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SUMMARY:Session 1: Life and Nature in Early Modern Alchemy
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260513T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260513T170000
DTSTAMP:20260512T052613Z
UID:6210b72d-9c3d-f111-88b5-6045bd12f634
CREATED:20260421T160730Z
DESCRIPTION:Maison Française d'Oxford\, 2-10 Norham Rd\, Oxford OX2 6SE\n
 \nChair: Sergei Zotov (Warburg Institute)\n\nOana Matei (Western Universit
 y of Arad): Can Life Rise from Ashes? Discussions on the Possibility of th
 e Palingenesis of Plants in the Seventeenth Century\nPalingenesis may\, at
  first glance\, appear reducible to a quasi-miraculous aspiration: the res
 urrection of a body from its own ashes. Yet\, such a characterization risk
 s obscuring its philosophical and experimental significance within early m
 odern natural philosophy. Rather than dismissing palingenesis as a residue
  of alchemical fantasy\, I argue that it functioned as a theoretically cha
 rged experimental program through which natural philosophers interrogated 
 the generative principles of matter and life. \n\nThis presentation advanc
 es the claim that seventeenth-century palingenesis worked simultaneously o
 n practical and explanatory registers. On the one hand\, its experimental 
 trials—particularly attempts to regenerate plants from their calcined re
 mains—were embedded in concrete concerns\, including the preservation\, 
 transportation\, and transplantation of exotic species. On the other hand\
 , these same trials sought to elucidate the internal composition of matter
  and the mechanisms underlying the apparent regeneration of life. \n\nI wi
 ll first present a series of palingenesis experiments\, arguing that seven
 teenth-century naturalists did not regard them as mere curiosities but as 
 evidential probes into the structure of nature. Central to these investiga
 tions was the post-Paracelsian elevation of salts as formative principles.
  Within this framework\, salts were not understood as inert residues but a
 s active bearers of essential form—incorruptible substrates that preserv
 ed the organism’s organizing principle even through destruction by fire.
  Palingenesis thus implicitly challenged strictly mechanistic reductions o
 f matter by positing a chemically embodied persistence of form. \n\nFinall
 y\, by turning to the cases of Henry Power and Nehemiah Grew\, I argue tha
 t their engagement with palingenesis trials demonstrates that the effort t
 o “resurrect” plants from ashes was not a marginal curiosity but a phi
 losophically charged inquiry into life’s organizing principles. \n\nXiny
 i Wen (Warburg Institute): Cosmos or Coitus? A Copy Census of Oswald Croll
 ’s Basilica Chymica\, 1609–1690\nGerman chymist Oswald Croll’s Basil
 ica Chymica\, republished and translated many times throughout the sevente
 enth century\, was one of the most influential chymical textbooks in early
  modern Europe. It was widely discussed both for the chymical philosophies
 \, instructions and recipes it introduced\, and for the ‘doctrine of sig
 natures’ it proposed as a separate treatise within the book — an idea 
 that natural things resembling human body parts could cure their correspon
 ding body parts. This project examines how early modern readers engaged wi
 th this book. Amidst an ongoing census of Basilica Chymica’s various edi
 tions and translations\, this talk will focus on several annotated\, extra
 -illustrated\, and interleaved copies. Croll’s book has been read alongs
 ide various relevant and\, at times\, competing titles by chymists\, pedag
 ogists\, and physicians. Different readers associated this book with diffe
 rent practices and belief systems\, ranging from palmistry to botany. Whil
 e historians have traditionally placed great importance on Croll’s chymi
 cal philosophy and cosmological framework\, surviving early modern annotat
 ions suggest that many readers used Croll’s textbook as a repository of 
 practical information. The treatise on the doctrine of signatures was part
 icularly a site of productive engagements for such purposes. In the end\, 
 instead of cosmos\, readers of Croll’s book were arguably more concerned
  about coitus.
LAST-MODIFIED:20260421T162420Z
SPEAKER:Oana Matei (Western University of Arad)\, Xinyi Wen (Warburg Insti
 tute)\, Chair: Sergei Zotov (Warburg Institute)
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