Alchemy and Pietism: Alchemical practice at the Halle Orphanage during the 18th century

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Holger Zaunstöck
• Subject Area: Early Modern History ; History of Science
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 500099606

The project explores the alchemical practices of medical drugs production at the Halle Orphanage during the 18th century based on new approaches of the history of knowledge. The institution founded by August Hermann Francke at the end of the 17th century, comprising schools and care facilities for children from all levels of society, developed into a centre of Pietism with an international network and a global scope. The project focuses on the Francke Foundations’ pharmaceutical facilities: the Orphanage pharmacy with its laboratories facilitating the development and production of drugs, and the medical mail-order with a worldwide postal service. The extensive corpus of historical sources pertaining to the Francke Foundations’ pharmaceutical business will for the first time be analysed with regard to alchemical practice and its argumentative embedding in Pietism. The aim is to examine the mutual relations between alchemy and Pietism. Numerous handwritten sources (laboratory reports, alchemical manuscripts, pharmaceutical recipes, correspondence, diary records) as well as a large collection of partly rare alchemical publications from the early modern period have been preserved at the Francke Foundations’ archive and library. These sources form the rich material basis for a detailed study of pharmaceutical and alchemical practice in Pietism, which thus far has not been undertaken.Thus, the project is largely groundbreaking. The interrelations between alchemy and the medical and pharmaceutical history of Halle Pietism have to date not been studied in any detail. Nevertheless, initial research suggests that alchemical practices played a key role in both medicine and pharmacy as practised at the Orphanage during the 18th century. An important resource are the medical-pharmaceutical publications of leading pharmacists working in the Orphanage, which have been preserved in their entirity at the library of the Francke Foundations. In addition, network relations with alchemists outside the Orphanage will be examined, including the influential hermetic Samuel Richter whose studies and alchemical practices are still largely unexplored.The Pietist Orphanage in Halle represents a new location for conducting research on alchemical practice (in addition to, for example, the well-studied alchemy practised at courts). This enables fresh perspectives on key topics concerning international research on alchemy, including the presumption that alchemists active during the early modern period adhered to heterodoxy. Were actors at the Orphanage forced to publicly delimit themselves from alchemical ideas and practices due to allegations of heterodoxy, even though these significantly shaped their worldview?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants