After the crusades of the 13th century, alchemy spread to Europe. Among its followers we find mainly: Albert of Bollstad in Germany, St. Thomas Aquinas in Italy and the monk Roger Bacon in England. In this article we will see with Jean-Pierre Giolitto the story of this Franciscan alchemist who was condemned to prison because of his ideas.
(Jean-Pierre Giolitto is an ex-medical urologist, passionate about medicine and alchemy)
Who’s Roger Bacon?
Born in Ilchester in 1214, Roger Bacon, nicknamed “Doctor Mirabilis”, was educated at Oxford and Paris. He made important discoveries in experimental sciences, chemistry and optics. Bacon was also interested in alchemy, mathematics, languages and astronomy. He was also the first in Europe to describe the process of making gunpowder in detail.
Roger Bacon was a man with a thirst for knowledge and learning. He was a neat, clear and logical mind, but Christian society at the time accused him of witchcraft.
He attracted the hatred of the ignorant and was accused of having made a pact with the Devil by practicing magic that was unholy at the time. As a result of these accusations, all his chemical and physical experiments were perceived by his colleagues as the work of the devil.
Millenarianism in Christian Europe
No one knows how long Roger Bacon was imprisoned, however his last work dates back to 1292. Jean-Pierre Giolitto believes that the sentence was probably pronounced because of his attacks on the scholars and theologians of his time, his work in astrology and alchemy and his penchant for millenarianism or Chiliasm under the influence of the prophecies of Joachim de Fiore, a mystical philosopher of History. There is ample evidence to suggest that Bacon’s imprisonment was primarily the result of his adherence to an astrological tradition, transmitted to Europe through the writings of Albumasar, which placed the birth of Christ and the advent of Christianity under the influence of a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. In his writings for Pope Clement IV, Bacon treated this celestial phenomenon as an integral part of his astrological doctrine.
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