Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time

Devun

ISBN 10: 023114539X / ISBN 13: 9780231145398

Published by Columbia University Press Jan 2014, 2014

About this Item

Neuware - In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan friar John of Rupescissa sent a dramatic warning to his followers: the end times were coming; the apocalypse was near. Rupescissa's teachings were unique in his era. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world, and alchemy in particular, could act as a defense against the calamity of the last days. He treated alchemy as medicine (his work was the conceptual forerunner of pharmacology), and reflected emerging technologies and views that sought to combat famine, plague, religious persecution, and war. In order to understand scientific knowledge as it is today, Leah DeVun asks that we revisit the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, and the Avignon Papacy through Rupescissa's eyes. The advances he pioneered, along with the exciting strides made by his contemporaries, shed critical light on future developments in medicine, pharmacology, and chemistry.

Seller Inventory # 9780231145398

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time
• Publisher: Columbia University Press Jan 2014
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 023114539X
• ISBN 13: 9780231145398
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 153H x 15D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 153 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 374 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan friar John of Rupescissa sent a dramatic warning to his followers: the last days were coming; the apocalypse was near. Deemed insane by the Christian church, Rupescissa had spent more than a decade confined to prisons—in one case wrapped in chains and locked under a staircase—yet ill treatment could not silence the friar's apocalyptic message.

Religious figures who preached the end times were hardly rare in the late Middle Ages, but Rupescissa's teachings were unique. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world, and alchemy in particular, could act as a defense against the plagues and wars of the last days. His melding of apocalyptic prophecy and quasi-scientific inquiry gave rise to a new genre of alchemical writing and a novel cosmology of heaven and earth. Most important, the friar's research represented a remarkable convergence between science and religion.

In order to understand scientific knowledge today, Leah DeVun asks that we revisit Rupescissa's life and the critical events of his age—the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy—through his eyes. Rupescissa treated alchemy as medicine (his work was the conceptual forerunner of pharmacology) and represented the emerging technologies and views that sought to combat famine, plague, religious persecution, and war. The advances he pioneered, along with the exciting strides made by his contemporaries, shed critical light on later developments in medicine, pharmacology, and chemistry.

About the Author

Leah DeVun is associate professor of history at Rutgers University. DeVun is the author of The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance (Columbia, 2021).