the Latin translation of the Arabic translation of the Greek. He spoke out against the passive approach by Albert and Thomas and campaigned for an experiential approach to science rather than thoughtless
reliance on authority.

  At some point, Bacon must have been assigned to comment on Secretum secretorum (Secret of Secrets), supposedly written by Aristotle to guide Alexander the Great (though subsequently shown not to be the work of Aristotle). Bacon became enthralled with the project.10 Although Secret of Secrets was a potpourri of advice, some reasonable, some haphazard, and the “facts” offered were sometimes fantasy (a mesmerizing plant, a charm that controls the weather), Bacon kept returning to the study of Secretum secretorum as though he had a feeling there was something more.

  Bacon had a special fascination for the part that dealt with alchemy. He puzzled through a description of the philosophers’ stone and proposed an approach to its realization—but again there is no evidence that Roger Bacon engaged in any alchemical experiments, so he can't be our hero, either.

  Roger Bacon's value to alchemists, like Albert's, was the legitimacy he lent to the study. He no doubt found it intrinsically interesting, but he also saw possible applications. It was an age of anxiety from external forces, internal forces, and the heavens above: there was a pervasive anticipation of the Second Coming, the Final Judgment, and, before that, the Antichrist. In the ensuing battle with the Antichrist, Bacon said the Church and populace would need all the help they could get. Materials, medicines, and metals—all would be needed. Why not look to alchemy to see what could be done? Alchemy, Bacon reasoned, might be humankind's salvation. Pretty radical stuff, but Bacon and others were frightened. Did the people of the day really believe the Antichrist was that close? Yes. Some thought he was already there—and living in Sicily.

  FREDERICK II, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR, KING OF SICILY, KING OF GERMANY, KING OF JERUSALEM

  Emperor Frederick II, soon to be known as Stupor mundi, the Wonder of the World, was born in a former part of the Islamic empire, Sicily, newly reconquered by Christian Normans.11 His tutors were both Islamic and Christian, each tearing down the other, and he grew up with a disrespect for both religions.

  Not surprisingly, Frederick's love of personal freedom extended to his private life, but he felt responsibility toward his children and management of his dynasty. He knew the value of information and was intelligent, curious, and as catholic in his outlook as ever the Church was—but he isn't our hero either. However, he entertained and was entertained by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish scholars—and Michael Scot.

  MICHAEL SCOT

  Known in some quarters as Auld Michael the magician,12 Michael Scot was a translator, a commentator, and, from all indications, a promoter. Born around 1200,13 Michael went to Toledo in his youth and learned Arabic well enough to translate a work of Aristotle. By 1224 Michael was a priest and earned his living by holding bureaucratic posts within the Church. Apparently, at this point, he was on good terms with the pope, but then he went over to the other side.

  Scot's translational and intellectual abilities won him acceptance at the court of Frederick II. At Frederick's court, he wrote Magistery of the Art of Alchemy, a work on the transformation of copper to gold, mercury to silver, and lead to gold—which won him the disfavor of Albert, Roger, and the pope—though he escaped punishment by the Church, which may have been his greatest magical feat. He may have performed experiments, but there's no proof positive—so he can't be our hero either! Yet the fact remains: Albert had some alchemical gold to test, so somebody was doing alchemy…so where the heck are our heroes?

  It turns out that's where they are: They're in heck. Dante consigned Michael Scot to the eighth circle of Hell with the other sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets.14 When Virgil and Dante were on their odyssey of the lower regions, they came across Michael and two others of current interest: Adam of Brescia and Capocchio. These are our heroes.

  Convinced by nobles to counterfeit a gold coin of Florence (the counterfeit was recorded to be in circulation in 1281), poor Adam of Brescia, Master Adam, a metalworker of historical record, was discovered and a marker is said to still exist on the road where he was burned alive.15

  Capocchio, however, had a more sinister nature. A fellow student of Dante's in natural philosophy, the story goes, in an moment of idleness he painted a crucifix on his fingernail and, when the pious Dante came up to admire it, he irreverently licked it off.

  Capocchio then chose alchemy over natural philosophy, and as we saw it the opening quote, chose the darker side of alchemy at that. He used alchemy to create false gold and burned for his troubles in Siena in 1293.16 They needn't have bothered because he became a permanent resident of Dante's Inferno along with other falsifiers of gold. There, according to Dante, he spends eternity picking at festering scabs and being dragged across stones on his belly, one assumes to create more scabs.

