Alchemical Reproduction and the Career of Anna Maria Zieglerin

Notes and References

• A. Rhamm provides the most thorough overview of this story in his Die betrüglichen Goldmacher am Hofe des Herzogs Julius von Braunschweig: Nach den Processakten (Wolfenbattel: Julius ZwiBler, 1883). See also Prof. H. Wr., "Die Goldmacherbande am Hofe des Herzogs Julius von Braunschweig in Wolfenbintel," Niedersachsen, 14 (1908/1909), 346–51; Friedrich Karl Strombeck, Freiherr von (1771–1848), Feier des gedachtnisses der vormahligen hochschule Julia Carolina zu Helmstedt, veranstaltet zu monate Mai des jahres 1822; hinzugefugt ist die leb-ensbeschreibung des herzogs Julius von Braunschweig von Franz Algerman. (Helmstedt: C.J. Fleckeisen, 1822), p. 171–242.; and Heinrich Bunting, Braunschweig-liineburgische Chronica, oder: Historische Beschreibung der durchlauchtigsten Herzogen zu Braunschweig und Luneburg. . ., 3 v. in 1 (Braunschweig: D. Dedeffsen, 1722), vol. 2, pp. 1015ff. I shall refer to Philipp, Heinrich and Anna by their first names because this is how they most often appear in the archival documents of their trial.
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• Raphael Patai, "Maria the Jewess—Founding Mother of Alchemy," Ambix 29 (1982), 177–97.
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• Frankfort on Main, 1617. As cited and discussed in Patai, op. cit. (2), pp. 189–92.
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• The Rosenbergs' archivist and historian Vaclav Brezan (1568-c. 1618) lists Salomena among the numerous alchemists who worked for Vilem Rozmberk. See Vadav Brezan, Zivoty Posledni Rozmberku, ed. Jaroslav Panek, 2 vols. (Praha: Svoboda Praha, 1985). For archival references to Salomena, see Stant' oblistni archiv Trebon, Rozmberksky roddiny archiv 25: Briefe, 1528–1596 [hereafter SOA Trebon] (Hans Härpffell to Wilhelm Rosenberg, sine dato (after 1570); Johannes de Sole to Wilhelm Rosenberg, c. 1588). She also wrote to Wilhelm in 1588 to request an audience for Johannes Placotomus, a 'highly learned man' arriving from Hungary (SOA Trebon, Salomena Scheinpflugerin to Wilhelm Rosenberg, Bartholemew's Day, 1588). We do not know for certain if she actually practiced alchemy or served mainly as a sort of manager or secretary, though Brezan's description of her as 'an assistant' suggests that she may have participated in the alchemical operations in some capacity. Given the frequent shifts in personnel that the itinerant alchemical population of Trebon created, Salome may simply have provided a stable force in the laboratory and thus risen to a position of status.
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• Haupstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Bestand 47, Büschel 5, Nr. 6 (Contract between Andreas Reiche, Duke Johannes Friedrich and Duchess Sibilla, March 27,1610). All translations are mine.
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• Rhamm, op. cit. (1), p. 13.
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• Rhamm refers to her as a `merkwürdige Frau.' Rhamm, op. cit. (1), p. 70, fn. 18.
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• Tara E. Nummedal, "Adepts and Artisans: Alchemical Practice in the Holy Roman Empire, 1550-1620" (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2001); Bruce Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572–1632) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991); Pamela H. Smith, The Business of Akhenty: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).
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• Anna's exact age is unclear.
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• Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbilttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 313 (Heinrich Schombachs Urgicht, 5. July 1574), fol. 25v.and Nr. 308 (Aussagen des Philipp SOmmering, 9. July 1574), fol. 61.
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• On this association of unusual births with special spiritual characteristics, see, for example, Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries, trans. John 8c Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). For Philipp's testimony on this point, see Sammering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 19v-20 reducatio Annal . For Heinrich's version, see Niedersachsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbilttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 314 (Aussagen Heinrich Schombach, 5. July 1574), fol. 68v-69v. Anna herself does not speak of this in her testimony.
