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Alchemy, Prophecy, and Politics in EighteenthCentury Iberia: Anselmo Castelo Branco's Critique of Benito Feijoo José Vieira Leitão To cite this article: José Vieira Leitão (2016) Alchemy, Prophecy, and Politics in EighteenthCentury Iberia: Anselmo Castelo Branco's Critique of Benito Feijoo, Ambix, 63:4, 304-325, DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2016.1283148 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2016.1283148
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Date: 17 February 2017, At: 03:52
ambix, Vol. 63 No. 4, November 2016, 304–325
Alchemy, Prophecy, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Iberia: Anselmo Castelo Branco’s Critique of Benito Feijoo José Vieira Leitão Independent scholar, Haarlem, The Netherlands
The Benedictine monk Benito Jerónimo Feijoo (1676–1764) is now considered one of the major figures of the Spanish and Iberian Enlightenment. However his work, both in Spain and in Portugal, was far from being universally acclaimed. His critical approach to the subject of alchemy in his essay “Piedra Filosofal,” published in the third volume of his magisterial Teatro Crítico Universal (1726–1739), sparked an unexpected response from the Portuguese alchemist Anselmo Castelo Branco, who sought to refute Feijoo’s claims in his own work, the Ennoea. This paper presents an outline of this exchange and its position within Iberian Enlightenment circles. It further argues that Castelo Branco’s defence of alchemy was informed by his political and prophetic views, in particular his adherence to the Portuguese messianic doctrine of Sebastianism.
Introduction The eighteenth century marked a period of deep intellectual crisis in Spain and Portugal.1 At the centre of this turmoil was Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro (1676–1764), a Galician-born Benedictine priest who took up the role of cultural warrior, as an opponent of superstition, obscurantism, and outdated ideas.2 His vast and systematic battle record, collected in the eight volumes of the Teatro Crítico Universal (1726–1739) and the additional five volumes of the Cartas eruditas y curiosas (1742–1760), attracted detractors from its first inception, particularly 1
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Pinharanda Gomes, A Filosofia Hebraica-Portuguesa: História da Filosofia Portuguesa I (Lisbon: Guimarães Editores, 1999), 385. Juan López Marichal, “Feijoo y su papel de desenganador de las españas,” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 3 (1951): 313–23.
© Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 2017
DOI 10.1080/00026980.2016.1283148
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among the established academic classes who were quick to defend their age-old fields of knowledge.3 One of those outraged was the Portuguese scholar Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Abreu Gusmão e Castelo Branco (fl. 1730s), a Coimbra-trained physician and alchemist who rose to defend his practice against the eighth discourse of the third volume of Feijoo’s Teatro, entitled “Piedra Filosofal” (“The Philosophical Stone”). He published a response to Feijoo in Part XIII of the first dialogue of his alchemical opus, Ennoea.4 The clash between Feijoo and Castelo Branco, two individuals with strikingly different views of the universe, offers a valuable example of Iberian knowledge about – and attitudes toward – the topic of alchemy in the eighteenth century. Serious studies on Iberian alchemy and early chymistry are rare (even if primary sources are not), and the field remains underdeveloped. Consequently, Feijoo’s discourse and Castelo Branco’s refutation of it offer a precious cache of information, including ideas, names, authors, and books current in Iberian intellectual circles. By combing through the arguments and counter-arguments set out by Feijoo and Castelo Branco, this paper aims to situate eighteenth-century Iberian thinking on alchemy in relation to the wider context of early modern Europe.
Feijoo and Castelo Branco Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro was born on 8 October 1676 in the village of Casdemiro, Galicia (Bishopric of Ourence), to a family belonging to the local lower nobility,5 although he spent most of his youth in Allariz. His formal education began at the Real Colegio de San Esteban of Ribas de Sil,6 but at the age of twelve he renounced his inheritance rights as the eldest of his brothers and entered the Benedictine monastery of San Julián de Samos, taking the habit two years later.7 From then until 1709, Feijoo proceeded with his religious training while studying and teaching in various Benedictine colleges in Galicia and León, as well as at the Colegio de San Vicente de Salamanca. He showed evidence of a critical mind from an early age, and his interest in scientific and philosophical ideas from 3
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Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro, Teatro crítico universal, o Discursos varios en todo género de materias para desengaño de errores comunes (“Universal Critical Theatre, or Various Discourses on all Kinds of Matters for the Dispelling of Common Errors”) (Madrid, 1726–1739); Feijoo, Cartas eruditas, y curiosas, en que, por la mayor parte, se continúa el desígnio del Teatro Crítico Universal, impugnando, o reduciendo a dudosas, varias opiniones comunes (“Curious and Erudite Letters, in which, for the Most Part, the Purpose of the Universal Critical Theatre is Continued, Questioning, or Showing to be Doubtful, Several Common Opinions”) (Madrid, 1742–1760). Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Abreu Gusmão e Castelo Branco, Ennoea, ou applicaçaõ do entendimento sobre a Pedra Philosophal Provada, e Defendida Com os mesmos argumentos com que os Reverendissimos Padres Athanasio Kircker no seu Mundo Subterraneo e Fr. Bento Hieronymo Feyjoo no seu Theatro Critico, concedendo a possibilidade, negaõ, e impugnaõ a existência deste raro, e grande mysterio da Arte Magna (“Ennoea, or Application of the Understanding of the Philosophical Stone, Proved and Defended with the Same Arguments with which the most Reverend Fathers Athanasius Kircher in his Mundus Subterraneus and Friar Benito Jerónimo Feijoo in his Teatro crítico Conceded its Possibility, but Denied and Contested the Existence of this Rare and Great Mystery of the Great Art”) (Occidental Lisbon: Nova Officina de Maurício Vicente de Almeida, 1733). Franciso Sánchez-Blanco, La Mentalidad Ilustrada (Madrid: Taurus, 1999), 63. Ivy L. McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo (New York: Twayne Publisher, 1969), 1. McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, 2.
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beyond the Pyrenees may have been further fuelled by his teachers at the Colegio.8 Unlike many educational institutions in Iberia, this school maintained an active cultural exchange with the French Congregation of Saint Maur, promoting the study of anti-scholastic ideas.9 Settling in Oviedo (Asturias) to take his doctorate while teaching at the city university, Feijoo gradually increased his knowledge of the intellectual atmosphere outside his country, taking advantage of the proximity of the port of Gijón, which gave him easy access to new information, books, and instruments.10 There he worked on the Teatro Critíco Univeral (completing it around 1739) and Cartas Eruditas (completed 1760). This ground-breaking and prolific opus established him as a universally recognised author both in and beyond Spain; he counted Pope Benedict XIV among his readers, and enjoyed the patronage and protection of King Ferdinand VI (1713–1759), who issued a decree forbidding further attacks on his books in 1750.11 Feijoo’s works have usually been studied in relation to the Ilustración Española (Spanish Enlightenment).12 While I do not wish to engage in a discussion of the exact nature of the Ilustración at this point, one aspect which should be kept in mind, particularly in the case of Feijoo (a Benedictine friar), is its constant adjustment to Catholicism. The Catholic roots of the Ilustración are at times paradigmatically visible in the Teatro. Even while enforcing and promoting scientific and rationalistic ideas, Feijoo can be seen to take a step back from a strictly secular academic agenda when dealing with religious topics. Nonetheless, his writings introduced to Spain the ideas of foreign thinkers and mathematicians such as Descartes, Locke, Boyle, Leibniz, and Newton; new developments disseminated by the Journal de Trévoux13 (Feijoo’s attention to this publication was such that he would even be accused of plagiarising it);14 and French authors such as Pierre Bayle and Bernard Fontenelle;15 all of this from an explicitly religious and Spanish perspective. Feijoo set down this information in a casual, conversational tone, giving his writing an almost intimate feel. Interestingly, this personalising aspect of his writing was more than just an aesthetic or functional choice, as the Teatro resembles almost a stream of consciousness, with topics coming and going 8
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Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), 37; Antonio Mestre Sanchis, “Reflexiones Sobre el Marco Político-Cultural de la Obra de P. Feijoo,” Bulletin Hispanique 91 (1989): 295–312. Mestre Sanchis, “Reflexiones,” 295–312. McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, 3–4; Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain, 38. McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, 6. On the nature of the Ilustracion Española and Feijoo’s place in it, see Sánchez-Blanco, La Mentalidad Ilustrada; Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain; José A. González Feijoo, El Pensamiento Ético- Político de B. J. Feijoo (Oviedo: Pentalfa Ediciones, 1991); and Jesús Pérez Magallón, Construyendo la modernidad: la cultura española en el tiempo de los novatores (1675–1725) (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2002). McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, 35–6. Feijoo, Teatro Crítico Universal, vol. 5 (Madrid: Real Compañia de Impresores y Libreros, 1733), 407; McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, 35–6. Ignacio Elizalde, “La influecia de Bayle y Fontenelle en Feijoo,” in Actas del VIII Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas, ed. A. David Kossoff, Jose Amor Y Vazquez, and Ruth Kossoff (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 1983), 497–509.
