Michał Sędziwój

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Portrait from 1862

Michał Sędziwój (also Michael Sendivogius or Sędzimir , Latin Sendivogius Polonius ; * February 2, 1566 in Łukowica , Poland; † between May 20 and August 12, 1636 in Deutsch Krawarn , then located in Silesia , now the Czech Republic ) was a Polish nobleman from the heraldic community of Ostoja, alchemist , philosopher and doctor . He was at the court and in the service of Rudolf II in Prague and later the Emperor Ferdinand in Vienna, and was a diplomat from Sigismund III. Wasa , at times as a double agent. As a pioneer in chemistry , the results of his chemical experiments gained practical importance and a. in metallurgy . His works inspired Isaac Newton , Michael Maier , Johann Rudolph Glauber (who corresponded with him), Thomas Vaughan and other alchemists.

Life

Coat of arms of the Ostoja clan

Sędziwój was the offspring of a noble family that belonged to the Ostoja clan. The family had a small estate near Nowy Sącz near Cracow. His father Jacob Sędzimir sent him to study in Krakow , where he first studied philosophy and theology, but turned to mathematics and the natural sciences and came to alchemy through the writings of Arnaldus de Villanova . Sędziwój also visited most of the European countries, he studied in Vienna (1591), Altdorf (1594/95), Leipzig (1590) and possibly Cambridge , visited Padua , Rome , Naples , Venice and, according to some information, Constantinople .

After Prinke, Veronika Stiebar von Buttenheim was Sędziwój's first wife. The marriage was concluded in 1594. Veronika had previously been married to Hans Ehrenfried von und zu Absberg and was a wealthy widow when she married. She died of the plague in Prague on October 23, 1599, as did two of his four children (Veronica and Christopher survived).

From 1593 he traveled to Rudolf II in Prague, where he worked in his alchemical laboratory in the Hradschin. He was in his service as a courtier (from 1598 imperial council) and came close to him personally due to shared alchemical interests. He was also from 1594 as a diplomat for the Polish King Sigismund III. Wasa active (which was made possible by the friendship of the two rulers and their common interests). In 1597 he bought the Libeř estate near Prague from Edward Kelley's widow . Around this time he changed his name from Sedzimir to the more noble sounding Sedziwoj (Latinized Sendivogius). In 1599 he was involved in a court case in Prague with the heirs of the alchemist (and wealthy merchant) Ludvik Koralek, who died in the same year (they accused him of being responsible for his death, of ruining him financially and demanding money). He was therefore in prison, but was acquitted, not least thanks to the influence of the Polish king. Sendivogius, however, was disappointed by the lack of support from Rudolf II in this affair and sold his estate near Prague to move back to Poland. From 1600 to 1603 he seems to have been mostly in Poland, on a diplomatic mission (he negotiated between Poland and the emperor about access to the Black Sea). The Polish king himself was interested in alchemy and in the Wawel in Krakow you can still see the chamber where both of them carried out experiments. The Polish nobility, on the other hand, were a thorn in the side of the large sums for the experiments. Sendivogius was later also active in mining and foundries in Poland.

In 1604, in front of Rudolph II in Prague, he is said to have carried out a legendary transmutation of a silver coin into gold, after which the impressed emperor had a plaque put up with the inscription Faciat hoc quispiam alius quod fecit Sendivogius Polonus (another accomplish what the Pole Sendivogius accomplished ).

In 1605 he was arrested and imprisoned on the trip to Stuttgart (as a detour during a diplomatic mission in France) to see Duke Friedrich von Württemberg . The Duke of Württemberg probably wanted to receive information from him about the Philosopher's Stone, which Sendivogius boasted in his book. This resulted in a widespread affair - the Polish king and Rudolf II as well as several other princes successfully campaigned for his release. The Duke put the blame on his court alchemist Johann Müller von Mühlenfels , who was hanged as a scapegoat. There are also reports that he freed the Scottish alchemist Alexander Seton from prison in Saxony in exchange for alchemical secrets , but this is probably a legend and cannot be substantiated by documents.

In 1608 he was at the instigation of the voivode Jerzy Mniszech in Moscow as a diplomat in a dangerous mission in connection with the false Demetrius . He then oversaw mines and foundries in Poland (especially the iron industry in Klobuck), where he had close contacts with Marshal Mikolaj Wolski (1555-1630). In 1610 he was briefly in Mantua. In 1616 he was in Marburg and renewed his acquaintance with the alchemist and professor Johann Hartmann , whom he already knew from Prague. In the same year he also met Michael Maier , who included him in his book Symbola aureae mensae . Afterwards he was advisor and agent of the emperor in Vienna (and was supposed to supervise lead mines in Silesia) and moved to Krakow in 1624 after a trip to Padua. There he had contacts again with Wolski, who belonged to the Habsburg Party in Poland. For some time he seems to have worked for both the emperor in Vienna and the Polish king, i.e. as a double agent. In his later years he was often in Vienna and occasionally in Krakow (where he owned several houses). After demanding outstanding funds from the emperor in vain for a long time, he received the villages of Deutsch Krawarn and Kautern in the Duchy of Jägerndorf from Emperor Ferdinand II in 1630 , but these were not free of debt and Sendivoglius had to make further entries. Then there was the turmoil of the Thirty Years War. Shortly before his death, he wanted to sell it. There is a letter from his daughter Maria Veronica von Eichendorff from the year of his death in 1636.

