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Chapter 9

Pseudo-Lullian Alchemy and the Mercurial Phoenix

Giovanni da Correggios De Quercu Iulii pontificis sive De lapide philosophico
Wouter J. Hanegraaff

iovanni da Correggio is certainly one of the most enigmatic figures that one might have encountered in Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century.1 The information preserved about his personality and his career is so bizarre that the first modern scholar to call attention to himKurt Ohly could not bring himself to believe it, and concluded, in an article published in 1938, that Correggio was a fictitious character invented by Lodovico Lazzarelli.2 We now know that this is not correct, and that Correggio was a fleshand-blood person; but there are still many questions about him, and most of them will probably never be answered. The focus of this article is on the very last sign of life that we have of Correggio: a manuscript preserved in the British Library under the titleapparently not original to itDe Quercu Iulii pontificis, sive De lapide philosophico (On the Oak of Pope Julius, or, On the Philosophers Stone).3
1

For a complete discussion of the available information on Correggios life and work, plus an edition and translation of two of his works and of Johannes Trithemiuss report about him, see Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Ruud M. Bouthoorn, Lodovico Lazzarelli (14471500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005), pp. 2244 and 311335. For a shorter overview, see Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Correggio, Giovanni da, in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 273275. 2 Kurt Ohly, Johannes Mercurius Corrigiensis, Beitrge zur Inkunabelkunde, n. F. 2, (1938): 133141. 3 British Museum, Harley MS 4081. For earlier references to the manuscript, see Paul Oskar Kristeller, Lodovico Lazzarelli e Giovanni da Correggio, due ermetici del quattrocento, e il manoscritto II. D. I. 4 della Biblioteca Comunale degli Ardenti di Viterbo, in Kristeller, Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters III (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1993), pp. 207225 (p. 220); Chiara Crisciani, Hermeticism and Alchemy: The Case of Lodovico Lazzarelli, Early Science and Medicine, 5, (2000):145159 (p. 150 n 19); Chiara Crisciani and

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As a background to this text, it will be useful to briefly introduce the author. Correggios year of birth cannot be established with certainty, but probably fell around 1450. He seems to have been a bastard son of Antonio da Correggio (?1474), a person belonging to the high nobility of Bologna, and although Giovanni in his later life seems to have fallen into abject poverty, there are indications that originally he was quite well off. We know nothing about his life prior to 12 November 1481, when he appeared as an apocalyptic preacher in Rome and tried to get the attention of the cardinals on the stairs of the papal palace. Among the bystanders was a young poet from San Severino, Lodovico Lazzarelli (14471500), who had joined the Roman Academy some time before, but who was so impressed by Correggios performance that he decided then and there to follow him as his pupil.4 Lazzarellis meeting with Correggio was indeed the turning point in his life: he decided to turn away from the wells of the Helicon and henceforth steer towards Mount Zion, that is to say, rather than to continue pursuing fame and fortune as a poet he chose to look for spiritual wisdom. This remained his goal for the rest of his life and, among other things, led him to write a small masterwork of Christian hermetism, the Crater Hermetis.5 But if this meeting in 1481 was of seminal importance for Lazzarelli, it was no less so for Correggio: all available information suggests that in fact the pupil, with his superior humanistic culture, had a very strong influence on his master. It was almost certainly Lazzarelli who introduced Correggio to the hermetic writings, not the other way around, and we will see that Correggios later interest in alchemy was probably due to Lazzarellis influence as well. Three years after this first meeting, Correggio made a second public appearance in Rome, on Palm Sunday 1484. This spectacular event was described in detail by Lazzarelli, in an anonymous tract called the Epistola Enoch.6 Correggio first attracted a crowd by riding through the streets of Rome to the Vatican, clothed in rich garments and accompanied by four servants. Having left the city, he changed his clothes, putting on a blood-stained linen mantle and a crown of thorns. Over his head was fixed a silver-plated disk in the shape of the crescent moon, with a text that identified him as Gods or Jesuss servant Pimander (obviously reflecting familiarity with Ficinos translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, published in 1471) and which also contained a reference to the Tabula Smaragdina.7 Decked out with various symbolic paraphernalia, described in great detail by Lazzarelli, he mounted a
Michela Pereira, Lalchimia fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, in Storia della Scienza: Medioevo, Rinascimento, vol. IV (Rome: Istituto dellEnciclopedia Italiana, 2001), pp. 907920 (pp. 918919); Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 4344. 4 For the life and work of Lazzarelli, see Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli. 5 See Ibid., pp. 165269. 6 See Ibid., pp. 107149. 7 Ibid., p. 120; . . . dicit dominus deus & pater omnis thelesmi totius mundi Iesus nazarenus (Epistola Enoch 6.2.2.).