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• Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 60. According to Philipp's same testimony, Anna attributed great significance to the fact that she did not menstruate. He claimed: `Anna presented herself as clean, that she had no menstrua, and ... those who were infected by other menstrual women would be cleansed by her...' fol. 51.
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• Schombach Nr. 314, op. cit. (11), fol. 68v–69.
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• Schombach Nr. 314, op. cit. (11), fol. 71. Anna also briefly discusses her marriages and the affair with Handorff in Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 314 (Testimony of Anna Maria Zyglerin, 16. Nov. 1574), fol. 38v.
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• Zieglerin Nr. 314, op.cit. (14), fol. 2v-3 [F. Annen verehligung mit Heinrich].
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• Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiy Wolfenbüttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 309 (Verhör und Aussage Sammerings, 9. July 1574), fol. 20.
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• Rhamm does offer brief overview of Anna's life in a helpful footnote: Rhamm, op. cit. (1), p. 70, fn. 18.
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• On August I. and Anna of Saxony's interest in alchemy, see Hermann Kopp, Die Alchemie in älterer und neuerer Zeit, 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1886), p. 126–28, and 149–50. Also Karl von Weber, Anna Chulfürstin zu Sachsen geboren aus Königlichem Stamm zu Dänemark. Ein Lebens- und Sittenbild aus dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert. Nach archivalischen Quellen (Leipzig: Verlag von Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1865), esp. pp. 273–361 and 425–487.
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• Londa Schiebinger has suggested that women at noble courts found a greater freedom to pursue their intellectual interests. This certainly was a factor in Anna's case. See Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1989), esp. Ch. 2.
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• Anna mentions this assistant in Nieäersachsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 307 (Anna Maria Zyglerin to Herzog Julius, 3. Sept. 1573), fol. 72.
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• Nieäersfichsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 312 (Aussagen Sömmerings, s.d.), fol. 1.
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• `Your Princely Grace,' she added to the letter, 'please keep this hidden from Philipp.' Zieglerin Nr. 307, op. cit. (20), fol. 72.
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• See for example, Maier's comment in the "Preface to the Reader" of his 1617 Atalanta Fugiens: `Man, gentle reader, is by general consent held to be in his composition a compendium of the universe, and to be destined to live a life of a triple kind, namely a vegetable one in the maternal womb, where he grows not much differently from a plant, a sensible life, namely in this world, where for the most part he is guided by his senses, like the rest of the animals, from who he differs in that he begins to use his intellect, albeit imperfectly; and last the intelligible life, in the other world which is God's, accompanied by the intelligences or good Angels. In the present life, to the degree that he approaches more nearly the divine nature, he rejoices and takes pleasure in investigating things with his intellect — subtle, wondrous and rare things. And on the contrary, one who declines more toward the genus of beasts, understands those things less, and is restricted to the corporeal senses. We see examples of both: of the former, in those more learned men, devoted to the refined arts and sciences; of the latter, in those more numerous men given to bodily pleasures, lust, gluttony, external, pomp, and suchlike things.' Translated from the Latin by Joscelyn Godwin in Michael Maier, Atalanta fugiens : an edition of the fugues, emblems, and epigrams, Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks ; #22 (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1989), p. 101.
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• Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiy Wolfenböttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 306 (Praparation des Stein der Weisen, von A.M.Ziegler, in eigenhandiger Anschrift des Hzg. Julius 1. April 1573), fol. 56.
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• Zieglerin Nr. 306 op. cit. (24), fol. 57.
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• Ibid., fols. 52–62.
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• Ibid., fol. 65.
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• Ibid., fol. 65.
