Johannes Banfi Hunyades | |
|---|---|
| János Bánfihunyadi | |
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| Born | 1576 |
| Died | 28 August 1646 (aged 70) |
| Occupation(s) | Alchemist,chemist,metallurgist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4; including Johannes Banfi Hunyades the Younger, Elisabeth Benson (née Banfi Hunyades) |
János Bánfihunyadi (Hungarian:Bánfihunyadi János; 1576 – 28 August 1646), better known by his Latinized nameJohannes Banfi Hunyades[b] or his pseudonymHans Hungar, was aHungarianalchemist,chemist andmetallurgist. He emigrated toEngland in 1608 and built a reputation among the academic circles of England and Hungary, associating with such figures as the alchemistArthur Dee, astrologerWilliam Lilly, physicianJonathan Goddard and scientistKenelm Digby.
Born inNagybánya, Hungary in 1576, Banfi Hunyades took an apprenticeship ingoldsmithing in his hometown. Between 1606 and 1608 he took a journey through Europe, passing throughGermany and arriving inEngland by 1608. Upon his arrival he became a successful goldsmith in London, visiting Hungary several times before settling in England upon his marriage to Dorothy Colton in 1619, to whom he had 4 children. Banfi Hunyades kept up his contacts with several eminent Hungarian figures and, in 1633, he was invited by thePrince of Transylvania to occupy a position at his planned academy. As of 1633, Banfi Hunyades took a position atGresham College, lecturing and experimenting in chemistry with several eminent scientists at the college until as late as 1642. In 1646, before a planned trip with Arthur Dee to Hungary in search of antimony, Banfi Hunyades died on 28 August.[3]
Banfi Hunyades was born in 1576 inRivulus Dominarum (Nagybánya), then part of theKingdom of Hungary, now known as Baia Mare, Romania.[4] He was born to HungarianCalvinist priest andsuperintendent forTiszántúl,Benedek Bánfihunyadi Mogyoró [hu].[5] Benedek had written a text on theBubonic plague in 1577 (Az mirigyhalálról való rövid ker. értelem), suggesting a family interest in science.[6] His family was possibly descended from the nobleHunyadi family, more specifically King of HungaryMatthias Corvinus, though such reports aren't corroborated by any independent genealogical source other than his son's grave. It is more likely Bánfihunyadi is atoponymic surname, based on Benedek's birthplace ofBánffyhunyad (present-day Huedin, Romania).[7]
Municipal records of Baia Mare indicate Banfi Hunyades owned and operated avineyard andpressing house. He became an apprentice ofgoldsmithing in his birthplace, working under acoiner.[8] As of 1606, Banfi Hunyades was inKassa (today Košice inSlovakia), a popular destination for journeymen goldsmiths.[8]
He soon set of on a journey through Europe, possibly passing throughRudolf II's court in theHoly Roman Empire and the court ofMaurice of Hesse-Kassel. Maurice of Hesse-Kassel's court was an epicenter of occult and alchemical activity in Europe at the time, with several English alchemists and natural philosophers visiting it.[9] It is not definitely known that he passed through either country, but a later notebook reveals a method oftransmutation which he attributes to 'a certain famous and generous Bohemian lord', alongside a reference toEdward Kelley, who worked in the court of Rudolf II.[10] Banfi Hunyades was in Germany around 1608, where he bought aKároli Bible.[10]
Banfi Hunyades arrived to England in 1608, becoming a well off goldsmith inLondon, though he never joined theGoldsmith's Guild as he lived outside theCity of London.[11] In 1613, he sent a letter to his brother informing him of his position and wealth, promising to visit Nagybánya the next year and asking him to take care of his books and instruments left in Hungary.[12] He clearly kept close links to Hungary, conversing and corresponding in Hungarian with Hungarians in London and in his home country.[13] On 5 July 1617, he donated a lavishly bound German edition of the HungarianKároli Bible to theBodleian upon a visit toOxford, as a parting gift for a trip to Hungary.[14][c] George Gomori has suggested that Banfi Hunyades was at Oxford to meet withThomas Allen, as William Lilly later received a manuscript of Allen's from Banfi Hunyades.[16]