He was held in high esteem in alchemical treatises of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was assumed that he was a Rosicrucian and that he was in possession of the great secret .

Sendivogius founded a secret society of "Unknown Philosophers" , for which he wrote statutes that have been preserved.

plant

His best known book was 12 Tracts on the Philosopher's Stone, Obtained from Nature and Research (De lapide philosophorum tractatus duodecim, also known as New Chemical Light , Novum Lumen Chymicum), published in 1604 under the pseudonym Divi Leschi Genus Amo . The book appeared in 56 editions up to 1787, has been translated repeatedly and read by a wide audience, including personalities such as Isaac Newton . In it he criticized speculative alchemists and attached importance to the experiment long before Robert Boyle .

As a pioneer in chemistry, he developed various ways of extracting or producing various acids , metals and other chemical compounds. Years before Scheele and Priestley he discovered that air is not just a single substance and has a life-giving and fire-nourishing component. He correctly identified this food of life with the gas released when sodium nitrate is heated (later known as oxygen). This substance, the central nitrate ( invisible niter , philosophical saltpetre ) was the focus of Sędziwój's theory about the universe. According to Sendivogius, it came from the rays of the sun and moon through rain and moisture into the earth, where it formed saltpetre. Depending on the environment, the central salt in the soil also matured into various metals. Nitric acid (i.e. nitric acid) also formed the basis of a universal solvent (Alkahest) that he propagated and which, according to him, returned the substances to their original form (Materia Prima).

After Paracelsus introduced salt as the third pillar next to mercury and sulfur in alchemy, Sendivogius gave it a special emphasis and a new twist on an interaction with components of the air, which compared to the fixation of classical alchemists on metals perceived as a new aspect in alchemy has been.

According to Szydlo, Sendivogius had a direct influence on Robert Boyle and John Mayow with his doctrine of life-giving constituents of the air , who carried out preliminary experiments in the 17th century on the current understanding of combustion and the discovery of oxygen. This view of Sendivogius from the point of view of modern chemistry has been criticized by the alchemy historian Antonio Clericuzio .

Other books are his Operatie elixiris philosophici , the first alchemical work, which was mainly published in Polish and arose from his experiences in Italy, the treatise on the salts of 1598 (published not until 1620), and in contrast to the alchemical literature of the time clear Contained laboratory instructions (e.g. for the production of sodium nitrate, nitric acid, aqua regia, nitric oxide), and in 1613 the treatise on sulfur , in which he goes into the teaching of Paracelsus . In addition to Paracelsus, he was also influenced by Alexander von Suchten . In his Conversations of Mercury (Cologne 1607), a kind of satire on alchemy, he turned against the deception of goldmakers. He enjoyed a European reputation as an alchemist, even after his death, but attached importance to secrecy and published his works anonymously.

Sędziwój as a character in a novel

Alchemy Michał Sędziwój by Jan Matejko , oil on canvas (73 × 130 cm), Museum of Arts in Łódź

The character of Sędziwój appeared for the first time in 1845 in the book Sędziwoj by Józef Bohdan Dziekoński, a writer from the romantic era in Poland. The Polish painter Jan Matejko , realist of the 19th century, portrayed Sędziwój as he was before King Sigismund III. Wasa demonstrated the transmutation of a common metal into gold. Sędziwój is also a character in a novella by Gustav Meyrink , a German-speaking author from Prague who often wrote about alchemy and alchemists. It was published in 1925 as part of the goldmaker's stories by August Scherl Verlag in Berlin. Nowadays Sędziwój appears in several books by the Polish writer Andrzej Pilipiuk ( Kuzynki, Księżniczka, Dziedziczki ). This was also shown as alchemist Sendivius in a Polish television series in the 1980s.

Fonts

  • De Lapide Philosophorum, Tractatus duodecim, é Natura Fonte, et Manuali Experientia deprompti, Prague 1604 (under the pseudonym Divi Leschi Genus Amo )
    • also as Novum Lumen Chymicum , Prague 1604 (under the pseudonym Cosmopolitanus). Of these, 47 editions and 9 reprints were published by 1787.
    • also published in 1624 with commentary by Orthelius and further texts by various authors
  • Tractatus de Sulphure, Cologne 1616 (under the anagram Angelus doce mihi ius , 26 editions and 9 reprints by 1787)
  • Dialogus Mercurii, Alchymistae et Naturae, Cologne 1607 (under the pseudonym Divi Leschi Genus Amo, 32 editions and 9 reprints until 1787)
  • Cinquante-Cinq Lettres Philosophiques, 1671
  • Processus super centrum universi, seu Sal centrale, in Johann Joachim Becher Chymischer Glückshafen or Grosse Chymische Concordanz , Frankfurt 1682 (reprinted several times)

His writings are also reprinted in the Theatrum Chemicum , Musaeum Hermeticum and the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa .