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according to Feijoo’s own experiences, current predilections, and readings. As Marichal suggests, the Teatro provides Feijoo’s own personal intellectual biography, a narrative of his intellectual development in which he invests more than his strict academic interests.16 In contrast with the famous Feijoo, we know almost nothing about Castelo Branco’s personal life. Most contemporary information is extracted from his own books, particularly the Ennoea, and from Diogo Barbosa Machado’s dictionary of Portuguese authors, the Bibliotheca Lusitana (Lisbon, 1741–1758).17 From the title page of the Ennoea we learn that Castelo Branco was “a Doctor in the University of Coimbra, Familiar of the Holy Office, physician of the most excellent Lord Duke of Aveiro and born in the most ancient Town of Soure.”18 Later he mentions that he possessed his own library and laboratory,19 travelled through Italy and France, and discussed alchemy with Cosimo III de’ Medici (1642–1723), Grand Duke of Tuscany, in Lisbon,20 which would place him in Portugal in 1669.21 If true, this last piece of information would make him at least seventy-five years old at the time of his rebuttal of Feijoo, given that he was probably already a Coimbra graduate at the time of his meeting with the Grand Duke, and that the third volume of the Teatro was published in 1729. Barbosa Machado further offers the information that Castelo Branco was the son of Antonio Munhós de Abreu (also a physician) and Simoa Godinha da Roza, and that he was versed in the “most polished languages of Europe”22 as well as in the “lesson of the holy fathers, the holy Bible, the Mathematical sciences and the occult mysteries of Chemistry.”23 Besides the Ennoea, five other books are usually attributed to him:24 Systema Medico Galeno–Chymico, a medical treatise on the “morbus hungaricus,”25 written in 1729 but never printed (an incomplete manuscript is held in the Portuguese National Library); the Polymathia Medica Hermetico–Galenica (known from his own report, although no physical copy has been located); the Vieira Abbreviado em Cem Discursos Moraes, e Politicos, in two volumes, the first printed in 1733 (according to Barbosa Machado)26 and the 16 17
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Marichal, “Feijoo y su papel,” 313–23. Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Historica, Critica, e Cronologica: Na Qual se Comprehende a Noticia dos Authores Portuguezes, que Compuseraõ Desde o Tempo de Promulgação da Ley da Graça até o Tempo Prezente, vol. I (Occidental Lisbon: Officina de Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1741), 178–79. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, title page: “Doutor na Universidade de Coimbra, Familiar do Santo Officio, Medico do Excellentissimo Senhor Duque de Aveiro, e natural da antiquíssima Villa de Soure.” Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. II, 29–30. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. II, 87–88. Carmen M. Radulet, “Cósimo III Medici and the Portuguese Restauration: A Voyage to Portugal in 1668–1669,” e-journal of Portuguese History 1 (2003). “[L]inguas mais polidas da Europa,” in Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, vol. I, 178. “[L]ição dos Santos Padres, sagrada Biblia, disciplinas Mathematicas, e misterios occultos da Chimica,” in Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, vol. I, 178. Yvette K. Centeno, Introduction to Ennoea, in Anselmo Caetano Munhós Castelo Branco, Ennoea ou Aplicação do Entendimento sobre a Pedra Filosofal (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1987), 5–32. Commonly called “back vomit” in Lisbon, but otherwise referred to as febre castrensi, today referred to as tuberculosis: see Hermann Friedrich Teichmeyer, Dissertatio Inavgvralis Medica De Morbo Hvngarico Sive Febre Castrensi (Jena: Litteris Schillianis, 1741), for example. Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, vol. I, 179.
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second in 1746,27 both in Lisbon; the Oraculo Prophetico, Prolegomeno da Teratologia, ou Historia Prodigiosa (Lisbon, 1733), a book on teratology;28 and the Escudo Apologetico, contraposto aos golpes do descuido critico (Lisbon, 1733), which seems to be a response to two Holy Office censors, and which Barbosa Machado claims was written under two pseudonyms, André Paulino and Marcos Valentim.29 Besides these, Barbosa Machado names two more teratology pamphlets, Onomatopeia Oannense (1732), a work on the amphibious monster that supposedly appeared out of the Black Sea in Constantinople in 1732; and the Vida, Nascimento e Morte de Xdato Faemineis (1733).30 Varying this theme, the Historia Gallega, em que se dá relação e verdadeira noticia das celebres Festas de um noivado a que assistiram Gonçalo de Pó, e Gil Noivo (1734), a pamphlet consisting of eight pages of verse, is also attested. These three titles were printed in Lisbon and written under the pseudonyms Robert Wainger, Vasco de Mendanha Coelho, and Jorge Martins Gallego respectively.31 These titles reveal the two main themes of Castelo Branco’s work, namely the medical/chymical and the prophetic, which came together in the Ennoea. Of his prophetic writings, the Oraculo Prophetico and the Vieira Abbreviado fit into the Portuguese messianic and millenarian trend of Sebastianism and the Quinto Império (the Portuguese-specific prophetic interpretation of the Fifth Empire mentioned in the second chapter of the Book of Daniel and Revelations). In its simplest form, Sebastianism was the belief that the lost Portuguese King Sebastian (1574–1578) survived the Battle of Alcazarquivir in 1578 and would imminently return to the Portuguese throne, overturning Spanish rule. To understand Castelo Branco’s full messianism and prophetism, it is necessary to look deeper into this aspect of Portuguese culture.
Sebastianism, chymistry, and eighteenth-century Portuguese intellectual circles What came to be called by the eighteenth century “Sebastianism” is actually an overlaying of ideas regarding Portuguese identity and self-perception dating back to the fourteenth century – a form of Portuguese messianism that originates in the narrative of the “Miracle of Ourique.”32 According to this popular Portuguese legend, the first Portuguese king, Afonso Henriques (1109–1185), had a vision of Christ on 27
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Anselmo Caetano Munhós de Abreu Gusmão e Castelo Banco, Vieira Abbreviado em Cem Discursos Moraes, e Politicos, Divididos em Dous Tomos (Lisbon: Officina de Miguel Rodrigues, 1746). Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, vol. I, 178. Centeno, Introduction, 5–32. Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, vol. I, 178 Innocencio Francisco da Silva, Diccionario Bibliogaphico Portuguez, vol. I (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1858), 75. As proposed by José Eduardo Franco and Bruno Cardoso Reis, “Estudo Introdutório: O Quinto Império de Sebastião de Paiva: Genealogia e carácter de um Messianismo Sebástico,” in Frei Sebastião de Paiva, Tratado da Quinta Monarquia (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2006), 59. My subsequent discussion of Sebastianism draws on this work.