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white ass and entered the gates of Rome, surrounded by his servants on horseback. He headed towards the Vatican, but made several stops to proclaim the coming judgment, while identifying himself as Giovanni Mercurio da Correggio, the Angel of Wisdom Pimander. People leaving the churches, holding in their hands the palm branches that they had received during high mass, started following him through the streets, thus greatly amplifying the intended parallel with Christs entrance into Jerusalem. Lazzarelli tells us that the guards at the gate of St. Peter made way for him and allowed him to enter, even though the church was still full of people, including the high church officials. Having dismounted, Correggio is said to have walked up to the altar, offering up his mystical apparel and a paper entitled The Eternal Gospel, prayed to God, and left St. Peters. Now from a contemporary Jewish author, Abraham Farissol, we know that at one time Correggio was imprisoned in Rome, and although Lazzarelli describes him as entering and leaving the church unmolested, this is hardly credible. More probably he was in fact arrested on the spot, and never made it to the altar. He is said to have escaped from prison and to have fled together with his friends and devotees. Back in Bologna he was imprisoned anew, on suspicion of heresy, but was apparently released. In 1486 Correggio made another prophetic appearance, this time in Florence. He was on his way to the court of King Ferdinand I in Naples, who had requested to see him, undoubtedly at the suggestion of Lazzarelli who had recently arrived at Ferdinands court. But Lorenzo il Magnifico ordered Correggios arrest and imprisonment, and he was severely harrassed by a Franciscan inquisitor. King Ferdinand obtained his release, but we do not know whether Correggio ever made it to Naples. We then lose track of Correggio again, but sometime after 1492 he visited Rome with a considerable following, calling himself the younger Hermes. In 1497 he preached in Venice, and in 1499 he passed through Cesena on his way to Milan, dressed in sackcloth and accompanied by his entire household, including his wife and five children. In 1501 he traveled to Lyons, still with his family, where he obtained an audience with King Louis XII, whom he managed to impress with his learning and with promises of sensational alchemical and magical secrets.8 Later Correggio appeared in Rome again, where he claimed to have found an alchemical cure against the plague.9 And then finally we have his De Quercu, on which I will now concentrate further.
See Johannes Trithemiuss report in vol. 2 of his Annales Hirsaugienses (ed. Sankt Gallen, 1690, 584586, edited and translated in Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 329335). 9 For Correggios plague-tract (including an edition and translation) see W.B. McDaniel, An Hermetic Plague-Tract by Johannes Mercurius Corrigiensis. Part I: Text and Translation, Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, ser. 4, 9 (1941):96111, and An Hermetic Plague-Tract by Johannes Mercurius Corrigiensis. Part II: Bio-Bibliography, Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, ser. 4, 9 (1942): 217225.
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Correggio was in fact more successful than Lazzarelli in having his works printed, and interestingly, this was during the last part of his life when he and his family were roaming the streets as beggars. We have from him an oration printed in two colors in the form of a cross, published in 1499;10 a long text against the Barbarians, the Turcs and the Scyths printed on the occasion of his visit to Lyons in 1501; and his undated plague tract mentioned earlier, probably published after 1501. His De Quercu, however, exists only in a single manuscript. Apart from a short discussion by Chiara Crisciani and Michela Pereira, it has not yet been studied.11 The manuscript consists of 40 folios. It is written in a clear and quite elegant hand, and at the end carries the date 1506. The title On the Oak of Pope Julius, or On the Philosophers Stone is written in the righthand corner of the first folio, in a different handwriting, and was probably added later. The text consists of an introduction and seventeen numbered chapters. De Quercu is addressed to Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), who reigned as pope from 1503 to 1513. The fact that Della Rovere means Of the Oak, and that the oak figured prominently in Juliuss coat of arms, provides Correggio with the ruling metaphor of his text, in which he never stops exalting the supreme magnitude, beauty and power of the Popes oak: its branches spread throughout the world, its luster runs like a light through the universe, its fruit gives life and health to all people, it offers protection to all good Christians, including the poor and downtrodden, and so on.12 To all his praise of Julius oak, in chapter five Correggio adds a surprising aspect:
And what is even more, and much, much greater, the greatest of all things most great, that which vanquishes the triumph of all the grandeurs of this your most triumphal oak: on top of it, on the highest and most fruitful place of its loveliness . . . [sits] the truly mercurial, trismegistical, wise, amiable and most happy Phoenixnot the one of whom they say that it came out of Egypt to the City when Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius were consuls, but the one that, crowned with the triple crown, burns itself in the city of Heliopolis in Egypt in the midst of aromatic herbs on a nest of twigs that was an offering piled up by the high priest, in order that for this peacock too, its feathers standing out like hairs, and a golden halo sparkling about its neck, having a tail of purple hue, in which there are rosy red feathers with orbiculate eyes, the blue lustre may be intermingled with miraculous variety. For this bird is unique in the