Reprints:

  • Cosmopolite ou nouvelle lumiere physique, preface C.-J. Faust, Gutenberg Reprints, Paris 1991 (reprint of the French translation of Novum Lumen Chymicum, Paris 1723)

literature

  • Wlodzimierz Hubicki, Sendivogius, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • W. Hubicki: Michael Sendivogius's Theory, it origin and significance in the history of chemistry , Proc. 10th. Int. Congress History of Science, Ithaca 1962, Paris 1964, pp. 829-833
  • W. Hubicki: The true life of Michael Sendivogius , Actes du XI. Congrès Internat. d´Histoire des Sciences, IV, Warsaw 1965, pp. 31–35
  • Karin Figala , Sendivogius (Sedzimir or Sedziwoj), Michael , in: Claus Priesner , Karin Figala: Alchemie. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science, Beck 1998, pp. 332-334
  • Roman Bugaj: Michał Sędziwój (1566–1636): Życie i Pisma , Breslau 1968 (Polish, with a German summary, the basic biography)
  • Zbigniew Szydlo: Water which does not wet hands. The alchemy of Michael Sendivogius . London, Warsaw (Polish Academy of Sciences) 1994. (English)
  • Zbigniew Szydło: Woda, która nie moczy rąk. Alchemia Michała Sędziwoja . Wydawnictwa Naukowo-Techniczne, Warsaw 1997, ISBN 83-204-2117-9 . (Polish)
  • Z. Szydlo: The alchemy of Michael Sendivogius. His central nitral theory , Ambix, Vol. 40, 1993, pp. 129-146
  • Rudolf Soukup: Chemistry in Austria , Volume 1, Böhlau 2007
  • William R. Newman : Gehennical Fire. The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution , University of Chicago Press 1994
  • Rafal T. Prinke: The twelfth adept , in: The Rosicrucian Enlightman revisited , Lindisfarne Books, pp. 141-192.
  • Didier Kahn : Le Tractus de Sulphure de Michael Sendivogius (1616). Une alchimie entre philosophie naturelle et mystique , in: Christian Thomasset, L'écriture du texte scientifique: des origines de la langue française au Moyen Age, Presse de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2006, p. 193
  • Entry in: Winfried R. Pötsch, Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists . Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-8171-1055-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frankfurt, Rostock, Ingolstadt, Wittenberg, Cambridge were also mentioned (by his biographer Carolides a Caspergis). Evidenced by matriculation in Leipzig, Vienna (1591), Altdorf (1595), Rudolf Soukup Chemie in Austria , 2007. Since he was already in imperial service in 1595, he was there in 1595 probably not as a student, but on an official mission.
  2. ↑ Rafał T. Prinke: Veronika Stabelin, the wife of Michael Sendivogius. P. 161 ff. (English).
  3. ^ Ulrich Petzold:  Müller von Mühlenfels (Müllenfels), Johann (Hans) Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 424 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ↑ Hubicki, Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  5. ^ Szydlo: Water which do not wet hands. 1994.
  6. ↑ Lech was the legendary founder of Poland. The pseudonym was an anagram of his name and means that he loves the divine people of the Poles .
  7. ↑ According to Szydlo, it was specifically potassium nitrate
  8. ↑ Orthelius or Ortel was identified by Jost Weyer with Andreas Ortel from Rudolstadt , from the 1570s medic and laboratory assistant at the court of Count Wolfgang II von Hohenlohe in Weikersheim , 1624/25 and 1630/31 student in Jena, from 1630 to 1637 chemist at the court Saxon Elector Johann Georg I in Dresden. According to Telle, Alchemie und Poesie, Volume 1, De Gruyter 2013, p. 767 (footnote) there are other alternatives. There was a Saxon pastor of this name who was published in 1635 and 1640, and a Saxon Spagyricus electoralis named A. Ortel, from whom a poem from 1641 has been preserved.
  9. ↑ Review of Antonio Clericuzio : Water which does not wet hands: the alchemy of Michael Sendivogius, Med. Hist., Volume 40, 1996, pp. 520-521, PMC 1037185 (free full text)
personal data
SURNAME Sędziwój, Michał
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sendivogius, Michael; Sędzimir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish alchemist, philosopher, doctor and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1566
PLACE OF BIRTH Łukowica , Lesser Poland
DATE OF DEATH between May 20, 1636 and August 12, 1636
Place of death German cravat near Opava