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the field of the battle of Ourique in a in hoc signo vinces style of narrative. This legend presents the foundation of Portugal as a providential kingdom of (and for) Christ, whose rulers were divinely protected and anointed directly from God, evoking the idea of Portugal as a second Israel and the Portuguese as a new chosen people. The propagation of this narrative is usually considered in connection to the Portuguese succession crises of 1383–1385 (even though the original record predates this) and the need to establish the legal and divine legitimacy of the claim of John I (1357–1433) to the Portuguese crown in opposition to the claim of John I of Castile (1358–1390), making it a propaganda tool of Portuguese exceptionality in the face of Castilian/Spanish aggression. The Portuguese imperial campaign and the consequent expansion of the Christian faith seemed to be the proof and fulfilment of the Miracle of Ourique, consecrating Portugal’s apostolic and eschatological role as a possible candidate for the Fifth Empire of the Book of Daniel.33 All these elements came to a climax with the disappearance of King Sebastian in battle during an ill-fated campaign in Morocco, and the subsequent seizure of the Portuguese crown by Phillip II of Spain in 1580, which established Sebastian as an imminently-returning, messiah-like figure who would end the Castilian captivity (a breach of the divine plan according to the exegesis of Ourique). Yet Sebastianism, originally a nationalistic movement, only became explicitly religious in 1587. The Trovas do Bandarra, a book of folk prophecies arising from the Portuguese marrano culture34 which prophesied the return to Portugal of a Hidden Emperor King, the Encoberto (“Hidden One”), was interpreted by D. João de Castro (ca. 1550–ca. 1623) as referring to King Sebastian.35 With the restoration of Portuguese independence in 1640 and the acclamation of King John IV (1604–1656), the new king, as the liberator of the Portuguese people, was soon accepted – either for political reasons or from genuine faith – as the Encoberto of the Sebastianist prophesies. This marked a split in the movement between the orthodox Sebastianists, who identified the Encoberto with Sebastian and still expected his (miraculous) physical return, and the heterodox Sebastianists (also referred to as Joanists) who identified the Encoberto with John IV or with any of his descendents. Consequently, at each major step in its development, Sebastianism can be seen as a religious and nationalistic ideology constructed on the basis of anti-Spanish sentiment. Castelo Branco perfectly expressed Sebastianism as it manifested in the eighteenth century; in his dedication of the Ennoea, he discussed in detail the theory of the Quinto Império, his belief in the Miracle of Ourique, and his own prophecy that the woman crowned with twelve stars of the Apocalypse was in fact Portugal.36 Another interesting personal touch is his claim that the foundation of the Quinto Imperio
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Eduardo Franco and Cardoso Reis, “Estudo Introdutório,” 65. Gomes, A Filosofia Hebraica–Portuguesa, 260. Bryan Givens, “Sebastianism in Theory and Practice in Early Modern Portugal,” in Braudel Revisited: The Mediterranean World, 1600–1800, ed. Gabriel Piterberg, Teofilo F. Ruiz, and Geoffrey Symcox (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 127–50. João de Castro was the grandson of D. João de Castro, the fourth viceroy of India. Castelo Branco, “Dedicatoria,” Ennoea, 10; 32; 42.
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would in fact be in Mafra (a district of Lisbon where construction of a monumental palace–convent began in 1717), which he defended in the Ennoea and, according to Manuel Grandra, in the Oraculo Prophetico and the Systema Medico Galeno– Chymico.37 Castelo Branco’s Vieira Abbreviado can also be read in this light, as it is presented as a distilled exposition of the ideas of the seventeenth-century Jesuit António Vieira.38 Vieira, besides being a prolific philosopher and writer, was the foremost Sebastianist thinker (although technically a Joanist), pioneering the Portuguese intellectual trend of fitting biblical and apocryphal prophesies to the realities of the Portuguese Empire and the new Braganza dynasty, culminating in the book Historia do Futuro (“History of the Future”), published posthumously in Lisbon in 1718. Castelo Branco thus explicitly supported Sebastianism and sought to reconcile it with his own alchemical work. In his Ennoea, he wrote: the most Excellent Count of Ericiera D. Francisco Xavier de Menezes on one occasion in my presence called the Philosophical Stone the Sebastianism of Philosophy; for all men of great knowledge are Chrysopoeians, just as Heroes of great understanding are Sebastianists. The Sebastianists are discreetly compared with the Hermetics; for there is as much doubt in the existence of the Lapis as in that of the Lord King Sebastian; for both are hidden. But let us leave Sebastianism now, concerning which I have no doubts …39
What is problematic about this passage is the fact that Castelo Branco does not clearly position himself in the debate between Sebastianists and Joanists, at times seeming to support the divine and providential nature of the third Portuguese dynasty (initiated by John IV) and King John V’s (1689–1750) destiny as the first emperor of the Fifth Empire, while also seeming to identify the Encoberto as Sebastian. Be that as it may, in the Ennoea his Sebastianist faith did not seem to specifically influence his alchemical work. Apart from this excerpt, he drew no explicit connection between the two practices. The reference to D. Francisco Xavier de Menezes (1673–1743), the fourth count of Ericeira, is also telling. One of the most influential promoters of the Portuguese Enlightenment and the culture of the academies, Menezes was particularly associated with the informal Academia dos Discretos (Academy of the Discreet) and the Academia dos Generosos (Academy of the Generous).40 This apparent proximity 37 38 39
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Manuel J. Gandra, O Monumento de Mafra de A a Z, vol. I (Mafra: Câmara Municipal, 2002), 151. Castelo Banco, Vieira Abbreviado, 8. “[O] Insignissimo, e Exellentissimo Conde da Ericeira D. Francisco Xavier de Menezes chamou em huma ocasiaõ na minha prezensa à Pedra Philosophal Sebastianismo da Philosophia; porque todos os homens de grande juízo saõ Chrysopeios, assim como os Herois de grande entendimento saõ Sebastianistas … Estaõ discretamente comparados os Sebastianistas, com os Hermeticos; porque tanta duvida tem a existência do Lapis, como a do Senhor Rey D. Sebastião; porque ambos estão encubertos. Porèm deixando agora o Sebastianismo, em que naõ tenho duvida.” Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. 1, 20. Isabel, M. R. Drumond Braga, “A ‘voz nas palavras’: O português falado e escrito no tempo de Bluteau,” Biblos: Revista da Faculdade de Letras LXXVIII (2002): 185–222.
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to Menezes helps to situate Castelo Branco as an Enlightenment sympathiser, familiar with scientific and philosophical developments outside Iberia. Castelo Branco was not the only chymist–physician in Menezes’ circle. From the beginning of the eighteenth century, a number of Coimbra-trained physicians had already risen as promoters of new medical paradigms and reconceptualisations of healing through chymistry, most notably João Curvo Semedo (1635–1719) and Francisco da Fonseca Henriques (1665–1731). These men constantly sought to reconcile their classical, Galenic Coimbra training with modern chymistry, formulating extremely personal and idiosyncratic conceptions of how medicine functioned, and the effectiveness of chymistry as a therapeutic option. This resulted in some fascinating examples of medical practice, not only organised along (Catholic) confessional lines but also intended to represent a distinctive Portuguese identity, in the tradition of the seventeenth-century Lusitani Periti.41 Likewise, Castelo Branco’s attitudes are not easy to fit into any concrete intellectual system, but can perhaps be considered as representing a moment of transition between the strict classicism of his Coimbra training and the new ideas percolating into the Portuguese academic world. Castelo Branco originally intended the Ennoea as his last work and crowning achievement,42 but this plan apparently did not succeed as it was published in two parts, in 1732 and 1733.43 Both parts of the Ennoea are organised as dialogues between the characters of Enodato and Enodio,44 respectively a teacher and student. The first part is largely an apology and defence of chrysopoeia, which refers to and quotes from numerous authorities (which Castelo Branco’s position as Familiar of the Inquisition would have allowed him to read), tracing its (often mythical) authors and origins through time, from Hebrew to Roman and Arabic alchemy. This first part closes with the rebuttal of Feijoo’s anti-alchemical discourse, examined below. The second part offers Castelo Branco’s own work on practical or operative alchemy, including several digressions into complex, symbolic narratives that he explicitly refers to as riddles for the dedicated reader. Although the largest and most visible book dealing explicitly with alchemy to be written in Portugal, the Ennoea nevertheless emerges from a pre-existing literary trend, a fact acknowledged by Castelo Branco.45 Among Sebastianist writings, we also know of an “Annotaçam Crysopea” written by Manuel Bocarro Francês (1588?–1668) or Jacob Rosales (a Portuguese Jewish physician, mathematician, astrologer, and Sebastianist) as an addition to the four-part poem Anacephaleoses
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Ian Maclean, “Lusitani Periti: Portuguese Medical Authors, National Identity and Bibliography in the Late Renaissance,” in Learning and the Market Place: Essays in the History of the Early Modern Book (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 371–401. Castelo Branco, “Prologo Galeato,” Ennoea, 171–72. Centeno, Introduction, 5–32. Both these names have their root in the Latin enodo, to untangle, explain or unfold. Accordingly, “Enodato” means to make clear or easy to understand, while “Enodio” should be “without knots” or “flexible.” Castelo Branco, “Prologo Galeato,” Ennoea, 83.
