Jacques Gohory
Jacques Gohory (born January 20, 1520 in Paris ; † March 15, 1576 ibid) was an early French Paracelsus follower ( iatrochemistry ) and alchemist .
Life
Gohory came from a well-off family, his father was a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris and belonged to the Noblesse de robe (Sieur de la Tour et de Laval). He attended the Collège Sainte-Barbe , studied law and then, like his father, was a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris, but does not seem to have practiced as a lawyer. In his youth he was part of a clique of influential personalities at the court of Francis I from 1543 to 1556 , including Anne de Montmorency and Odet de Selve (1504–1563). Later he was in the service of Anne d'Alençon , Marquise of Monferrat, and Gabriel le Veneur , Bishop of Évreux . He was also in the diplomatic service in Flanders, London (1546 to 1549) and from 1554 to 1556 in Rome as secretary to Odet de Selve. In addition, he was also known to poets from the group La Pléiade and the circle of Jean-Antoine de Baïf .
His father did not like the path he had taken, and the title and most of the fortune passed on to his younger brothers, even though he was the eldest son. However, he received support from friends of the family, for example in 1573 the President of the Parliament of Paris Christophe de Tou converted a recently established mathematics professorship at the College Royale into a pension for Gohory, and he was appointed court historiographer.
In 1572 he founded a school for iatrochemistry, occultism, alchemy and pharmacy with a small botanical garden for medicinal plants and a chemical laboratory, the Lycium Philosophal , in his house in Faubourg Saint-Marcel . It saw itself in the tradition of Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance and was also a meeting place for those interested in science. Gohory dealt there with alchemy and pharmacy with natural history (botany).
Gohory discussed the teaching of Paracelsus with important doctors in Paris ( Jean Fernel , Ambroise Paré , Jean Chapelain , Honoré Chastellan , Leonardo Botal ). He tried to combine Paracelsus with classical alchemy ( Artephius , Roger Bacon , Albertus Magnus , Arnaldus von Villanova , Johannes de Rupescissa , Pseudo-Lull ) and was critical of Paracelsus commentators of his time such as Gerhard Dorn , which led to a controversy with him .
He wrote a compendium of the teachings of Paracelsus (1578), an early book on tobacco (1572) as a medicinal plant, and translated Niccolò Machiavelli , Titus Livius , an anonymous history of the conquest of Peru in 1545 and the Amadis of Gaul .
Fonts
- De usu et mysteriis notarum liber, in quo vetusta literarum et numerorum ac divinorum ex Sibylla nominum ratio explicatur Vinc. Sertenas, Paris 1550 (on occultism).
- Devis sur la vigne, vin et vendages, Paris, 1550 (on wine)
- Discours responsif à celui d'Alexandre de la Tourrete sur les secrets de l'art chymique et confection de l'or potable faict en la défense de la philosophie et médecine antique contre la nouvelle paracelsique, Paris 1575 (under the pseudonym LSS, Leo Suavius Solitarius)
- Theophrasti Paracelsi Philosophiae et medicinae utriusque universae compendium: Ex optimis quibuscumque ejus libris, cum scholiis in libros IIII ejusdem de vita longa, Basel 1568 (as Leo Suavius), digitized
- Instruction sur l'herbe petume, ditte en France l'herbe de la royne, ou medicée, et sur la racine mechiocan, 1572 (on tobacco)
- Le Livre de la fontaine périlleuse, avec la chartre d'amours ... contenant la steganographie des mystères secrets de la science minérale, Paris 1572 (commentary on a medieval poem that he believed to be an allegory on alchemy)
literature
- Didier Kahn: Le paracelsisme de Jacques Gohory. In: Paracelse et les siens. Actes du colloque international de Paris, December 15-16, 1994, Paris: La Table d'Émeraude, 1996 (ARIES no 19), pp. 81-130, online
- E.-T. Hamy: Un précurseur de Guy de la Brosse. Jacques Gohory et le Lycium Philosophal de Saint Marceau de Paris (1571-1576). Nouvelles archives du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, 4th ser., 1 (1899), pp. 1–26.
- Owen Hannaway: Jacques Gohory. In: Dictionary of Scientific Biography
- Willis H. Bowen: Jacques Gohory (1520-1576). Dissertation, Harvard 1935
- Willis H. Bowen: L'histoire de la Terre-Neuve du Péru. A Translation by Jacques Gohory, Isis, Volume 28, 1938, pp. 330-340
- Willis H. Bowen: The Earliest Treatise on Tobacco: Jacques Gohory's' Instruction sur l'herbe petum, Isis, Volume 28, 1938, pp. 347-363.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gohory, Jacques |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gohorri, Jacques; Gohorius, Jacobus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French alchemist and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 20, 1520 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 15, 1576 |
| Place of death | Paris |