The Sword and the Crucible. Count Boldizsár Batthyány and Natural Philosophy in Sixteenth-Century Hungary

In the sixteenth century a new type of practitioner emerges in Europe: the aristocrat who not only supports creative activities, but is personally involved in the projects he finances. The courts of noblemen and other wealthy individuals are transformed into new sites of knowledge production where medicinal waters are distilled, exotic plants cultivated, and alchemical experiments pursued. This new fascination with nature, and the wish to explore and exploit its explicit and hidden mechanisms, was an intellectual trend that spread all over Europe, reaching even the easternmost parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. The Hungarian Count Boldizsár Batthyány (c.1542–1590), a powerful aristocrat and formidable warrior, was also a passionate devotee of natural philosophy. His Western Hungarian court was the focal point of an intellectual network which comprised scholars—such as the renowned botanist Carolus Clusius—physicians, book dealers, and fellow aristocrats from Central Europe and used his connections to exchange objects and information. Batthyány's biography, his extensive correspondence and up-to-date book collection on natural philosophy—especially alchemy, Paracelsian medicine, and botany—reveals that wealth, mobility and intellectual curiosity allowed him to share the enthusiasms of his Western European counterparts, and make the Muses speak even among arms.

About the Author :
Dóra Bobory holds a Ph.D. from the Central European University in Budapest. Her research focuses on patron-practitioners and 'intellectual vagabonds' within the framework of the history of alchemy, astrology and the divinatory arts in early modern Europe. She is currently Andrew W. Mellon Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Florence.

Review :
'The depth of the study can be judged from the inclusion of 683 notes and a thirty-three page bibliography. The book is, however, a very readable account of the life and times of one who used his wealth to build up a personal intellectual network that included physicians, humanists, book dealers and a botanist. The author gives us a vivid picture of the unique character of Boldizsar, who is shown to be, inmany ways, characteristic of European landed gentry of the period.This volume is a significant contribution to the understanding of the role that alchemy and natural sciences played in the Renaissance and in the life of Boldizsar; in addition, it allows ready comparison with accounts of his contemporaries acros Europe.'D. Thorburn Burns, The Queens University of Belfast in AMBIX Vol. 57, No. 2, July 2010