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da Monarchia Luzitana from 1624 (of which only the first part was published),46 whose dedication to Phillip II seems to be ironical. The “Annotaçam Crysopea” is presented as an explanation of octaves thirtyseven to fifty six of the first part of the Anacephaleoses, which draw extensively on alchemical nomenclature. However, Francês explicitly states that he has no firsthand experience of gold-making or metallic transformations,47 making the “Annotaçam” a purely theoretical text composed largely of quotations and references to other sources. Overall, the alchemical components of this lengthy poem (heavily influenced by Luis Vaz de Camões) are meant to be part of a poetic description of the creation of the universe inserted in an astrological reading of history leading up to “the not fortunate but certain time”48 of “the people who lost the fatal Sebastian.”49 Within the wider current of Sebastianism, Francês was in fact the first writer to theorise the return of Sebastian as a person other than the historical king; a line taken up later by Vieira and greatly expanded by Fernando Pessoa in the twentieth century.50 He did so mainly through astrological considerations and substantial reliance on the prophetic readings of Johann Carion (1499–1537) and the narrative of the Miracle of Ourique,51 as well as Sebastianic commonplaces derived from the works of Cyrille the Hermit, Theophilus the Bishop, Isidore of Seville, and the Sybil of Eritrea.52 Even if not particularly innovative in the field of alchemy, the Anacephaleoses was an essential step towards ensuring the survival of Sebastianism into the later seventeenth century. Such connections between alchemy and Sebastianism were part of the intellectual context in which Castelo Branco wrote his own defence of alchemy in the Ennoea, even though he mentions Sebastianism only fleetingly. His adherence to Sebastianism suggests that his critique of Feijoo had a nationalistic aspect, and that he was attacking a Spanish intellectual in order to assume for himself the mantle of Sebastianist warrior in a self-perpetuating Portugal-versus-Spain duel. In support of this idea are the various instances in the Ennoea where Castelo Branco proclaims the
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Francisco Moreno-Carvalho, “A Newly Discovered Letter by Galileo Galilei: Contacts between Galileo and Jacob Rosales (Manoel Bocarro Francês), a Seventeenth-Century Jewish Scientist and Sebastianist,” Aleph 2 (2002): 59–91. Manoel Bocarro Frances, “Anotaçam Chrysopea,” in Anacephaleoses da Monarchia Luzitana (Lisbon: Antonio Aluarez, 1624), fol. 29r. “[O] tempo não feliz, mas certo,” in Frances, Anacephaleoses da Monarchia Luzitana, Stado Astrologico, fol. 15r. “A gente que perdeo o fatal Sebasto,” in Frances, Anacephaleoses da Monarchia Luzitana, Stado Astrologico, fol. 15r. Quadros, Poesia e Filosofia, 61. Frances, Anacephaleoses da Monarchia Luzitana, Annotaçam Astrologica, fols. 55v-56r. See, for example, José Teixeira, The strangest aduenture that euer happened: either in the ages passed or present: Containing a discourse concerning the successe of the King of Portugall Dom Sebastian, from the time of his voyage into Affricke, when he was lost in the battell against the infidels, in the yeare 1578. vnto the sixt of Ianuary this present 1601. In which discourse, is diuerse curious histories, some auncient prophesies, and other matters, whereby most euidently appeareth: that he whom the Seigneurie of Venice hath held as prisoner for the space of two yeres and twentie two dayes, is the right and true king of Portugall Dom Sebastian. More, a letter that declareth, in what maner he was set at libertie the xv. of December last. And beside, how he parted from Venice and came to Florence. All first done in Spanish, then in French, and novv lastly translated into English (London: Richard Field 1601), 32–33.
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revolutionary nature of his book not only in personal terms but also in patriotic ones. He repeatedly presents himself as a Portuguese national hero who, like the idealised King Sebastian, is living in poverty and exile. Ultimately, Castelo Branco’s defence may have less to do with alchemy than with politics.
Castelo Branco’s refutation of Feijoo Feijoo’s critique of alchemy Feijoo’s own brush with alchemy, as he relates it in the fifth volume of the Teatro, came from a single book: the El mayor Tesoro (“The Great Treasure”), written by a certain Teófilo.53 This book contained Teófilo’s Spanish translation of the text of the Introitus apertus ad occlusum regis palatium (“An Open Entrance to the Shut Palace of the King”; Amsterdam, 1667) of Eirenaeus Philalethes, the alias of George Starkey,54 and was offered to him by its author upon completion.55 Feijoo reports that later, in a fit of rage over his subsequent treatment of alchemy in the third volume of the Teatro (despite Feijoo complimenting his logical treatment of the subject), Teófilo accused him of plagiarising the Journal de Trévoux, and in the process revealed himself to be the alchemist Francisco Antonio de Tejeda.56 This author afterwards seems to have joined the ranks of Feijoo’s detractors, as his name can also be found in two 1734 publications attacking the Benedictine, particularly Feijoo’s return to the topic of alchemy in the fifth volume of the Teatro. The first of these is a small pamphlet entitled Triunfo de la Transmutation Metalica, and the second appears in the final chapter of the second volume of the Crisol Critico, a book by Salvador Joseph Mañer attacking the Teatro, which is simply a full republication of his first pamphlet.57 Originally, Feijoo may have decided to address alchemy in the Teatro as a result of his attentive following of French sources. As an admirer of Fontenelle and a reader of the Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences,58 he was probably well 53
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El mayor tesoro: tratado del arte de la alchimia, ó chrysopoeya, que ofrece la entrada abierta, al cerrado palacio del Rey / compuesto por Aeyrenaeo Philaletha … traducido de latin en lengua castellana, por Theophilo… ilustrado de varias questiones, que real y physicamente, con razones, y experiencias, de la transmutacion de los metales, evidencian la posibilidad de la alchimia, y de una analysis del mismo arte, para norte de sus aficionados, y alumnos, añadido con una Mantissa metalurgica, que clara, è individualmente enseña el modo de hazer los ensayes por fuego, y por azogue, muy util, y provechosa para el beneficio de minas … (Madrid: [s.n.], 1727); online at Real BibliotecaKoha en línea, http://realbiblioteca.patrimonionacional.es/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=53930 (accessed 9 September 2015). “La entrada abierta al cercado Palacio del Rey”; Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 5, 368. On Starkey, see William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 5, 369. Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 5, 391–92. Francisco Antonio de Texeda (i.e. Tejeda), “Triunfo de la Transmutation Metalica, En Que Se Evidencia la del Hierro en Cobre Fino Vincada En Tres Assertos, Con Infalibles Experimentos contra El Discurs Ultimo Del Quinto Tomo del Theatro Critico,” in Salvador Joseph Mañer, Crisol Critico Theologico, Historico, Politico, Physico, y Mathematico, En Que Se Quilatan Las Materias Del Theatro Critico, Que Há Pretendido Defender La Demonstracio Critica Del M.R.P. Fr. Martin Sarmiento, Benedictino (Parte secunda) (Madrid: Imprenta de Bernardo Peralta, 1734), 667–719. Mañer is also the author of the much better known series of books, the Anti-Theatro Critico. Elizalde, “La influecia de Bayle,” 497–509.