Critical edition and translation (with a photograph of the manuscript) in Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 314327. 11 Crisciani and Pereira, LAlchemia, pp. 918919. 12 quasi Lux per universa discurrat (Harley MS 4081, fol. 4v). All translations from De Quercu are by Ruud M. Bouthoorn and Wouter J. Hanegraaff.

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world, singular and solitary, and without its equal on earth; and yet it is universal, to be found nowhere, and everywhere too.13

This quotation contains a number of obvious hermetic and alchemical references. The phoenix is called mercurial and trismegistical here and in several other places; the formulation much, much greater, the greatest of all things most great clearly refers likewise to the thrice-greatest nature of Correggios topic; and if the bird is said to be universal, to be found nowhere, and everywhere too, this is a clear hint that the Phoenix in fact stands for the mysterious substance by which the Great Work of transmutation is achieved and which has often been described in similar terms. All this is confirmed by the following chapters, which describe how the phoenix descends from heaven to earth by the way of putrefaction and resolution, separation and purification,14 and how by being burned it returns to
the primary and primordial nature of the world and its quintessence, the chaos, hyle, pure, informal and universal matter of nature, from which it had come before. It returns to the genus of genuses, to the form of forms, and to the general seed of all of the world. Which is also called world spirit, the end of the egg and the great and triple stone, that is to say mineral, vegetable, and animal, which is a stone and no stone, is found in any place and in each and any man, in every thing; which is held by both the rich and poor, and can be changed into every colour or into any nature or complexion with which this stone is brought in conjunction.15

Having first been reduced to primary matter, the phoenix can next be regenerated from the four virtues and primary natures to the four Aristotelian
13