In 1619, Banfi Hunyades married Dorothy Colton, daughter of Sir Francis Colton of Kent.[17] Presumably this limited his travel to Hungary, but he continued to keep up his contacts by corresponding in Hungarian with several eminent Hungarian scholars, such asPál Medgyesi [hu] and Gábor Haller, with some even visiting him in London.[18] Around this time it has been conjectured that Arthur Dee, son ofJohn Dee, associated with Banfi Hunyades in a trip to Hungary in search ofantimony, valued as an alchemical substance. This is evidenced by some suggestive passages in the manuscript ofArcana Arcanorum where Dee mentions sending a Hungarian friend to collect some "prima materia" (here referring to antimony), how he would not dare visit Hungary without this "faithful friend", alongside some lines echoing inscriptions on Banfi Hunyades' engraved portraits.[19] Dee would later plan a trip to Hungary to collect antimony with Banfi Hunyades, though it fell through after Banfi Hunyades' death.[20]
In 1633, Prince of TransylvaniaGeorge I Rákóczi saw Banfi Hunyades fit to occupy a professorship at his planned academy inKolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania), being that he had experience within the English academic system and knowledge in chemistry.[21] There is no evidence he accepted this position and by 1633 he was in the employ ofGresham College.[17]
Around 1633, Banfi Hunyades became the assistant of natural philosopherKenelm Digby at Gresham College, though this position was not an official post for either of them and they were not paid for their work. Digby constructed a lab beneath the house of theGresham Professor of Divinity where the two conductedbotanical experiments.[22] There is circumstantial evidence Digby sent Banfi Hunyades out on expeditions to Hungary in search of antimony, as he had allegedly done before with Dee.[23] Hunyades also gave lectures in chemistry, one of which is recorded byJohn Webster, who studied under Banfi Hunyades, in hisMetallographia (1671). He also worked withGresham Professor of Physic,Jonathan Goddard;[24] an experiment recorded in a notebook of Goddard's has been speculated byC. H. Josten andF. Sherwood Taylor to constitute the first record of temperature measurement indistillation.[25] Banfi Hunyades may have had a position at the college as late as 1642.[26] He erroneously claimed to be a professor in a letter to Medgyesi, and has since been misidentified as a professor of the college, but there are no records of him as such, and his marriage and field disqualified him from professorship.[27][d]
Banfi Hunyades' alchemical work was mostly preoccupied with the properties ofmercury, the secrets of which he thought would reveal the secret oftransmutation. He saw mercury as the prima materia of alchemy.[29] According toWilliam Lilly, in his dedicatication to Banfi Hunyades inAnglicus, peace, or no peace (1645), the Latin phrase "Est in Mercurio quicquid quaerunt sapientes"[e] was Banfi Hunyades' motto[30] and the phrase is featured in all of his engraved portraits.[31] An inscription on his portrait describes one such alchemical accomplishment of his, an experiment in which he destroyed gold and silver by way of mercury, reduced the resultant substance into mercury and precipitated the mercury into a red powder.[32] He was clearly proud of the experiment, as it is inscribed on the frame of each of his engraved portraits – based on a Gowy portrait showing him holding the vessel he used to perform the experiment.[29] This alchemical preoccupation has been criticized with the biographer ReverendJames Granger describing him as "far gone in his philosophical fanaticism"[33] andMartyn Rady suggests the red powder was probably only oxidized mercury.[34]
His characterization as a purely alchemical figure by writers such as Granger, who called him a "smoke-dried mercurialist",[35] has been criticized by some Modern scholars.[36] Schultheisz and Tardy claimed that, in his experiments, "the ingredients of the prescriptions, the chemical techniques applied, the methods of preparation all doubtlessly prove that Bánfihunyadi must have been a true chemist".[13]
In 1646, Arthur Dee, a lifelong devotee of the search for thephilosopher's stone, made plans with Banfi Hunyades in London to meet in Amsterdam and travel to Hungary in search of antimony. Antimony was professed by several alchemists, notablyBasil Valentine, as being a prima materia and the purest form was thought to be found in from Hungary.[20] This followed several conjectured trips of Banfi Hunyades to Hungary in search of Antimony, though this is the only trip there exists hard evidence of.[19] Dee and Banfi Hunyades were known to have associated before this point, with their experiments together weighing heavily on Dee's wealth.[37]
Banfi Hunyades died suddenly on 28 August 1646 at the age of 70 inAmsterdam, where he was to meet Dee, destroying his plans of returning to Hungary with Dee.[3][38] Though not a wealthy man for most of his life, Banfi Hunyades died with a reasonably large fortune; as of September 1644, his son Johannes was made sole heir of his possessions, making quite a large sum of money as the manager of his estate.[39] His place of burial is unknown.[40]