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acquainted with the debates and attacks on alchemy (particularly chrysopoeia) coming out of France in the early eighteenth century. Most of Feijoo’s attacks in the Teatro actually seem to mimic those issued by the French anti-chrysopoeians, centred on personal critique and appeals to ridicule.59 Feijoo may have seen Teófilo’s book as an opportunity to import this French debate into Spain, and thereby promote the thinking of Pierre Bayle and “that universal genius, the incomparable Fontenelle.”60 That Castelo Branco was able to read the Teatro in Portugal is unsurprising, since Feijoo himself mentions in the dedication of the fourth volume of the Cartas Eruditas to the Spanish Queen Maria of Portugal that his works were well received in the neighbouring country.61 As a physician in contact with Portuguese Enlightenment circles, Castelo Branco was probably familiar with literature of this kind, and in the Ennoea he occasionally referred to the Teatro in very positive terms. Timothy Walker’s mapping of the direct connections between Portuguese and foreign intellectuals shows that Menezes, the Count of Ericeira, was also a direct correspondent of Feijoo.62 Castelo Branco’s and Feijoo’s circles therefore certainly overlapped, and Castelo Branco’s response to Feijoo may reflect other personal motivations which are no longer discernible.63
First part: olive branch Feijoo opens his own critique by considering on what grounds transmutation might be possible. In the discourse “Piedra Filosofal,” as a preliminary step to his antialchemical argument, Feijoo claims a kind of middle ground, admitting the possibility of metallic transmutation against the opinion of the philosophers, but denying its existence against that of the alchemists. Following Teófilo, Feijoo presents the Peripatetic argument for undifferentiated matter in simple terms: if an artificer were to find the proper agent used by nature to promote a transformation into gold, and apply it correctly, he should be able to replicate the form of gold. He supports this argument with reference to Cartesianism, which he thinks explains this phenomenon much better than Aristotelian accounts: given that in a Cartesian 59
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On French attacks on chrysopoeia, see Lawrence M. Principe, “Transmuting Chymistry into Chemistry: EighteenthCentury Chrysopoeia and Its Repudiation,” in Neighbours and Territories: The Evolving Identity of Chemistry: The 6th International Conference on the History of Chemistry, ed. José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez, Duncan Thorburn Burns, and Brigitte van Tiggelen (Louvain-la-Neuve: Mémosciences, 2008), 21–34; Principe, “The End of Alchemy?: The Repudiation and Persistence of Chrysopoeia at the Académie Royale des Sciences in the Eighteenth Century,” Osiris 29 (2014): 96–116. “[A]quel genio universal el incomparable Fontenelle,” Feijoo, Cartas Eruditas y Curiosas, vol. 2, 105. Pierre Bayle was also a correspondent of the Count of Ericeira, and consequently his ideas were also known in Portuguese Enlightenment circles, of which Castelo Branco was a member: see Timothy D. Walker, Doctors, Folk Medicine and the Inquisition: The Repression of Magical Healing in Portugal During the Enlightenment (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 98. Marichal, “Feijoo y su papel,” 313–23. Walker, Doctors, Folk Medicine and the Inquisition, 139. The close proximity of contradictory ideas regarding alchemy, or any other topic, in Portugal should not be surprising, since Portuguese Enlightenment circles were extremely heterogeneous: see Ana Carneiro, Ana Simões, and Maria Paula Diogo, “Enlightenment Science in Portugal: The Estrangeirados and Their Communication Networks,” Social Studies of Science 30 (2000): 591–619.
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system the variability of mixed bodies depends on the particular texture and configuration of their parts, all an artificer needs to do in order to change one body into another is to change the texture and arrangement of its parts, through the same processes as those used by nature.64 As discussed by Lawrence Principe, this stance does seem to support the possibility of material transformations using alchemical techniques, suggesting that attacks on chrysopoeia (like Feijoo’s) were not solely grounded on contemporary scientific theories.65 Feijoo then points out that atomist theories do not allow for such transformations, since they do not admit the existence of an undifferentiated matter, as all atoms are particular to a certain form and cannot be rearranged in order to produce another. Accordingly, to account for “artificial gold” using arguments common to all philosophical systems, Feijoo argues that one cannot focus on primordial matter, which is far removed from gold. Instead, one ought to concentrate on matter which is already closer to this form, for nature does not produce the mixed forms of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms from a single substance, but rather from matter which already has a preliminary form. With regard to the mineral kingdom, Feijoo follows existing theories of his time by admitting to a common primordial form for metals, for instance, some sort of “seed” from which metals grow as subterranean “plants,” without committing himself to what this form may be. Through such a mechanism, he continues, nature may operate upon this primordial matter and turn it into metals; hence, art may use the same processes and agents as nature in order to produce artificial gold. “Up to this point I go with the Alchemists; but no further,” he concludes.66 Feijoo’s critique, in the French vein of Fontenelle and the anti-chrysopoeians of the Académie Royale des Sciences, is thus not aimed at the possibility of transformation of matter itself, but rather at the alchemists and their matter, agents, and techniques, which to him seem false. In order to expose their fallacies, he claims to present an outline of the alchemical doctrines of Bernard Trevisan, Theobaldus van Hoghelande, Teófilo, and “a few others,” as these, for Feijoo, are the only comprehensible ones.67
Second part: debating “mercury” and “sulphur” Feijoo begins with four main arguments following from his alchemical outline, each of which would later be countered by Castelo Branco. The first centres on the analysis of “sulphur” and “mercury” in alchemical literature. Feijoo enumerates six contradictory descriptions of their use in producing gold: first, they are the specific preliminary forms of all metals; second, metals differ from one another solely according to the purity, decoction, exaltation, or fixation of their mercury and sulphur; third, any metal may be transformed from an imperfect to a perfect state 64 65 66 67
Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 163–64. Principe, “Transmuting Chymistry,” 21–34. “Hasta aquí voy con los Alquimistas; pero no paso de aqui,” Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 165. “[Y] otros pocos,” Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 166.
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through the purification, exaltation, and fixation of the philosophical mercury and sulphur; fourth, mercury and sulphur are the feminine and masculine agents for the production of gold; fifth, the philosophical mercury and sulphur must be sought in the dissolution of gold, as its principles; and sixth, mercury and sulphur must be exalted in order to penetrate other metals and in turn exalt the mercury and sulphur of which those metals consist, thereby enabling their transformation into gold.68 These Feijoo puts down as the only comprehensible points that can be taken from alchemical writings, claiming that all else is but shadowy allegory and enigma. His final point is that reading different authors yields completely different and contradictory concepts. Castelo Branco’s response to this point is a single sentence: “the first [argument] is founded on ignorance of chymical principles; and from a premise of ignorance Feijoo cannot take or extract conclusions on science.”69 While he does not offer any actual counter-argumentation, this effectively sets the tone for most of his response. Castelo Branco does not mean to undermine Feijoo as an intellectual, but rather to show that he lacks the qualifications or knowledge to attack alchemy. Feijoo’s second argument (relying largely on Robert Boyle, although he does not mention which work or passage) is that, from what he has seen, alchemists only mention sulphur and mercury, contradicting the chymical system which also includes salt as a principle. This argument seems be partly derived from Feijoo’s strict distinction between “alchemy” and “chymistry,” two words which were often used indistinguishably (even if they were starting to approach their modern meanings during this period), as can be seen in the following excerpt: 13. Second, I notice that the Alchemists, at least those I have seen, substantially alter the Chymical system; for in the composition of metals they introduce only Sulphur and Mercury, without making mention of Salt, an element which Chymists take to be as necessary to the mixed body as Sulphur and Mercury, without exception. And it should be noted that Salt, according to the Chymical doctrine being that which gives weight and firmness to bodies, should with even greater reason go into the composition of metals, and especially of gold, being the heaviest and firmest mixed body known.70
Complicating this point, Feijoo here ignores the fact that the material composition of mercury, sulphur, and salt was first introduced by Paracelsus (whom he mentions later in the discourse). Feijoo may not have known, or else he ignores the fact, 68 69
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Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 166–67. “[F]unda-se o primeiro sobre a ignorância, que hà do pincipios Chymicos; e de premissas de ignorância noã pòde Feyjoo inferir, ou tirar conclusaõ de sciencia,” in Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 172. “13. Lo segundo noto que los Alquimistas, por lo menos los que yo he visto, alteran substancialmente el sistema Chymico; pues en la composición de los metales solo introducen el Azufre, y el Mercurio, sin hacer memoria de la Sal, la cual los Chymicos ponen como elemento tan preciso de todos los mixtos, sin reservar alguno, como el Azufre, y Mercurio. Donde es muy de notar, que siendo la Sal, segun la doctrina Chymica, quien da peso, y firmeza à los cuerpos, con mas razon debe entrar en la composicion de los metales, y especialmente del oro, por ser el mixto mas pesado, y de mas firme textura que se conoce,” Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 168–69. On the use of “chymistry,” see William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, “Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographical Mistake,” Early Science and Medicine 3 (1998): 32–65.