Harley MS 4081, fols. 11v12r; Et quod quidem maius, multumque maiorum maximum: et maximorum summum et summorum omnium huius tuae triumphantissimae quercus vincens triumphum: est quod super eam in eminentiori atque uberiori eius amoenitatis loco . . . Ipsa mercurialis, Trismegistica, sapiens, amabilis, et foelicissima Foenix: non quae ex Aegypto in Urbem, Quinto Plautio: Sexto Papinio consulibus allata fuit: Sed quae in Helyopoli civitate Aegypti super sarmentorum struem: quae coniecta a sacerdote magno: in sacrificium fuerat: se inter aromata semel combussit: triplici scilicet diademate coronata: ut et pavoni illi in comam extantibus plumis: et circa collum aureo Rutilanti fulgore: caudamque coloris habens purpurei in qua quidem Roseis coruscantibus pennis orbiculatisque oculis ceruleus nitor mira varietate interscribitur. Hec namque avis unica mundo singularisque, et solitaria: ac et in orbe sine pare: necnon communis: nullibique insuper, et ubique reperta. 14 Ibid., fol. 13r; ipsa viva et innovata foenix . . . descendensque de coelo in terram, putrefactionis resolutionisque: et separationis: ac depurationis. 15 Ibid., fols. 13v14r; ad primam primordialemque naturam mundi: et quintam eius essentiam chaos, hyle, puram atque informem et universalem naturae materiam: ex qua prius fuerat, ipsa Revertitur, Ad genus inquam generum: et ad formam formarum: ac ad generale totius mundi semen: Qui et mundanus spiritus, terminusque ovi: ac lapis maior: et triplex: Mineralis scilicet Vegetabilis: et Animalis: dicitur: Qui quidem lapis est: et non lapis: Reperiturque in quolibet Loco: et in quolibet homine: et in qualibet Re: et quem habent tam divites quam pauperes: et convertibilis est in omnem colorem: et in omnem naturam: atque complexionem cui lapis ipse coniungitur.

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elements, from there it can be shaped into composite bodies, and finally become a new living substance. If this substance is subjected to the correct procedures in an alchemical vessel, Correggio writes, not just its blood, but finally also its filth may transcend to, and attain, such a high sublimity that, through this, very great marvels and innumerable great deeds in the threefold genus of natures may be done.16 The complete operation takes a long time, for the substance must be digested and sublimed up to one thousand times and more, but the final result will be nothing less than the famous fifth essence that all wise men are looking for: 17
its odour and miraculous substance (having all delight in it and all the sweetness of taste) will seem to have descended from the height and glory of God on high. . . . because no fragrance and no earthly odour can be equal to it, and it makes a composite that is almost as incorruptible as heaven, and of the nature of heaven, and also performs and perfects the specific operations of heaven on the human body to such an extent that wise men therefore call it a fifth essence and the heaven of man. For it relates to our body in the same way as heaven relates to the universe.18

Now why should this miraculous substance and agent of transmutation be sitting on top of Juliuss oak? Correggios text gives no clear answer, but some clues might be found by considering fifteenth-century alchemical iconography. The famous Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit, written in the 1410s, contains several images of birds sitting on top of trees,19 and this motif seems to have

Ibid., fols. 14v15r; non solum sanguis: sed stercus denique eius ad tantam transcendere, ac pervenire posset sublimitatem: quod per ipsam eadem . . . in triplici genere naturarum . . . miranda quippe valde et innumerabilia perpetrari possent magnalia. 17 Ibid., fol. 15r; usque ad mille vices et ultra and quintam essentiam: quam sapientes omnes inquirunt. 18 Ibid., fols. 15v16r; eius quippe odor: miraculosaque substantia (omne delectamentum in se habens: et omnem saporis suavitatem) quasi de celsitudine atque gloria sublimis dei descendisse videtur . . . cum nullus quidem odor: nullaque mundana fragrantia illi valeat adequari: fitque compositum incorruptibile sic fere ut coelum et de natura coeli, ac et admodum coeli suas in humano corpore agens atque perficiens operationes: unde et Quinta essentia nostra: et coelum humanum a sapientibus nuncupatur: ipsa enim ita se habet ratione corporis nostri: sicut celum ratione totius. 19 See e.g., Vad St. Gallen, MS 418 (1488), image reproduced in Manuel Bachmann and Thomas Hofmeier, Geheimnisse der Alchemie (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1999), p. 121, and Wolfenbttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, MS guelf. 188 Blankenburg (1471), image reproduced as illustration 31 in Barbara Obrist, Les dbuts de limagerie alchimique (XIVeXVe sicles) (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1982), unpaginated. On the Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit, see W. Ganzenmller, Beitrge zur Geschichte der Technologie und der Alchemie (Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1956), pp. 231272; Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, Signa Hermetis (Zwei alte alchemistische Bilderhandschriften), Erster Teil in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins fr Kunstwissenschaft, 4, (1937):93112 (pp. 98112); Herwig Buntz, Das Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit: Sein Autor und seine berlieferung, Zeitschrift fr Deutsches Altertum,101, (1972):150160; Obrist, Les dbuts, 117182.

