Zoom

Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire

Name: Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire
Brand: University of Chicago Press
SKU: 9780226639727
Price: 39.99 USD
Availability: InStock

$39.99

Hurry Up! Only 281 Left in Stock!

Out of stock >

Guarantee safe & Secure checkout

Availability: In Stock

Contributors:

Tara Nummedal

Publisher:

University of Chicago Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

History, Science, Business & Economics

Book Subcategory:

Europe, History, Economic History

Shipping & Return +

The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

Rating and Reviews +

Specifications +

Release Date:

2019-02-22

ISBN 13:

9780226639727

Weight:

0.91 lbs

Size:

9.00 x 6.00 x 0.63 inches

Pages:

280

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men-and occasionally women-who made a living as alchemists in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire. As purveyors of practical techniques, inventions, and cures, these entrepreneurs were prized by princely patrons, who relied upon alchemists to bolster their political fortunes. At the same time, satirists, artists, and other commentators used the figure of the alchemist as a symbol for Europe's social and economic ills.

Drawing on criminal trial records, contracts, laboratory inventories, satires, and vernacular alchemical treatises, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire situates the everyday alchemists, largely invisible to modern scholars until now, at the center of the development of early modern science and commerce. Reconstructing the workaday world of entrepreneurial alchemists, Tara Nummedal shows how allegations of fraud shaped their practices and prospects. These debates not only reveal enormously diverse understandings of what the "real" alchemy was and who could practice it; they also connect a set of little-known practitioners to the largest questions about commerce, trust, and intellectual authority in early modern Europe.

About the Author
Tara Nummedal is assistant professor of history at Brown University

Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire

Description

Recently Viewed Products

Recently viewed products

Secure Payment

Online Offers

Quick Refunds

Curated Items