Franciscans and the Dissemination of Middle English Alchemical Recipes in Italy

The role of the Franciscans in the alchemical studies that developed from the second half of the 13th century onwards has long been recognized and established by scholars in the field. The particular intellectual openness of the Friars Minor led them to engage in Alchemy. They did not necessarily perceive this pseudoscience as being related to the creation of an elixir for material purposes, such as Chrysopoeia, but rather for its ability to transform, not only bodies, but also the world. According to this perspective, if an elixir could transmute the qualities of base metals, elevating their status, in a similar way, it could operate under the same principle, contributing to the purification of the body. Roger Bacon was the first to recognize this converging relationship, giving rise to a series of speculative reflections that involved some of the greatest theorists of the time, within the Franciscan orders. The 13th to 15th centuries in England witnessed a proliferation in the documentation of elixir recipes. Many alchemical texts, more practical and operative, began to circulate in parallel with the important scholastic treatises, determining the change of the character of the discipline. This new operative alchemy generated a plethora of alchemical recipes, destined to practitioners, whose contents, very often, echoed the great theoretical treatises, but in a more mediocre way. These texts were quite ordinary in their subjects and often written in the vernacular, in order to satisfy less sophisticated operative alchemists. The circulation of these Middle English recipes was not confined to England. Rather, the constant cultural exchanges among intellectual centres throughout Europe contributed to their propagation beyond the island’s borders. In fact, some Middle English alchemical recipes for the production of the elixir have survived on some paper sheets attached to a 15th-century vellum manuscript, now preserved in Bologna (Bologna, University Library, Caprara, Ms. 830), which also hands down a series of alchemical texts, including works by Roger Bacon. These recipes have not yet been thoroughly analysed. Therefore, the aim of this work is to study them in order to determine how they elaborate and transmitted the contents of the treatises of the great Franciscan alchemists such as Bacon and Rupescissa.