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that Boyle was himself an alchemist and did not make much of a distinction between the words “alchemy” and “chemistry” in his own writings.71 Overall it is unclear exactly what Feijoo means by some of the terms he uses, as he seems to take his arguments and opinions from a variety of sources which are not mutually consistent. As such, “chemistry,” “chymistry,” “alchemy,” and “chrysopoeia” are all sources of ambiguity in Feijoo’s lexicon, and it is not even clear whether he cared to distinguish between them. On the other hand, Castelo Branco is much more consistent in his use of terminology: for him chymistry and alchemy (chymica and alchymia) are largely synonymous, with the single difference that alchemy “signifies elevated or sublime Chymistry.”72 The purpose of this art is to resolve the natural composed bodies, or the concrete parts of them, into the principles of which they are made up, so that through this resolution they may become purer and with greater and more effective virtues, so that in this way they may be of service to physicians as more useful and excellent to avoid disease, heal infirmity, increase life, and purify and transform metals into silver and gold.73
This signifies that, for Castelo Branco, alchemy/chymistry is the broader category which encompasses the production of medicinal remedies, chrysopoeia (goldmaking), and argentopoeia (silver-making) as specific branches. Within his conception, the philosophical stone is the particular outcome of chrysopoeia, denoting a small part of the whole that he calls alchemy or chymistry. Nonetheless, the uses of the philosophical stone seem to extend into the medical realm, as he describes its effects as “converting infirmity into health and transforming mercury into gold.”74 Castelo Branco’s definition seems to be highly consistent with the definition of chymistry presented in Raphael Bluteau’s Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino, the first Portuguese dictionary, printed in Lisbon between 1712 and 1721.75 Bluteau’s influence should not be disregarded, as he was one of the most historically visible members in the circle of Menezes and, appropriately enough, officially endorsed the Ennoea on behalf of the royal court. Given this proximity between Castelo 71
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Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 30–31. “[S]ignifica Chymia elevada, ou sublime,” Castelo Branco, “Prologo Galeato,” Ennoea, 12. “Arte de resolver os corpos naturais compostos, ou os concretos naquelle, principios de que se compoem, para com a resolução ficarem mais puros, e com mayores, e mais efficazes virtudes, de tal sorte, que sirvaõ ao Medico como remedio mais uteis, e exellentes, para evitar doenças, curar as enfermidades, dilatar as vidas, e purificar, e transformar os Metaes em Prata e Ouro,” Castelo Branco, “Prologo Galeato,” Ennoea, 12. “[C]onverter a enfermidade em saude, e transformar o Mercurio em Ouro,” Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 19. “CHIMICA. Chîmica. Segundo a acceção commua, he Synonimo de Alchimia, ou Alquimia … Mas por Chimica ordinariamente entendemos a Arte, que com varias, & sutilissimas operaçoens, reduz todos os corpos naturaes a seus primeiros princípios, & em mínimas partículas os resolve. Á Chimica deve a Medicina a preparação dos metaes, & a parte mayor dos efficazes, & poderosos remedios. He esta Arte taõ nóbre, & mysteriòsa, que os Mestres della a enconbriraõ com termos escuros, & enigmáticos, para naõ ficar patente a philosophos vulgares” (“CHIMICA. Chîmica. According to the common meaning, a synonym of Alchimia, or Alquimia … But as Chimica we usually understand the Art that, with various and most subtle operations, reduces all natural bodies to their first principles and resolves them into their smallest parts. To Chimica, medicine owes the preparation of metals and the greater part of its efficient and powerful remedies. This art is so noble and mysterious that its masters have covered it with dark and enigmatic expressions so that it may not be made plain to vulgar philosophers”). Raphael Bluteau, Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino … , vol. 2 (Coimbra: Collegio das Artes da Companhia de Jesu, 1712), 290.
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Branco and Bluteau, it is likely that the Vocabulario is the source of Castelo Branco’s definition, since Bluteau’s was probably the dominating definition of chymistry in this context. Hence, when Castelo Branco reads Feijoo he probably imports his own definitions into his discourse, consequently finding numerous contradictions where in fact, for Feijoo, there are none. This is probably one of the most significant sources of incomprehension between the two authors. Castelo Branco counters Feijoo’s remarks on the absence of salt in earlier alchemical writings by claiming that earlier authorities chose to keep silent about its properties; implying that the role of salt is not a recent development.76 To further characterise Feijoo as being in error, Castelo Branco goes on to explain that mercury, sulphur, and salt, as intended by alchemists, are not the vulgar bodies of the same name, but rather metaphors used to hide the principles of alchemy. He supports this contention with a lengthy quotation from Michael Ettmüller (1644– 1683), the Leipzig Professor of Medicine,77 once again underlining Feijoo’s ignorance of hermetic literature and the “lack of study or intelligence” that prevented him from attacking it effectively.78 On this point, both Feijoo and Castelo Branco seem to treat alchemy as a homogeneous body of knowledge, ignoring the existence of different and incompatible approaches (or “schools”). That Feijoo should do so is not surprising, as he was clearly promoting a simplified view of alchemy that could be more easily attacked. Castelo Branco, on the other hand, seems to have adopted the position that alchemy was a unified and continuous field of knowledge, a position commonly held by proponents of alchemy in order to uphold its authority as a science. Feijoo continues with his third argument by asking if this mercury, sulphur, and salt are all homogeneous or if they are unique to each metal.79 He takes plants as an example. Although salt, oil, and spirit can be extracted from plants through distillation, these three components, when extracted from different plants, differ as much from each other as the plants themselves. Consequently, Feijoo claims that mercury and sulphur from different metals should also differ from each other. In this way, one can never expect to make gold from the mercury and sulphur extracted from iron, in the same way that one plant cannot be made from another which is entirely distinct from it. Feijoo develops his argument further by offering what he imagines would be an alchemical response to his criticism; namely that, unlike plants, which are perfect mixed bodies, nature always intends metals to “ripen” or “mature” into gold, and that all the other metals are therefore imperfect instances of the same species. 76
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Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 172–73. In support of this point Castelo Branco quotes Pierre-Jean Fabre, Manuscriptum ad Serenissimum Fridericum … res alchymicorum explanans, in Jean-Jacques Manget, Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa (Geneva: Chouet, G. de Tournes, Cramer, Perachon, Ritter et S. de Tournes, 1702), vol. 1, 218. Michael Ettmüller, Opera Medica Theoretico-Practica (Frankfurt: Officina Zunneriana, 1708), vol. I, 299 (I have been unable to determine which edition of the Opera Medica Theoretico-Practica Castelo Branco used, but his reference is to vol. I, 377). “[F]alta de estudo, ou de intelligencia,” in Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 173. Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 169–71.
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He then immediately rebuts this idea by arguing that if this were indeed so, in a gold mine one would also observe the presence of the other metals, as imperfect forms in the process of transforming into a perfect one, like fruit ripening on a tree. Interestingly, this is the same position that was also attributed to alchemists (and rejected) by Albertus Magnus in the De Mineralibus; accordingly, Feijoo is apparently reproducing a well-known argument.80 Castelo Branco counters this point by simply stating that Feijoo’s comparison of plants and metals is not valid, while still allowing that all metals have the same essential root, resorting once again to Ettmüller for support.81 To counter the second part of Feijoo’s argument, on the maturation of metals, he claims that imperfect metals have more similarities with infirm human bodies than with unripe fruit. Just as not all bodies are born firm, so not all metals are born perfect; once lead or tin is produced in the mine, nature cannot cure this “illness” by its own action since it was contracted at the metal’s very generation. The Great Art, as a Universal Medicine, can cure this metallic illness,82 but cannot do the same for the diseases of fruit, as the difference between these two things (metals and plants) is so great as to make this argumentation illogical. This particular explanation reveals a fundamental aspect of Castelo Branco worldview which places him in direct opposition to Feijoo. What he is effectively proclaiming is that art (alchemy) can produce that which nature cannot, while Feijoo, in his initial olive branch, implies that art, at most, reproduces nature. This same perspective frames Feijoo’s fourth argument, namely his denial that the seminal and active virtue of gold may be found in its tincture, or in its mercury or sulphur. This is because nature itself does not use these components to produce gold, and alchemy cannot produce or apply anything that nature does not. He continues by claiming that nature cannot create gold from either pure or impure mercury and sulphur; impure components could never produce a pure metal, whereas the production of “pure” mercury and sulphur already depends on the existence of pure gold, from which the purified ingredients are drawn.83 Here Castelo Branco once more lampoons Feijoo’s ignorance, asserting that he does not understand the nature of gold. In defence of the alchemist’s tincture and mercury and sulphur, he affirms these as the ultimate principles of all metals by resorting to Ettmüller once again, and claiming that if nature did not rely on these principles it would have to produce gold from nothing, as did its Creator. Regarding the purification of mercury and sulphur in gold-making, he claims that this is indeed the very process nature uses to create perfect gold, which Feijoo does not seem to want to understand.84 80
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On these two positions, see Jennifer M. Rampling, “Theory Choice in Medieval Alchemy,” in Theory Choice in the History of Chemical Practices, ed. Emma Tobin and Chiara Ambrosio (New York: Springer, 2016), 7–16. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 174; Ettmüller, Opera Medica Theoretico-Practica, vol. I, 740 (Castelo Branco cites vol. III, chap. 10, 265). It is interesting to note that Bluteau uses exactly the same argument in the description of the philosophical stone in his Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino, which highlights the proximity between these two authors. Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 171. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 177–79.