Banfi Hunyades and Dorothy had four children. Two of his children, Johannes (1621–1696) and Elizabeth (1620–1710), have large memorials in the crypt ofSt. Leonard's, Shoreditch. Johannes was educated in theMerchant Taylors' School, Northwood, beginning as the alchemist ofPhilip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, but ending as a richusurer of poor reputation in London. His grave claims the, likely erroneous, descendance from the Hunyadi family.[41]
Johannes Banfi Hunyades never published anything during his lifetime, and his entireNachlass consists of only a few inscriptions, letters and experimental notes surviving from his lifetime.[44] The fact that, through the 20th-century,Anglophone and Hungarian scholars have been able to piece together the life of a relatively obscure Hungarian alchemist from contemporary comments, manuscript notes and municipal records[3] has been described byMartyn Rady as "a comment on the extent of the archival and literary sources which survive [...] after almost three and a half centuries".[44]
There are five extant contemporary portraits of Banfi Hunyades.[a] Four of these portraits are contemporary engravings based on a lost painting ofJacob Peter Gowy, three byWenceslaus Hollar, all dated to 1644, and one byWilliam Marshall, dated 1646.[45] The engraved portraits show Banfi Hunyades bearded and elderly, holding the glass vessel which he utilized in his mercurial experiments.[46] The engraved portraits are all enclosed within a frame of alchemical quotations and biographical inscriptions on Banfi Hunyades, revealing his preoccupation with alchemy, mathematics and mercury as well as his birthplace of Nagybánya.[31] Beneath the frame of the engravings is the monas sign, as described byJohn Dee in hisMonas Hieroglyphica and each engraving is flanked by scientific instruments and alchemical symbols. The Hollar engravings withcompass andprotractor on the left andretort,alembic andcurcubit on the right; the Marshall engraving supported by figures ofSol,Luna andMercury.[47] These engravings were the first evidence used by Josten and Taylor in their original biographical investigation into Banfi Hunyades.[31]
The fifth extant portrait of Banfi Hunyades was discovered by Hungarian medical historian,Julius von Magyary-Kossa [hu], in 1929 during research for his historical work,Ungarische Medizinische Erinnerungen. The portrait, in the collection of Dr Geza Faludy as of 1929, is a small silver medallion struck in 1645. The portrait has similarities to the engraved portraits in its borders, populated with alchemical imagery, but on the whole the medallion is very different. The medallion shows Hunyades inprofile with a full head of hair, beard and small medallion. He is crowned with Latin text giving his name and birthplace, alongside his age of 69 at the foot.[28]
Around 1977, Hungarian academicGeorge Gomori, during a survey of Hungarian Bibles in Oxford, discovered a note about aHanau Bible [hu] (the second edition of theVizsoly Bible) sold by the Bodleian Library toChrist Church Library around 1676.[3] The beautifully bound 1608 German edition of the Bible was found to contain an inscription from none other than Banfi Hunyades himself.[3] The inscription begins with the first gold lettered page, signed with a date of 1617 and the initials of Banfi Hunyades (H x I x NB for Hunyadinus Iohannes Nagybánya). The following page has a verseLatin poem, entitledAd Antiquissimam et Celeberimam Academiam Oxoniensem, and a short Latin inscription giving some biographical information on Banfi Hunyades; describing himself as an "aurifaber" (i.e. a goldsmith and alchemist) and the son of "Benedick Banfi Huniadinus".[48] The Hungarian inscription on the page after describes his giving of the book to "the Oxford Library, to be remembered forever" on 15 July 1617. This inscription gives the definite date for his arrival to England as 1608, describing how in 1617 he had "lived here in England for 9 years".[16]
In 2016, Walter Übelhart (an author of Baia Mare) publishedÎn umbra lui Shakespeare: Un roman istoric din Transilvania (published in English asIn Shakespeare's Shadow: A novel from Transylvania), amultilingualalternate history novel with Banfi Hunyades as theprotagonist. The novel speculatively characterises Banfi Hunyades as a contemporary and friend ofWilliam Shakespeare, who offered Shakespeare advice but preferred to stay in the shadows of history.[49]
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