Alexander Seton (Alchemist)

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Alexander Seton (also Setonius and others, he often called himself Kosmopolites) was a legendary alchemist who is reported from the beginning of the 17th century. He died in Basel before September 1606 .

Life

His origin and his life dates are unclear. The name points to Scotland. First he is said to have carried out a transmutation in Enkhuizen in March 1602 , from where he went to Rotterdam and Amsterdam and from there by ship to Italy. The traditional reports are mostly very similar: he demonstrates a transformation of base metal into gold and disappears again shortly afterwards. For example, Johann Wolfgang Dienheim , professor in Freiburg and both a doctor of law and doctor, reports about it in his Medicina universalis from 1610. He met Seton as a travel companion in the summer of 1603 on the trip from Zurich (where they visited Raphael Eglin ) to Basel, where Seton demonstrated his gold-making skills, since Dienheim and companion had expressed skepticism about alchemy. The respected Basel doctor Jakob Zwinger was present. Dienheim describes Seton as quite old, sensible, extremely modest, small in stature but well nourished, with a blooming complexion and with a chestnut brown beard in the French fashion, and with a cheerful disposition. He came to Dienheim from Scotland (Scotia, encapsulated as Molia , island in the ocean) and was accompanied by a red-haired servant, who was also referred to in later reports as William Hamilton and who seemed to have been something more than a mere servant he also took on demonstrations himself.

Seton competed even more often against skeptics of alchemy, whom he surprised with his demonstration, for example at the University of Helmstedt in the summer of 1603 in front of the philosophy professor Cornelius Martini (died 1621). Appearances in Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Cologne are also recorded. After a demonstration in front of the court of the Elector of Saxony Christian II in the autumn of 1603 in Crossen Castle , legend has it that he was arrested because they wanted to learn from him how the Philosopher's Stone was made, which is said to have caused the transmutation. He was tortured and detained under adverse conditions to get him to talk. According to legend, he was freed from prison by the alchemist Michał Sędziwój (Sendivogius), who received part of the transmutation powder from him in return (although not the secret of its manufacture). Shortly afterwards, he died as a result of his imprisonment. However, there was no historical evidence for this story of his stay in Saxony.

According to Hermann Kopp, Seton had been to Munich (where he married) and Stuttgart before his stay in Saxony. In Stuttgart he only narrowly escaped Duke Friedrich von Württemberg, who was very interested in alchemy (who also had Sendivogius imprisoned and had his court alchemist executed as part of this affair). In 1605 the duke sent envoys to England to capture Seton (he calls him Sydon , also Sylon or Stuuard ). According to the Duke, Seton had promised to reveal his secrets and received a large sum of money with which he ran away. According to Kopp, Seton died as a result of torture and imprisonment in January 1604 in Krakow, where Sendivogius had brought him.

Seton died in the Zwinger house in Basel, as Johannes Hartmann reports in a letter to Joseph Duchesne .

There are no printed writings from him, only a few recipes in handwriting.

According to Johann Weidner (correspondence with Zwinger) it is the Italian alchemist and impostor Girolamo Scotto (around 1540 to after 1601) from Piacenza .

literature

  • Claus Priesner : History of Alchemy, Beck 2011, p. 69ff
  • Julian Paulus, in: Claus Priesner , Karin Figala : Alchemie. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science, Beck 1998, pp. 335f
  • W. Hubicki: The mystery of Alexander Seton, the Cosmopolit , Poc. XIV. Int. Congress on the history of science, Tokyo 1975, pp. 397-400
  • J. Read: Scottish alchemy in the 17th century, Chymia, Vol. 1, 1948, pp. 139-151
  • L. Spence: Scotland's only alchemist, Scot's magazine, Volume 44, 1945, pp. 119-128.
  • J. Ferguson: Bibliotheca Chemica, Glasgow 1906, Volume 2, pp. 374-377

Individual evidence

  1. This pseudonym was also used by the alchemist Sendivogius
  2. Priesner, Geschichte der Alchemie, Beck, 2011, p. 69
  3. Priesner, History of Alchemy, p. 69
  4. There he came after Karl Christoph Schmieder Geschichte der Alchemie 1832, p. 326, on a return visit to a Dutch captain Johann Hanssen, whom he helped with a shipwreck in Scotland. The story is passed down by Daniel Georg Morhof.
  5. ^ Schmieder, p. 327f
  6. Jakob Zwinger (1559-1610). Father of theology professor Theodor Zwinger the Younger and medicine professor in Basel. A report has also been received from Jakob Zwinger (made for the alchemist Sebastian Schobinger (1579–1652) in St. Gallen), which confirms that of Dienheim and reports on a second demonstration by Seton at a pharmacist. The Zwinger family kept the piece of gold that Seton supposedly made from lead for a long time.
  7. ^ Schmieder p. 340. Thereafter, the story of Johann Zwelfer is passed down in his Pharmakopeia Regia
  8. Executed by William Hamilton, who then escaped to Holland and England
  9. The story can be found in Karl Christoph Schmieder's History of Alchemy , Halle 1832, p. 325f, and also in Hermann Kopp's Die Alchemie , Heidelberg 1886, Volume 1, p. 127f
  10. ^ Alchemie, Volume 1, p. 127
  11. ^ So also Schmieder, p. 345