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• Ibid., fol. 69. Anna often spoke of other, more magical, processes which she left out of her book, most notably a 'fish herb' or `mercurial herb' which would bleed mercury and, in the proper solution, tinge objects gold. Philipp discussed Anna's talk about the `merkuriallu-aue in his testimony: S8mmering Nr. 308 op. cit. (10), fol. 76y. In addition, Anna claimed that she knew how to become invisible: [ Sömmering Nr. 312 op. cit. (21), fol. 11v], and her husband Heinrich also claimed that she spoke of certain Spanish flies, the wings of which `give a certain immodesty' [Schombach Nr. 314, op. cit. (11), fol. 137v].
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• Michael Maier, for example, mentioned a similar technique for producing gems using white vitriol as a deceptive trick in his treatise against 'false' alchemists, Examen fucorum pseudo-chymicorum, ed. and tr. by Wolfgang Beck, (PhD Thesis: Falcultät für Chemie, Biologic und Geowissenschaft of the Technischen Universität München, 1992,) p. 33–34 of Latin reprint.
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• Zieglerin Nr. 306, op. cit. (24), fol. 64.
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• Ibid., fol 64–65.
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• For a good overview of various theories of the homunculus, see Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke's article "Homunculus" in Claus Priesner and Karin Figala, Alchemie : Lexikon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft (München: Beck, 1998). p. 182 and the bibliography there. See also Clara Pinto Correia, The Ovary of Eve : Egg and Sperm and Preformation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 211–42.
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• Schombach Nr. 314, op. cit. (11), fol. 73v–74v.
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• Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 65 and Sömmering Nr. 309, op. cit. (16), fol. 21v.
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• Note also that, after four years of marriage to Heinrich and her admissions of adultery with several men, Anna herself remained childless.
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• For example, Anna emphasized the Count's close relationships with the King of Spain and Queen of England. See Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 61.
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• On the relationship between princely patronage and the pursuit of natural philosophy, see Mario Biagioli, Galileo Courtier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). See also works cited above, op.cit. (8).
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• Both responded by writing letters to the Count. See Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel 1 Alt 9 (Acta publica des Herzogs Julius), Nr. 307 (Anna Maria Zyglerin to Herzog Julius, 17. Oct. 1573), fol. 73. Also Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit (10), fol. 66v.
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• Anna's early appreciation for Paracelsus' stature is interesting, given the fact that Johannes Huser did not print his collected works until almost two decades later (Basel, 1589/91). This highlights the importance of avenues other than print for the dissemination of ideas in the sixteenth century.
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• Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 62.
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• Ibid., fol. 61–3.
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• Ibid. fol. 42.
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• Anna was careful to make clear that this was an evangelical project, as Julius had recently broken from his father's Catholicism and introduced the Evangelical faith to his territories. In fact, to keep alchemical knowledge out of the Pope's hands, Carl stabbed his brother, who was 'supposedly a Cardinal in Rome and also was accomplished in the art [of alchemy] .' Philipp repeats this story in his testimony: Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol 63. Robin Barnes has linked the late sixteenth-century enthusiasm for the occult in central Europe with a increasingly fervent apocalyptic thought. Anna's connecting the two may be an instance of this phenomenon. See his Prophesy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the German Reformation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988).
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• Zieglerin Nr. 306, op. cit. (24), fol. 53.
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• Zieglerin Nr. 314, op. cit. (14), fol. 37v.
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• 1.5 Loth = approximately 21.93g. ibid., fol. 45.
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• Ibid., fol. 4v.
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• The case of George Starkey and Eirendus Philalethes is the most prominent example of the use of a pseudonym. See William Newman, Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).
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• Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 63.
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• Schombach Nr. 314, op. cit. (11), fol. 79v.
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• Sömmering Nr. 308, op. cit. (10), fol. 63.
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• Anna's repeated emphasis on this point suggests the importance of the household for early modern female practitioners of alchemy. On the relationship between the household and the practice of natural philosophy, see especially Deborah E. Harkness, "Managing an experimental household: The Dees of Mortlake and the practice of natural philosophy," in Isis, 88 ([1997), 247–62. and Schiebinger, op. cit. (19).
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