Acknowledgments
My first encounter with Giovanni Aurelio Augurello dates back to April 1999. While attending a course taught by the late Adriano Mariuz, I joined a guided tour of La Miniatura a Padova dal Medioevo al Settecento, an exhibit on the art of illumination in Veneto hosted at the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua. Among the items on display, there was a copy of Francesco Colonnaâs Hypnerotomachia Polyphili. This mysterious book and the ensuing discussion about Francesco Squarcione, Andrea Mantegna and Quattrocento antiquarians made me curious about this context and its protagonists. On one of them, Felice Feliciano, I eventually wrote my Tesi di Laurea under Armando Balduinoâs supervision. It was under these circumstances that I first heard about Augurello and Chrysopoeia, the alchemical poem at the heart of this volume.
At the time, this vague interest did not produce much, besides making me read some old essays about Augurello, Lorenzo Lotto, Giorgione da Castelfranco and the culture of Treviso in the late Quattrocento. Alchemy and Chrysopoeia occasionally appeared in this scholarship, for the most part published in the early â70s and inspired by Frances A. Yates, Edgard Wind, Fritz Saxl and other notable Warburgians. But it was only after attending a number of courses taught by historian of science Michael H. Shank at UW Madison in the early 2000s that I started taking alchemy, together with astrology, as topics in their own right, rather than instances of the hypothetical âhermetic cultureâ often used to describe Augurelloâs pursuits. Obvious weaknesses in English and Latin, however, discouraged me from delving deeper into a research solely dedicated to this author and his texts on the aurific art.
A conversation with Benjamin Schmidt in 2014 contributed to rekindle the vestigia flammae, by then almost extinct. With remarkable erudition and wit, Schmidt first introduced me to the work of William R. Newman, Lawrence M. Principe and other representatives of the so-called New Historiography in the history of alchemy. A reassessment of Augurelloâs alchemical poetry was initially conceived as part of my contribution to Early Modern Conversions, a project directed by Paul Yachnin at McGill University. After two memorable presentations and a promising research trip to the Biblioteca Correr in Venice, however, the jovial conversations of Early Modern Conversions gave way to the saturnine rigors of textual criticism and Quellenkritik, which have kept me busy for the most part of the last four years.
As this book was slowly taking shape, a number of people have guided me, sharing their expertise and encouraging me to keep going. I would like to remember only a few. The first is Ingrid de Smet, who continued to believe in this project when almost nobody else did. Her superior knowledge of Latin and textual criticism have acted upon this project like the elixir praised in Augurelloâs poetry. William R. Newman generously agreed to read a first draft of this book, correcting numerous mistakes and helping Chrysopoeia to disclose some of its still undeciphered secrets. Michael H. Shank examined the introduction with his usual acumen, helping me to keep the big picture in mind without losing sight of the details. Denis Robichaud read an early draft of the manuscript and gave me priceless tips on the Ficinian side of the topic. Paula Clarke and Matteo Casini helped me to organize a memorable research trip to the Archivio di Stato of Venice. Remigio Pegoraro and Marco de Poli assisted me in finding important pieces of information buried in the archives of the University of Padua. These and other people mentioned in the book are responsible for whatever good is in it. I am solely responsible, of course, for its mistakes.