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been taken up and further developed thereafter.20 With Correggios text in mind, it is striking to find even an image where the tree is depicted specifically as an oak.21 The Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit comes into play as a possible (direct or indirect) source for Correggio, all the more because of its pronounced apocalyptic elements, which would have resonated well with Correggios own apocalypticism. Still, the birds in these images are eagles rather than phoenixes, so we still need to find a background for that specific aspect of Correggios text. Sylvain Matton, who has published the most extensive discussion of the subject, points out that the symbol of the phoenix becomes prominent in an alchemical context only by the end of the sixteenth century and through the seventeenth century, and is practically absent in earlier centuries.22 The two exceptions mentioned by him are a brief reference to the phoenix in a work attributed to Roger Bacon and first published in 1542,23 and a manuscript entitled Phoenix attributed to Arnald of Villanova.24 To these two should be added a third manuscript entitled Phnix, by Jacme Lustrach, which can be dated to 13991400.25 None of these, however, actually discusses the phoenix, let alone connects it with the philosophers stone. What Matton did not mention is the appearance of phoenixes in alchemical iconography, including the famous Aurora consurgens, usually dated to the fifteenth century. In one of the images, we see a phoenix who assists the alchemist in manipulating the contents of a mortar, and Barbara Obrist comSee, for example, the cycle of alchemical illustrations in Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS germ. 1 (first half of the fifteenth century), image reproduced as illustration 94 in Obrist, Les dbuts, unpaginated. 21 See the characteristic shape of the tree leaves of illustration 31 in Obrist, Les dbuts. 22 Sylvain Matton, Le phnix dans loeuvre de Michel Maier et la littrature alchimique, in Michel Maier, Chansons intellectuelles sur la rsurrection du Phnix (Paris: J.C. Bailly, 1984), pp. 561 (p. 19): Absent des traits alchimiques grecs qui nous ont t conservs, le phnix semble fort rare dans ceux du Moyen Age. En dehors du trait, rest manuscrit intitul Phoenix et attribu Arnauld de Villeneuve . . ., nous nen avons rencontr quune mention, dans le De secretis operibus artis et naturae de Roger Bacon, dont lauthenticit nest pas tablie. 23 See quotation in Matton, Le phnix, p. 20. 24 Mentioned as unpublished by Matton; but see the discussion of two Latin manuscripts and the edition of a manuscript in Catalan, in Jos Ramon de Luanco, La alquimia en Espaa: Escritos inditos, noticias y apuntamientos que pueden servir para la historia de los adeptos espaoles, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Redonda y Xumetra, 1897), Vol. 2, pp. 120141. 25 I am grateful to Michela Pereira for this information (personal communication, 9 December 2006). For Lustrachs as yet unpublished manuscript, see Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 19291958), Vol. 3, p. 637, and Michela Pereira, Per una histria de lalqumia a la Catalunya medieval, in La Cincia en la Histria des Paisos Catalans, eds. J. Vernet and R. Pars (Valencia: Universitat de Valencia, 2004), Vol. 1, pp. 455482 (pp. 471472). According to Pereira, the text deals with practical instructions, and in spite of the title the phoenix is not discussed in the text.
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ments that the bird must indeed be seen here as a double for the philosophers stone and its action.26 The question remains how usual or unusual such an association was at the time. More research would be needed, in particular, to explore the possible relevance of a series of manuscript treatises in Trinity College, Cambridge, which likewise compare the phoenix to the Stone.27 In his De Quercu, Correggio clearly implies that he knows the secret of the substance symbolized by the phoenix, and of the process of transmutation by which it can be turned into the fifth essence. Having emphasized that this is an arcanum that cannot be divulged to the profane, but only to those who are worthy of it, he then launches into a lengthy description of all the blessings that it bestows. Briefly summarized (and see also Correggios own summary at the beginning of the manuscript) they are the following: It can turn imperfect metals into perfect gold and silver. It can turn crystal and common glass into precious stones and gems, and can also produce a special kind of flexible and malleable glass. It can turn pearls, gems and gold into a most precious and potable liquor or universal medicine. It can cause trees to give fruit twelve times a year. It can turn an ordinary appletree into a tree of life. It can cure all diseases, restore a man to perfect health and youth, and can even call a man back from the very threshold of death (as long as God permits it). It makes man immune to heat or cold, and permits him to live without need of ordinary food, drink, or sleep. By means of it one can attract any beneficial constellation and influence from the stars. It is a means of finding hidden treasures, and acquiring perfect knowledge of occult mysteries, as well as every art, and to learn and know all things hidden and yet unknown, that is to say, it bestows the gift of prophecy.28 It allows a person to be anywhere at will, by ones own strength and in a natural way.29

