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62-527: Sir Kenelm Digby (11 July 1603 – 11 June 1665) was an English courtier and diplomat. He was also a highly reputed natural philosopher , astrologer and known as a leading Roman Catholic intellectual and Blackloist . For his versatility, he is described in John Pointer 's Oxoniensis Academia (1749) as the "Magazine of all Arts and Sciences, or (as one stiles him) the Ornament of this Nation". Digby

124-529: A court appointment could be called courtiers but not all courtiers held positions at court. Those personal favourites without business around the monarch, sometimes called the camarilla , were also considered courtiers. As social divisions became more rigid, a divide, barely present in Antiquity or the Middle Ages , opened between menial servants and other classes at court, although Alexandre Bontemps ,

186-437: A date of 1617 and the initials of Banfi Hunyades (H x I x NB for Hunyadinus Iohannes Nagybánya). The following page has a verse Latin poem, entitled Ad 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". The Hungarian inscription on

248-429: A higher ratio of sand to potash and lime than was customary. Digby's technique produced wine bottles which were stronger and more stable than most of their day, and which due to their translucent green or brown color protected the contents from light. During his exile and prison term, others claimed his technique as their own, but in 1662 Parliament recognised his claim to the invention as valid. Digby and his wife are

310-637: A journey through Europe, passing through Germany and arriving in England 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 the Prince of Transylvania to occupy

372-696: A laboratory under the lodgings of Gresham Professor of Divinity where the two conducted botanical experiments. At that period, public servants were often rewarded with patents of monopoly; Digby received the regional monopoly of sealing wax in Wales and the Welsh Borders . This was a guaranteed income; more speculative were the monopolies of trade with the Gulf of Guinea and with Canada . These were doubtless more difficult to police. Digby married Venetia Stanley in 1625. They had six sons: In addition, there

434-599: A later notebook reveals a method of transmutation which he attributes to 'a certain famous and generous Bohemian lord', alongside a reference to Edward Kelley , who worked in the court of Rudolf II. Banfi Hunyades was in Germany around 1608, where he bought a Károli Bible . Banfi Hunyades arrived to England in 1608, becoming a well off goldsmith in London , though he never joined the Goldsmith's Guild as he lived outside

496-513: A lost painting of Jacob Peter Gowy , three by Wenceslaus Hollar , all dated to 1644, and one by William Marshall , dated 1646. The engraved portraits show Banfi Hunyades bearded and elderly, holding the glass vessel which he utilized in his mercurial experiments. 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. Beneath

558-569: A member of the Privy Council of Charles I of England . As his Roman Catholicism hindered appointment to government office, he converted to Anglicanism . Digby became a privateer in 1627. Sailing his flagship, the Eagle (later renamed Arabella ), he arrived off Gibraltar on 18 January and captured several Spanish and Flemish vessels. From 15 February to 27 March he remained at anchor off Algiers due to illness of his men, and extracted

620-416: A naval administrator and later Governor of Trinity House . His wife Venetia, a noted beauty, died suddenly in 1633, prompting a famous deathbed portrait by Van Dyck and a eulogy by Ben Jonson . (Digby was later Jonson's literary executor . Jonson's poem about Venetia is now partially lost, because of the loss of the centre sheet of a leaf of papers which held the only copy.) Digby, stricken with grief and

682-578: A popular destination for journeymen goldsmiths. He soon set of on a journey through Europe, possibly passing through Rudolf II 's court in the Holy Roman Empire and the court of Maurice 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. It is not definitely known that he passed through either country, but

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744-476: A position at his planned academy. As of 1633, Banfi Hunyades took a position at Gresham 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. Banfi Hunyades was born in 1576 in Rivulus Dominarum (Nagybánya), then part of

806-530: A promise from authorities of better treatment of the English ships: he persuaded the city governors to free 50 English slaves. He seized a Dutch vessel near Majorca , and after other adventures gained a victory over the French and Venetian ships in the harbour of Iskanderun on 11 June. His successes, however, brought upon the English merchants the risk of reprisals, and he was urged to depart. He returned to become

868-411: 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. His place of burial is unknown. Banfi Hunyades and Dorothy had four children. Two of his children, Johannes (1621–1696) and Elizabeth (1620–1710), have large memorials in the crypt of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch . Johannes was educated in