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Castelo Branco concludes by arguing that when the hermetic philosophers say that the philosophical stone is made from mercury, they do not mean the mercury of gold, but rather philosophical mercury.85 In fact, he claims that actual gold has very little use in alchemy and all alchemists who think that the philosophical stone is made from gold are mistaken, for it is actually derived from the root of metals. In chrysopoeia, gold is used only as the ferment for producing the philosophical stone – and through it, pure gold.
Third part: from counter-argument to attack From this point in the Ennoea dialogue, Castelo Branco takes a more strongly offensive position. In the voice of the student Enodio, he complains that, even if these four arguments have been answered, surely Feijoo could disregard his responses with the same ease with which he danced over the contradiction of admitting that artificial gold was theoretically possible while denying the efficacy of practical alchemical methods. Here Castelo Branco apparently does not admit that gold-making could be achievable by any means other than alchemy, referring to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Nicolas Caussin for support (although he does not mention his exact sources). Furthermore, he does not acknowledge that Feijoo’s target was not the concept of metallic transformation itself, but rather the alchemists – as fools or simply charlatans. This (mis)reading informs Castelo Branco’s subsequent criticism, as he provides an extensive list of Feijoo’s apparent contradictions, coupled with a deliberate misinterpretation of Feijoo’s initial reference to Teófilo’s book, in which he implies that Feijoo believed in Teófilo’s success at metallic transmutation. He pursues this line further when addressing the Teatro’s next two arguments. First, Feijoo rejects an experiment of Teófilo in which iron is converted into copper by means of the “Lipis” stone, which Feijoo assumed to be a transformation in merely visual and apparent terms.86 Second, he claims that even if lead, tin, and iron could be turned into copper, this would not in any way prove that any metal could be turned into gold. Castelo Branco responds by quoting at length from Daniel Sennert regarding a miraculous fountain in Hungary, the water of which could transform iron into copper, in order to prove the truth of Teófilo’s transformation.87 His final exclamation on this particular point is extremely revealing about the basis of his opposition: “I do not know why Feijoo disputes or doubts things which are known and 85
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Although this information is not supplied by Castelo Branco, this substance, according to Principe, is usually taken to be a solvent able to dissolve gold; see Principe, Aspiring Adept, 153. Tejeda uses the term Lipis in the Triunfo de la Transmutation Metalica to refer to blue vitriol, the early modern name for what is now termed copper sulphate. The “transformation” of iron into copper in a vitriolic solution was widely known; among others, Andreas Libavius supported this as evidence for transmutation in Alchemia, although it is not clear whether Feijoo knew of this. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 182–83; Daniel Sennert, Epitome Scientae Naturalis (Wittenberg: Officinâ Typographicâ Nicolai Ballÿ, 1618), 408. Castelo Branco seems to make an error here, as he refers to Sennert’s De Chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis Consensu et Dissensu, chap. 3, 182.
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confirmed by all, unless he means to show that he ignores what all know, or that he suffers from that illness which Aristotle called weakness of understanding.”88 This, at least in part, points to Castelo Branco’s position on the spectrum of Portuguese Enlightenment thinking: while he acknowledges the relevance and knowledge of modern authors, he still puts his trust in earlier authorities. This attitude was not unique to proponents of alchemy, but citing authorities like Aristotle probably did nothing to help Castelo Branco convince contemporaries, as it was exactly this sort of reliance that Feijoo and many Enlightenment writers wished to reform or destroy in favour of observable experimental procedures. The difference between the two writers’ use of authority becomes even more obvious at the next stage of Feijoo’s discourse, where he provides a list of well -known alchemists reputed to have manufactured artificial gold (Ramon Llull, Arnaldus de Villa Nova, Paracelsus, Bernard Trevisan, the Apothecary of Treviso,89 and Flamel), arguing that their reports are merely rumours or based on word of mouth, without the support of eye witnesses or effective evidence. Despite this criticism, Castelo Branco responds with further quotations, taken from Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Lawrence Beyerlinck, Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni de Andrea, Daniel Sennert, and even Teófilo (once again claiming that Feijoo seemed to acknowledge the latter’s experiment). Seeking to turn the tables on Feijoo’s argument, Castelo Branco turns to Feijoo’s “Glorias de España,” a discourse from the fourth volume of the Teatro: a patriotic eulogy that, according to McClelland, Feijoo wrote as part of his attempt to return to the good graces of the twelve-year-old Charles III, after supporting German physiognomic theories which portrayed Spaniards in unflattering terms.90 A great deal of the content of this discourse revolves around praising various Spanish heroes, including unhistorical ones such as Bernardo del Carpio,91 a fact that Castelo Branco uses to show that Feijoo, in relying on word of mouth and temporally removed reports, is guilty of the same fallacy that he condemned in alchemy. Pursuing this point further, Castelo Branco observes that Feijoo describes himself in the second part of the “Glorias” as a great and miraculous wise man,92 without providing any evidence other than his own testimony. Castelo Branco extends his attack by complaining that Feijoo, with his demand for first-hand observation, is nonetheless unwilling to give credit to the actual firsthand accounts of the alchemical experiments of Ramon Llull.93 Recalling Feijoo’s 88
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“[N]aõ sey para que disputa, ou duvîda Feyjoo sobre cousas sabidas, e averiguadas por todos, senaõ para mostrar, que ignora o que todos sabem, ou que padece aquella enfermidade, que Aristoteles chama fraqueza do entendimento,” Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 183. Probably a reference to Tarvinius, a Venetian apothecary mentioned in Book V of Gerolamo Cardano’s De Subtilitate, although Feijoo gives his name as Antonio. McClelland, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, 28. Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 4, 376. Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 4, 452–53. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 188. Castelo Branco does not refer to a specific work of Llull, and seems to be unaware that all alchemical works attributed to Llull were pseudonymous. On pseudo-Llull, see Michela Pereira, The Alchemical Corpus Attributed to Raymond Lull (London: The Warburg Institute, 1989).