26

See illustration 66 in Obrist, Les dbuts, unpaginated, and commentary on p. 227: Le phnix assis dans le feu et agissant sur le contenu du mortier doit redoubler le symbolisme de la pierre (arsenic?) et de son action. 27 Ibid., pp. 227228, n. 180: Toute une srie de traits comparant la pierre philosophale au phnix se trouve dans un manuscrit conserv Cambridge, Trinity college . . . Le premier, accompagn de dessins du dbut du XVIe sicle dont un phnix (fol. 5 r), comprend le pome de Lactance et des allgorisations alchimiques du pome. Aegidius de Vadis en est lauteur. 28 Harley MS 4081, fol. 2r; atque omnem pariter artem [. . .] Ad omnia absconsa: et improvisa omnia discendum: sciendumque. 29 Ibid., Ad ubique ad libitum vi propria: ac naturaliter essendum.

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And finally, by means of it the Pope will break, chase away and instantly exterminate the armies and powers of the Turks, the Mohammedans and all Pagan nations, without need of weaponry and without a great army.30 Most of these miracles are discussed in some detail, with special emphasis on the incredible virtues of the substance as a universal medicine. In chapter 12, Correggio takes care to point out that all this is done not as something miraculous and against the course of nature, or through spells and by magical or kabbalistical art; on the contrary, it is done on the basis of nature, and by nature and through nature.31 Nevertheless, he continues in the next chapter to emphasize, with a nod to Hermes, that the substance also perfects man beyond and above nature,32 and that Julius will gain superhuman knowledge and power:
. . . you will know the things of the past and you will also have knowledge of the future. You will know the subtleties of words and the solutions of arguments. You will know the signs and portents before they occur, and the outcomes of times and centuries. The mutations of vicissitudes and changes of customs, the courses of the year, the dispositions of the stars, the virtues of the elements, the properties of stones, the various powers of shoots, the virtues of roots, the natures of the animals and the wrath of wild beasts, the force of the winds and the thoughts of men. And all things that are hidden and unforeseen you will thoroughly learn, with Solomon himself. . . . Therefore all obscurity will flee from you, all your darkness will be illuminated as at midday. And you too will conquer all the hosts of pagans and Turks, not in strength of body, nor in might of armour, but . . . with the word, the spirit and the rod of virtue.33

