Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire

Moran, Bruce T. “ . . . Moran is focusing on something ignored by many intellectual historians: the personality of his historical actor. It may not be particularly pretty in Libavius’s case, but Moran demonstrates that his protagonist’s 'outrageous rhetoric and disdainful conduct' (292) were an integral part of his achievements as a proponent of a particular vision of chymistry, in which Aristotle and artisanal expertise were combined with hermeticism, humanist philology, and a veritable inferno of polemical fire. Thus, as disagreeable as Libavius may seem to modern eyes, Moran’s study sheds much needed light on an important facet of early modern intellectual culture.” —The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2009, XL “ . . . Moran convincingly demonstrates that Labavius is an important critical voice who raises significant critical issues concerning the composite nature of early modern chymical cultures and highlights the risk of trusting too much in simple, inflexible categorizations of pract