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admission that he had read only fragments from Llull’s writings, Castelo Branco once again emphasises Feijoo’s inadequacy in weaving arguments against alchemy, for “if, after reading complete works from other hermetics, Feijoo admitted to not having understood them, how can he hope to understand imperfect ones”?94 Furthermore, “how can the ignorance of he who studies and does not understand also prove the ignorance of he who writes?”95 Castelo Branco adopts a different approach in responding to a particular point of Feijoo’s attack – that should any nation in the history of the world have attained the secret of gold-making, surely it would have had the means to conquer the whole earth. He employs extensive biblical quotations, supported by some arguments of Vieira, in order to prove that gold does not build empires, but that these can only be raised up and destroyed by the hand of God. He ends with the example of a wealthy Spain that in the previous century had lost the Portuguese kingdom, giving voice to his patriotic and Sebastianist furor.96 The original quotation in Vieira’s Historia do Futuro presents exactly the same argument, with particular emphasis on the power of divine prophecy, evoking anti-Spanish Sebastianic prophetism.97
Fourth part: minor points Towards the end of his response,98 Castelo Branco takes on another of Feijoo’s minor criticisms, in which he refers to cases of noblemen who are said to have achieved metallic transmutation yet lived and died poor (such as King Alfonso X or Emperor Ferdinand III),99 simply by offering his own experience. His own financial situation, for Castelo Branco, is a moot point, since outward poverty does not in any way disprove the possibility of chrysopoeia. Here he seems to suggest that making gold by alchemical methods will never be a profitable enterprise, as it requires the purchase and maintenance of expensive equipment and materials and the further investment of two years of work, in the course of which one can undertake no other activity. In his own case, Castelo Branco explains that publishing the Ennoea is his only hope of obtaining any profit from alchemy or finding a benefactor of any kind.100 He also rebuts Feijoo’s remark that the philosophical stone is implausible because only a handful reach their goal out of among all the thousands who take up that venture, by rhetorically asking whether, in the Teatro, Feijoo also condemns the existence of the Olympic Games, since in the whole world only a single man can win the laurel crown.101 “Se lendo Feyjoo obras inteiras de outros Hermeticos, confessa, que as naõ entendeo, como he possível entender as que estaõ imperfeitas?,” Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 189. 95 “[C]omo pòde a ignorancia de quem estuda, e naõ entende, provar também a ignorancia de quem escreveo?,” Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 189. 96 Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 205. 97 Antonio Vieira, Historia do Futuro: Livro Ante Primeiro. Prologomeno a Toda a Historia do Futuro Em Que se Declara o Fim e Se Provam os Fundamentos Della (Lisbon: Editores, J. M. C. Seabra & Q. Antunes, 1855), 66. 98 Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 206–07. 99 Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 179–81. 100 Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 208. 101 Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 212. 94
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Finally, for the conclusion of his discourse, Feijoo points to what, for him, is the most visible inconsistency in alchemy. In his study of alchemical literature, he notes that authors mention that being a devout Christian is an indispensable quality for success, while at the same time referring to “the Saracen and Mohammedan rabble”102 of Geber, Rhazes, Avicenna, Haly, Calid, and others as the princes and masters of their art. Castelo Branco’s response, grounded in an extensive exposition of religious tolerance, is to observe how many Christian virtues are common to those of the Moors, and how the Turks, among all the barbarian nations, are the most liberal in the treatment of their poor.103 His argument, borrowing some points from Vieira and Bluteau, seems to rely on the idea that Christianity does not hold a monopoly on godly virtue; hence, given the remarkable level of devoutness of some infidels, God has allowed them to discover the philosophers’ stone. Nonetheless, among Catholics, who follow the perfect Gospel, the number of those who discover the Lapis is much greater.104 At last, in his closing remarks, Feijoo dismisses alchemical literature as only fit for entertainment and not conducive to any form of learning.105 Still, he does admit that men of reason may discuss such transformations philosophically, without giving an inch to the practical fantasies of the alchemists. Castelo Branco on the other hand, through the mouth of Enodio, resigns himself to the fact that in all likeliness Feijoo will not see or hear of his counter-arguments, and would probably not answer them in any case, having announced that he will no longer respond to critics. Castelo Branco thus ends the first part of the Ennoea, closing with a promise to reveal concrete methods for making the philosophical stone in the next part of his work.
Conclusions Looking at Feijoo’s discourse as a whole, an aspect that immediately emerges from it – one constantly pointed out by Castelo Branco – is that Feijoo was largely ignorant of the object of his criticism. Moreover, Feijoo often appears as simply uninterested in understanding the general theories, context, and technical language of alchemy. Immediately from his opening he takes the offensive, shrugging off more elaborate works on the subject and frequently oversimplifying its nuances in order to make a clear-cut argument. On the other side of the trench, Castelo Branco suffers from very similar perspective problems. Although he had greater technical knowledge than Feijoo, he was not apparently interested in importing new intellectual approaches and applying them to his defence of alchemy. In this, Castelo Branco differs from traditional “pioneers” of the Portuguese Enlightenment like Curvo Semedo or Fonseca Henriques. Rather, he based his arguments on earlier textual authorities, an approach typical of early 102
“[C]analla Sarracénica, y Mahometánica,” Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 185. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 216. Castelo Branco, Ennoea, pt. I, 218. 105 Feijoo, Teatro, vol. 3, 186. 103 104
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modern alchemical writing but one that Feijoo, or more radical Enlightenment proponents, would not accept as legitimate. This paradox reminds us that, even within Enlightenment circles, a variety of views and approaches were held. What is perhaps the most interesting point arising from this analysis is the apparent recurrence in Portuguese writing of a relationship between Sebastianism and alchemy, suggesting a phenomenon specific to Portugal that surely deserves further consideration. Even though this relationship is not present in all early modern Portuguese chymical writing (Curvo Semedo and Fonseca Henriques show no such interest, for example), it is at least prevalent in the work of Castelo Branco and Francês.106 Castelo Branco’s own Sebastianist orientation, when fully considered, may underlie not only his refutation of Feijoo, but much of the Ennoea, not to mention his remaining work, which merits future study. Castelo Branco’s contestation of Feijoo could then be understood as an exercise in nationalistic rhetoric rather than a purely scientific debate, as suggested by the passage where he speculates that Feijoo himself may never read his book. His rebuttal may be intended to give support to the prophecies and patriotic sentiments expressed in the Ennoea’s lengthy dedication and prologue, which occupy more than a quarter of the whole book. Sebastianism, in its core, is a movement of national identity and recognition. To call oneself a Sebastianist in the eighteenth century was to evoke national pride, identity, support for the Portuguese Crown, and willingness to fight (physically or intellectually) to defend these things. It implied that Portugal enjoyed divine favour, and being Portuguese thus became a divine calling, an invitation to participate in God’s plan as an active warrior or priest. Connections between alchemy and prophecy were already current in the Middle Ages, and the Sebastianist overlap with alchemy does seem to be a late and very particular instance of a similar phenomenon.107 Sebastianists obsessed over earlier prophecies and also wrote their own, aiming to become active directors and constructors of future history. A parallel can thus be traced between the Sebastianist labour of perfecting future history through prophecy in the name of God, and the alchemical work of perfecting metals by divine inspiration. This idea is present in Francês’ alchemical description of the creation of an astrologically inevitable, Portuguese-centric universe: the active production of Sebastianic literature and prophecy is an alchemy of history.
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An extremely late instance of this phenomenon can also be seen in the twentieth century with Fernando Pessoa, the modernist poet and philosopher, and a proponent of “spiritual” alchemy who became a major reconceptualiser of Sebastianism as a contemporary esoteric doctrine and who also possessed a copy of the Ennoea in his library: see Yvette Centeno, “A Filosofia Hermética na Obra de Fenando Pessoa,” in Fernando Pessoa No Seu Tempo, coords. Eduardo Lourenço and António Braz de Oliveira (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, 1988), 53–58. 107 On alchemy and prophecy, see Chiara Crisciani, “Opus and sermo: The Relationship between Alchemy and Prophecy (12th–14th Centuries),” Early Science and Medicine 13 (2008): 4–24; and the extremely interesting study by Leah DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).
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It is also present in the analogy between the alchemical Lapis and King Sebastian, drawn by Menezes and supported by Castelo Branco. The return of Sebastian through prophecy (either as himself or in the form of another individual) is the preliminary step towards the ultimate transformation of history into the Fifth Empire, just as the Lapis is the preliminary step for transforming metals into gold and healing infirm bodies. Although Castelo Branco mentions none of this explicitly, for him, the knowledge of alchemy rests on the same base as that of Sebastianism. The fall of Portugal to the Castilian crown in 1580, its liberation in 1640, and its eventual elevation as the woman of the Apocalypse, can be read as parallels to the alchemical process of decomposition and purification. Read in this light, to contest alchemy or the philosophical stone, as Feijoo did, was to attack the transformative principles of the universe at the base of Castelo Branco’s Sebastianism and, consequently, his patriotism, personal cosmology, and notions of cosmic meaning. Such an attack demanded a response.
Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge the indispensable work and patience of Dr Jennifer M. Rampling, Editor of Ambix, in bringing this paper into a publishable form.
Note on contributor José Vieira Leitão holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the Delft University of Technology (defended in 2014) and finished a second Master’s degree in Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2016. He is currently an independent researcher. Address: Haarlem, The Netherlands. Email:
[email protected]