Correggio makes some feeble and quite inconsistent attempts to present the text as not actually written by him but inspired by some divine entity, who is merely using his humble servant, our most wealthy pauper Giovanni Mercurio da Correggio as his mouthpiece and asks the Pope to help Giovanni in
30 Ibid., fol. 2v; Ad turcorum, mahumethanorumque, ac paganorum omnium exercitus, atque potentias sine armatura: at absque ulla multorum militia, ilico confringendum, fugandum, exterminandumque. 31 Ibid., fol. 25v; quiddam miraculosum: et contra cursum naturae: ac per incantationem, et artem magicam sive cabalisticam and fol. 26r; de natura, et a natura et per naturam. 32 Ibid., fols. 28rv; ultra, et supra naturam hominem perficit. 33 Ibid., fols. 30v31r; scies per eam preterita: et de futuris etiam existimabis. Scies versutias sermonum: et dissolutiones argumentorum. Signa: et monstra scies antequam fiant: et eventus temporum et seculorum: Vicissitudinumque permutationes, mutationes morum, anni cursus: Stellarum dispositiones: virtutes elementorum: lapidum proprietates: differentias virgultorum: et virtutes Radicum: naturas animalium: et iras bestiarum: vim ventorum: et cogitationes hominum. Et quaecumque absconsa et improvisa sunt cum Salomone ipso perdisces. . . . Ideoque fugiet a te omnis obscuritas: omnesque tenebrae tuae tamquam meridies illuminabuntur. Et vinces tu quoque paganorum, atque turcorum omnium turbas: non in virtute corporis: nec in armatura potentiae: sed . . . verbo, spiritu, ac virga virtutis.

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exchange for his alchemical gift.34 Interestingly, Correggio seems to have known Giuliano della Rovere before he became pope, for in chapter 7 he refers to some earlier meeting in Savona when he met him face to face. Now, years later, Correggio, his wife Elena Maria, and his children were clearly in a very pitiable state, and De Quercu can be seen as a desperate attempt to get the pope to remember him, and to save the family from imminent starvation. Correggio paints a quite shocking picture of extreme poverty and hardship, especially emphasizing the suffering of his downtrodden, sighing, afflicted and poor little wife.35 In flagrant contradiction to his claim of having discovered the secret of making gold and precious gems, the text ends on a note of despair. Forgetting that it is not him but a divine entity that is supposedly addressing the pope, the authorial voice begs for help in exchange for his alchemical gift: Protect me, protect me . . . and I will protect you. Give our Giovanni Mercurio your help and I will help you.36 We do not know whether the plea had any success at all, but one fears that the pontifical oak gave them no protection and that Giovanni and Elena Maria da Correggio may well have perished under its branches, together with their children. It would seem that Correggios life had taken a turn for the worse somewhere towards the end of the fifteenth century. After his Palm Sunday performance in Rome in 1484, he is said to have returned to his home and family in Bologna; but from 1499 on, all the sources describe him as dressed in sackcloth and wandering the streets together with his wife and five children.37 This change seems to have paralleled his transformation from an apocalyptic prophet into an alchemist and professed master of natural magic:38 he could no longer afford only to warn the people of the coming judgmenthe now needed to sell a product in return for protection. This product consisted of an alchemical secret that can be clearly identified as belonging within the so-called pseudo-Lullian tradition. As demonstrated by Michela Pereira, the alchemical corpus attributed to Raymond Lull consists of a specific type of alchemical practice and speculation that emerged during the fifteenth century on the basis of older sources.39 Some notable features of this tradition are the production of precious stones and artificial gems; an interest in glass-making (linked especially to the work of William Sedacer40); a focus on the notion of the fifth essence (linked to Roger Bacon
Ibid., fol. 4v; ditissimum pauperem nostrum Ioannem Mercurium de Corrigia. Ibid., fol. 6v; conculcata, gemens, afflicta, et paupercula mulier. 36 Ibid., fol. 37r; Protege: protege me, . . . protege me: et ego protegam te. Largire Ioanni mercurio nostro auxilium tuum: et ego adiuvabo te. 37 See Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 3637. 38 Ibid., p. 39. 39 Michela Pereira, The Alchemical Corpus attributed to Raymond Lull (London: The Warburg Institute / University of London, 1989). 40 See Pascale Barthlemy, La Sedacina ou luvre au crible: Lalchimie de Guillaume Sedaceer, carme catalan de la fin du XIVe sicle, in Chrysopoeia: Textes et Travaux, 8, (Paris: S..H.A., 2002).
35 34

