LEADER 05120nam 2200733Ia 450 001 9910826533103321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-282-93285-3 010 $a9786612932854 010 $a0-226-57713-9 024 7 $a10.7208/9780226577135 035 $a(CKB)2670000000059891 035 $a(EBL)625214 035 $a(OCoLC)692204495 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000426278 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11281221 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000426278 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10373558 035 $a(PQKB)10452592 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000592749 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)12219432 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000592749 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10736407 035 $a(PQKB)11674444 035 $a(StDuBDS)EDZ0000123048 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC625214 035 $a(DE-B1597)524539 035 $a(OCoLC)1135611209 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780226577135 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL625214 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10433761 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL293285 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000059891 100 $a20030904d2004 ub 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurnn#---|u||u 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aPromethean ambitions $ealchemy and the quest to perfect nature /$fWilliam R. Newman 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aChicago $cUniversity of Chicago Press$d2004 215 $a1 online resource (351 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 0 $a0-226-57524-1 311 0 $a0-226-57712-0 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 305-322) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tIllustrations --$tAcknowledgments --$tA Note on terminology --$tAbbreviations --$tIntroduction: From Alchemical Gold to Synthetic Humans: The Problem of the Artificial and the Natural --$tChapter One. Imitating, Challenging, and Perfecting Nature: The Arts and Alchemy in European Antiquity --$tChapter Two. Alchemy and the Art-Nature Debate --$tChapter Three. The Visual Arts and Alchemy --$tChapter Four. Artificial Life and the Homunculus --$tChapter Five. The Art-Nature Debate and the Issue of Experiment --$tAfterword. Further Ramifications of the Art-Nature Debate --$tReferences --$tIndex 330 $aIn an age when the nature of reality is complicated daily by advances in bioengineering, cloning, and artificial intelligence, it is easy to forget that the ever-evolving boundary between nature and technology has long been a source of ethical and scientific concern: modern anxieties about the possibility of artificial life and the dangers of tinkering with nature more generally were shared by opponents of alchemy long before genetic science delivered us a cloned sheep named Dolly. In Promethean Ambitions, William R. Newman ambitiously uses alchemy to investigate the thinning boundary between the natural and the artificial. Focusing primarily on the period between 1200 and 1700, Newman examines the labors of pioneering alchemists and the impassioned-and often negative-responses to their efforts. By the thirteenth century, Newman argues, alchemy had become a benchmark for determining the abilities of both men and demons, representing the epitome of creative power in the natural world. Newman frames the art-nature debate by contrasting the supposed transmutational power of alchemy with the merely representational abilities of the pictorial and plastic arts-a dispute which found artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Bernard Palissy attacking alchemy as an irreligious fraud. The later assertion by the Paracelsian school that one could make an artificial human being-the homunculus-led to further disparagement of alchemy, but as Newman shows, the immense power over nature promised by the field contributed directly to the technological apologetics of Francis Bacon and his followers. By the mid-seventeenth century, the famous "father of modern chemistry," Robert Boyle, was employing the arguments of medieval alchemists to support the identity of naturally occurring substances with those manufactured by "chymical" means. In using history to highlight the art-nature debate, Newman here shows that alchemy was not an unformed and capricious precursor to chemistry; it was an art founded on coherent philosophical and empirical principles, with vocal supporters and even louder critics, that attracted individuals of first-rate intellect. The historical relationship that Newman charts between human creation and nature has innumerable implications today, and he ably links contemporary issues to alchemical debates on the natural versus the artificial. 606 $aScience, Renaissance 606 $aAlchemy$xHistory 606 $aArts, Renaissance 615 0$aScience, Renaissance. 615 0$aAlchemy$xHistory. 615 0$aArts, Renaissance. 676 $a509.024 700 $aNewman$b William Royall$0525797 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910826533103321 996 $aPromethean ambitions$93915138 997 $aUNINA