"An Experimental Noble Household: Count Batthyany's Alchemy in Sixteenth-Century Hungary"

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

The 16th century was the age of the so-called prince-practitioners, noblemen who supported alchemical projects and were personally involved in the experimentation. Alchemy was a passion shared by many German, French, Danish, Bohemian, and Moravian noblemen, such as the Hungarian Boldizsár Batthyány, an influential aristocrat and patron of natural philosophy. The talk details some curious instances of his correspondence, with special attention to the materials and apparatus he and his correspondents used, the alchemical notions they were familiar with, the readings they relied on, and the nature of their experiments. Bobory questions whether different political or economic circumstances also influenced the way “scientific” ideas were transmitted and perceived.

Dóra Bobory is an independent scholar who graduated from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Her main field of interest is early modern history of science, specializing in the history of alchemy, botany, and the divinatory arts. She is currently writing her first monograph on the natural philosophical pursuits of the Hungarian count Boldizsár Batthyány.