Renaissance alchemy

• Published in: The Lancet (British edition) 2001, Vol.357 (9249), p.78-78
• Main Author: Pfister, Kathrin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry; Metallurgy; Metals; Museum exhibits; Museums; Renaissance period; Scientists; Wolfgang II, Count of Hohenlohe
• ISSN: 0140-6736; 1474-547X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)71583-X

C o u n t Wolfgang lived between the Reformation and the beginning of the Thirty Years War. He was born in 1546, the year Martin Luther died, as the second son of Count Ludwig Casimir and his wife Anna. He went to university in Tubingen and then made a grand tour through Europe, visiting Paris and the English court of Elizabeth I, and spending 2 years in Vienna at the court of Ferdinand I. In 1567 he married Magdalena, Countess of Nassau-Katzenelnbogen (15471633). The marriage seems to have been a happy match: Magdalena shared many of her husband's interests and was well versed in medicine and pharmacy. She supervised her own pharmacy at Weikersheim and collected many prescriptions. Her codex of medical and pharmaceutical prescriptions is today preserved in the archive of the nearby castle of Neuenheim. For 42 years Wolfgang reigned over [Hohenlohe], where he abolished serfdom, reorganised the administration, reformed the school system and was actively involved in church policy. Like many of his contemporaries, such as Moritz of Hessia, Frederic I of Wurttemberg, Frederic III of Palatine, or Rudolph II of Habsburg, to name a few, Wolfgang was interested and involved in alchemy. Wolfgang pursued alchemy mostly due to scientific interests and to relax from the daily business of governing.