Pierre de Jean Olivi and Alchemy
Calvet, Antoine
Pierre de Jean Olivi and Alchemy - 2024.
33
This short study starts as a response to Jeremiah Hackett who, in an article, claimed that the Young John, referred to by Roger Bacon, was Pierre de Jean Olivi. In a letter to Pope Clement IV, he notifies him that the Young John would hand him a message, in fact an experiment in optics and an alchemical text. Hence, to speak of eventual relations between Roger Bacon and Pierre de Jean Olivi must needs raise the question of Olivi’s rapport with alchemy, of which Bacon was an ardent supporter. Upon studying Olivi’s physics and its use, presumed but not proven, by pseudo-Lulle and pseudo-Arnaud de Villeneuve, authors of alchemical works, we come to the conclusion that, in Olivi’s work, nothing would have prevented the above-mentioned authors from finding things to uphold their theories, especially concerning matter brought to light by the Franciscan, but for the fact that in looking closely at his commentaries on Pierre Lombard’s Sentences, neither is there anything to indicate that Olivi leaned towards alchemy, to which he never alludes.
Pierre de Jean Olivi and Alchemy - 2024.
33
This short study starts as a response to Jeremiah Hackett who, in an article, claimed that the Young John, referred to by Roger Bacon, was Pierre de Jean Olivi. In a letter to Pope Clement IV, he notifies him that the Young John would hand him a message, in fact an experiment in optics and an alchemical text. Hence, to speak of eventual relations between Roger Bacon and Pierre de Jean Olivi must needs raise the question of Olivi’s rapport with alchemy, of which Bacon was an ardent supporter. Upon studying Olivi’s physics and its use, presumed but not proven, by pseudo-Lulle and pseudo-Arnaud de Villeneuve, authors of alchemical works, we come to the conclusion that, in Olivi’s work, nothing would have prevented the above-mentioned authors from finding things to uphold their theories, especially concerning matter brought to light by the Franciscan, but for the fact that in looking closely at his commentaries on Pierre Lombard’s Sentences, neither is there anything to indicate that Olivi leaned towards alchemy, to which he never alludes.
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