  So we see now where Albert might have gotten his false gold, and also why practicing alchemists weren't doing a lot of advertisement.

  Yet the question comes to mind: If Albert and the authorities knew how to tell real from false, why did the falsifiers think they could get away with the ruse? One answer may be that many people had never seen real gold and were easily duped by any shiny, yellow solid. In addition, some of our falsifiers weren't making completely false gold, they were making an extension of gold, an alloy of gold, a practice called multiplication of gold, celebrated with the phrase “it takes gold to make gold.”17 In the demonstration that accompanies this chapter we won't do multiplying—we'll do falsifying—but no burning at the stake.

  So we see through the efforts of the commentators, over the space of fifty years (ca. 1200 to 1250), the works of Aristotle went from prohibited to compulsory, and alchemy tentatively crept onto the scene.18 In the next chapter, despite the temper of the times, we will even see alchemists, in the form of friars, begin to write their own treatments of the topic—but for the moment, cautiously—and still not signing their names.

  But first, to the fires of the falsifiers!

  DEMONSTRATION 3. THE FIRING AND FALSIFYING OF GOLD

  DISPOSAL

  Tape the penny from the firing of gold in your notebook along with your sample of false gold. Keep the verdigris setup from Albert's Pigment for future demonstrations, but excess root-killer solutions can be rinsed down the drain (followed by a copious rinse with cool water, of course). Excess pigment should be used to paint more pictures! But when you are done, it can go in the trash.

  THE FIRING OF GOLD

  Albert said he had seen and handled alchemical gold, but after a few rounds of firings it decomposed. By firing he meant cupellation, or strong heating in a small crucible, and in the case of a false-gold test, in the presence of lead. In this process, metals that are not gold will combine with the lead and oxidize, or turn to a gray powder like a tin can thrown in a campfire. Gold will not do this, so when Albert's sample decomposed, he knew it wasn't gold.

  Lead, along with mercury, is on the list of substances we will not use in any of our demonstrations, but luckily, to test our alchemical gold, lead is not needed.

  Put on your safety glasses. Think you don't need them? Envision frying bacon and having hot grease splash up. Now make that hot metal. Put on your safety glasses.

  Find the alchemical gold penny we made in the first demonstration or make a new one. Set up a shallow bowl of water to receive the hot penny when you're done. Put the penny in your cast-iron skillet. Make certain your ventilation is working and pulling air away from your face. Set the skillet with the penny on the stove, but this time turn the stove on 90 to 95 percent power.

  In a very short time you should see your penny behave in a very un-gold-like manner. It will darken, warp, and shrivel. Take it off the heat source as soon as you are convinced and slide it into the waiting water.

  Gold is a very tough material and would not darken or warp at these low temperatures. You cannot fool Albert the Great, or anyone else, with your false-gold penny.

  FALSIFYING GOLD

  For this demonstration you will need your cast-iron skillet, tin shot, oven mitts, a clean screwdriver that you're not worried abo
ut losing, and the porcelain crucible suggested for purchase in “Stores and Ores.”

  Place the crucible in the middle of the skillet and place the skillet on a burner. Add about a teaspoon (5 milliliters) of tin shot to the crucible. Adjust the heat to 70 percent of maximum, and wait. And wait. It may take several minutes for the tin to melt. You can gently shake the crucible every so often to see if the tin is melting and to merge the tin shot together if it is. You need to use the oven mitts to handle the crucible; porcelain can get deceptively hot.

  The tin will melt very suddenly. Tin shot is fairly pure, which means all of it has essentially the same melting point. In fact, melting point can be used as evidence of purity. If a sample melts gradually, over a range of temperatures, it may be made up of more than one material and have more than one melting point. To make our demonstrations work, we need pure materials, and so did the alchemists. They couldn't buy supplies off the Internet, so they had to purify their own. Much of the work of alchemy was purifying materials.

  Once the tin melts and you have agitated the crucible so the tin is in one puddle, start watching it carefully. In a short time it should take on a golden sheen that is remarkably convincing. When this happens, stir the tin with the clean screwdriver. The gold color will disappear for a moment but come back when you stop stirring.