In the 16th century, alchemy became a victim of its own success. The more it achieved, the more its reputation suffered.

Cheating death. Curing every disease. Possessing unlimited amounts of gold. Such fantastic objectives were pursued all throughout medieval Europe by alchemists. They burned, melted, distilled, and vaporized any substance they could get their hands on. They tirelessly hunted for ancient codified scrolls in an attempt to unlock their hidden formulas. They drank, inhaled, and injected their mysterious concoctions. They suffered from lead and mercury poisoning. Their hands trembled as they picked up their flasks, their minds forgetful, anxious, and paranoid. Rather than the key to eternal life, they mostly found early graves.

In the Scientific Revolution, this superstitious alchemy died out. Modern, rational chemistry was born. Or so the story goes. In reality, there was a very thin line between the art of alchemy and the science of chemistry.

Hello and welcome to A History of Science: Episode 5: The Philosopher’s Study.

Introduction

“Alchemy is a fine occupation. Not only is it very useful to human need and convenience, it gives birth every day to new and splendid effects.” Says Vanoccio Biringuccio, a mining engineer from Sienna in 1540. He continues: ”The art of alchemy is the origin and foundation of many other arts. It should be held in reverence, it should be practiced. The practitioner should enjoy that pleasing novelty which it reveals to him in operation.”

That pleasing novelty is the most direct reward for experimentation. That shiver up your spine as you peek through the microscope, or pour a few drops from a pipette into a test tube, is one of the cornerstones of science. It satisfies human curiosity, long before practical applications of discoveries, and any riches that may come with them, present themselves.

The joy of discovery was an essential ingredient of the Scientific Revolution. And as we have seen in our episode on Columbus’ voyage to America, discovery, strangely enough, had to be discovered itself. In the quote above, some fifty years after Columbus set foot on the new continent, our Italian mining engineer lovingly applies this new concept to alchemy. In his days, alchemy was the closest anyone could get to discovering new things and unraveling the threads of Creation. As such, alchemy sounds like a looming precursor to the Scientific Revolution, a promising token of what was to come.

That’s not how we remember alchemy, though, is it? In our collective memory it is much closer to the image I sketched in the introduction: crazy sorcerers working in damp basements pursuing their fever dreams of eternal life or unlimited gold. In this episode we will follow the transformation of medieval alchemy into a modern science. And especially, we’ll explore when, how, and why its reputation was utterly destroyed in the process.

Applied Alchemy

What exactly alchemy was, is difficult to pinpoint. It was as much a craft as it was an art; as much esoteric mysticism as proto-science; and as much learning by doing as passing on ancient knowledge. People from any walk of life could find themselves in the elusive profession of alchemy: physicians and apothecaries, blacksmiths and masons, painters and sculptors, and peasants and noblemen alike.

Among them are many familiar names, often of people you would not expect to see in relation to alchemy. Leonardo da Vinci, who, among his many other occupancies, dabbled in alchemy, left countless notes describing alchemical procedures he had used in his art. Among these is a recipe for making mixed gold alloys look purer than they really are, an invaluable procedure for a Renaissance artist. Even Isaac Newton, arguably the hero of the Scientific Revolution, spent decades searching for alchemical texts, in a spurious effort to reorganize ancient alchemical wisdom into a coherent collection; not a story often recounted about the posterboy of modern physics.

But alchemical craft was a highly sought-after commodity in medieval and early modern Europe. Most alchemists applied their work to solve everyday problems; they extracted medicines from natural ingredients, created copper alloys to create stronger metals, or developed durable paints with brighter colors. Alchemists were commonly employed by kings and noblemen. Much like astronomers who predicted their patrons’ futures in return for a free hand at their research, alchemists forged weapons or applied mercurial medicine next to their intellectual pursuits.

Theoretical Alchemy

And it is in these intellectual pursuits that alchemy first crosses the line into esoteric mysticism. The wildly ambitious objectives of alchemy – all-curing potions, turning base metal into gold – are often used as examples for medieval backwardness, and for the exclusion of alchemy in the realm of the real early sciences. But was alchemy really that irrational? Was there no method to the magic? And are its theories not equally obsolete as those of pre-Copernican astronomy or humoral medicine? Let’s take a closer look at two of the most mysterious objectives: the elixir of life, and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The elixir of life, also known as aqua vitae, or life water, was believed to be a super-medicine that could purify impure bodies, thus curing disease and prolonging life. This elixir could be accessed by purifying natural ingredients, usually through distillation; the closer a natural ingredient could be amended to approach its divine perfection, the stronger its qualities would be. It was a theory similar to the one used when distilling alcohol; distillation of wine, for example, yields hard liquor, which is both purer in alcohol and stronger to the taste. Distilling any medicine, then, should create a purer form that worked better.

As nonsensical as searching for this super-medicine may sound to us, the methods alchemists employed do share similarities with those of modern chemistry. The process of purifying natural ingredients to find their essence – or, as we would say, elements, is still the defining characteristic of modern chemistry. Early nineteenth-century medicines were relatively simple compounds of recently discovered elements; exactly what fifteenth-century alchemists were trying to achieve with their elixirs of life.

So, modern chemistry and medieval alchemy share the assumption that nature can be reduced to its original building blocks. The name alchemists gave to this evasive perfectly pure ingredient to natural compounds was the quintessence, or fifth essence. Why the fifth? Because it followed after the four basic elements of antiquity that somehow seem to pop up in virtually every episode of this series: earth, water, air, and fire. As we have talked about time and again, ancient and medieval philosophers held that everything – people, trees, rocks, oceans – was made out of these four elements. And alchemists, being the practical artisans that they were, went the extra mile.

They reasoned that if nature could be distilled into its original components, these pure building blocks could be recombined to form natural compounds. Any natural compounds. This is the central idea that fueled alchemists’ fever dreams of finding the Philosopher’s Stone. If earth and water could be mixed to create mud, couldn’t other natural substances be created by combining their quintessential elements? How about metals? Silver? Gold? There should be a formula out there that allowed alchemists to transmute quintessential natural elements into pure gold.

So where did alchemy fit in medieval Europe? Everywhere and nowhere at the same time; it was part practical craft, part theoretical philosop