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and John of Rupescissa); the notion of the elixir as an agent of transmutation and a universal medicine, but also for stimulating the growth of plants; and a belief that by means of alchemy one may achieve Lulls goal of converting the infidels. All these elements appear prominently in Correggios De Quercu. We do not know from where Correggio derived his knowledge of pseudo-Lullian alchemy, but the evidence would seem to point in the direction of his former pupil Lazzarelli, who had died in 1500. We know that in 1495, Lazzarelli had met an otherwise unknown Burgundian alchemist named Johannes Rigaud de Branchiis, who became his master in the art. The main result of this new course of study was a Tractatus de alchimia that has reached us in manuscript.41 It contains a text known as De investigatione lapidis (known also from several other manuscripts42), some other pseudo-Lullian materials, a number of practical tabulae, and a procedure for obtaining the elixir attributed to Rigaud de Branchiis. All this was preceded by a dedicatory verse and a prologue written by Lazzarelli himself, known as the Vade mecum.43 Very interestingly, this prologue is the only place in Lazzarellis writings where he discusses the subject of magic. Astral magic is merely mentioned, not discussed, because it is disapproved of by the holy fathers; by sacerdotal and divine magic Lazzarelli seems to understand the kind of mystical attainment described in detail in his Crater Hermetis; and as for natural magic, this stands for the alchemy that Lazzarelli learned from Rigaud de Branchiis. In my reconstruction of Lazzarellis life, I suggested that in 1495 he left Naples to travel to Rome, and from there probably went on to Bologna, where he would surely not have missed the opportunity of visiting Correggio (who probably had not yet lost his house).44 Lazzarelli has left us a transcription of Petrus Bonus Pretiosa margarita novella, preceded by a verse of his own dedicated to his teacher Joannes.45 This could be either Rigaud de Branchiis or Correggio, but if we assume it was Correggio, this would fit nicely with the fact that the manuscript was preserved in Modena, close to Bologna. It would also indicate that Lazzarelli was now sharing his new enthusiasm about alchemy with his master Giovanni da Correggio. Although this reconstruction cannot but remain speculation, it fits the data well. We must also realize that Lazzarelli was always more the intellectual and scholar, much more so than the preacher and enthusiast Correggio. While the ponderous style of De Quercu is typical of the latter, various passages in the text, vague and muddled though they may sometimes be, yet reflect an understanding of alchemical theory considerably more serious than one is tempted to credit Correggio
41 42

On Lazzarelli and alchemy, see Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 9699. See Pereira, Alchemical Corpus, p. 85 (I. 65). 43 Critical edition and translation in Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 271279. 44 Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 99100; cf. Maria Paola Saci, Ludovico Lazzarelli: Da Elicona a Sion (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999), pp. 101102. 45 See Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn, Lazzarelli, pp. 278279.

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with. I suspect that Lazzarelli was the source of this information: when he traveled further northwards from Bologna, he may well have left Correggio some alchemical writings that have not survived, but that the prophet used about ten years later when he turned to Pope Julius II in his last-ditch attempt to save himself and his family from starvation.