Holy Roman Empire

In 1784 this freelance diplomat joined the court of Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, and rapidly rose to become head of the ineffectual Bavarian Army. For his contributions to building up Bavaria s defensive strength, in 1793 he was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and took the name Count Rtimford, since that was the original name of the... 

Nummedal, Tara E. "Adepts and artisans alchemical practice in the Holy Roman Empire, 1550-1620." PhD thesis, Stanford Univ., 2001. 

Nummedal, Tara E. "Practical alchemy and commercial exchange in the Holy Roman Empire." In Merchants and marvels commerce and the representation of Nature in early modern Europe, eds. Paula Findlen and Pamela H. Smith, 201-222. New York Routledge, 2002. 

In The Business of Alchemy, Pamela Smith explores the relationships among alchemy, the court, and commerce in order to illuminate the cultural history of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In showing how an overriding concern with religious salvation was transformed into a concentration on material increase and economic policies, Smith depicts the rise of modern science and early capitalism. In pursuing this narrative, she focuses on that ideal prey of the cultural historian, an intellectual of the second rank whose career and ideas typify those of a generation. Smith follows the career of Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682) from university to court, his... 

Smith, Pamela H. The business of alchemy science and culture in the Holy Roman Empire. 1994 reprint, Princeton (NJ) Princeton Univ P, 1997. xii, 308 p. ISBN 0-691-01599-6... 

Smith, Pamela H. "Alchemy, credit, and the commerce of words and things Johann Joachim Becher at the courts of the Holy Roman Empire, 1635-82." PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins Univ, 1991. 

Cook, Harold John. Review of The business of alchemy Science and culture in the Holy Roman Empire, by Pamela H. Smith. In Studs Hist Philos Sci 27, no. 3 (Sep 1996) 387-396.. ... 

The Business of Alchemy Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. 

Bechers amazing career is the subject of Pamela H. Smith s book, The Business of AU chemy Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (Princeton, New Jersey Princeton University Press, 1994). 

Another robe belonging to the coronation costumes of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is the Tunicella illustrated in Figure 11, which was made in the first half of the 12th century in the royal court workshop in Sicily. I received 23,9 mg of the dark blue dress material and 15,3 mg of the red border for a dye analysis. IR spectra comparison of the dye shaken out of the vat with ethyl acetate showed unambiguously that indigo had been used to dye the dark blue dress material. 

Acknowledgements are also due to Dr. Rotraud Bauer, Vienna, for providing me with large analytical samples of the coronation robes of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Without her assistance, it would not have been possible for me to present such precise analytical results. 

This book follows Sommering and his contemporaries as they struggled to define what it meant to practice alchemy in the early modern Holy Roman Empire. The dramatic burst of interest in alchemy in this period was accompanied by a great deal of disagreement about some of the most fundamental facets of alchemical practice. What was the best way to gain alchemical expertise, and what kinds of things could alchemists actually produce Was alchemy simply a way to create medicines and precious metals, or must practitioners combine that work with a more sophisticated intellectual or even spiritual project Should they sell their knowledge to patrons or other practitioners Debates about alchemical ideas and practices were hardly new in the sixteenth century, of course from the time... 

Like the prince-bishop of Wurzburg, some early modern rulers expressed the hope that alchemy could fund various kinds of political projects. Without question, the territorial states of the empire faced growing costs in the sixteenth century. Many rulers simply needed an additional source of income to make up for budgetary shortfalls, and alchemy s promise of transmutation could easily seem to offer a solution. This financial crisis had deep roots since at least the fifteenth century, the princes, nobility, and clergy of the Holy Roman Empire had had difficulties generating enough revenue solely from their traditional sources of income in an... 

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