930-656: A survey of Hungarian Bibles in Oxford, discovered a note about a Hanau Bible  [ hu ] (the second edition of the Vizsoly Bible ) sold by the Bodleian Library to Christ Church Library around 1676. The beautifully bound 1608 German edition of the Bible was found to contain an inscription from none other than Banfi Hunyades himself. The inscription begins with the first gold lettered page, signed with

992-671: A thousand courtiers. The court's systems became prevalent in other courts such as those in the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire and Russia . Byzantinism is a term that was coined for this spread of the Byzantine system in the 19th century. In modern English, the term is often used metaphorically for contemporary political favourites or hangers-on. In modern literature, courtiers are often depicted as insincere, skilled at flattery and intrigue, ambitious and lacking regard for

1054-407: A time when scientific enquiry had not settled down in any disciplined way. He spent enormous time and effort in the pursuits of astrology , and alchemy which he studied in the 1630s with Van Dyck. Notable among his pursuits was the concept of the powder of sympathy . This was a kind of sympathetic magic ; one manufactured a powder using appropriate astrological techniques, and daubed it, not on

1116-444: A trip to Hungary in search of antimony , valued as an alchemical substance. This is evidenced by some suggestive passages in the manuscript of Arcana 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. Dee would later plan

1178-498: A trip to Hungary to collect antimony with Banfi Hunyades, though it fell through after Banfi Hunyades' death. In 1633, Prince of Transylvania George I Rákóczi saw Banfi Hunyades fit to occupy a professorship at his planned academy in Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania), being that he had experience within the English academic system and knowledge in chemistry. There is no evidence he accepted this position and by 1633 he

1240-532: A true chemist". In 1646, Arthur Dee, a lifelong devotee of the search for the philosopher'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, notably Basil Valentine , as being a prima materia and the purest form was thought to be found in from Hungary. This followed several conjectured trips of Banfi Hunyades to Hungary in search of Antimony, though this

1302-623: A work of apologetics in 1638, A Conference with a Lady about choice of a Religion . In it he argued that the Catholic Church, possessing alone the qualifications of universality, unity of doctrine and uninterrupted apostolic succession , is the only true church, and that the intrusion of error into it is impossible. Digby was regarded as an eccentric by contemporaries, partly because of his effusive personality, and partly because of his interests in scientific matters. Henry Stubbe called him "the very Pliny of our age for lying". He lived in

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1364-453: 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 in profile 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. Around 1977, Hungarian academic George Gomori , during

1426-510: Is more likely Bánfihunyadi is a toponymic surname , based on Benedek's birthplace of Bánffyhunyad (present-day Huedin, Romania). Municipal records of Baia Mare indicate Banfi Hunyades owned and operated a vineyard and pressing house . He became an apprentice of goldsmithing in his birthplace, working under a coiner . As of 1606, Banfi Hunyades was in Kassa (today Košice in Slovakia ),

1488-401: Is recorded by John Webster , who studied under Banfi Hunyades, in his Metallographia (1671). He also worked with Gresham Professor of Physic , Jonathan Goddard ; an experiment recorded in a notebook of Goddard's has been speculated by C. H. Josten and F. Sherwood Taylor to constitute the first record of temperature measurement in distillation . Banfi Hunyades may have had a position at

1550-480: Is the only trip there exists hard evidence of. Dee and Banfi Hunyades were known to have associated before this point, with their experiments together weighing heavily on Dee's wealth. Banfi Hunyades died suddenly on 28 August 1646 at the age of 70 in Amsterdam , where he was to meet Dee, destroying his plans of returning to Hungary with Dee. Though not a wealthy man for most of his life, Banfi Hunyades died with

1612-581: The City of London . 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. He clearly kept close links to Hungary, conversing and corresponding in Hungarian with Hungarians in London and in his home country. On 5 July 1617, he donated a lavishly bound German edition of

1674-624: The Forbidden City of Beijing was even larger and more isolated from national life. Very similar features marked the courts of all very large monarchies, including in India , Topkapı Palace in Istanbul , Ancient Rome , Byzantium or the Caliphs of Baghdad or Cairo . Early medieval European courts frequently travelled from place to place following the monarch as they travelled. This

1736-684: The Kingdom of Hungary , now known as Baia Mare, Romania. He was born to Hungarian Calvinist priest and superintendent for Tiszántúl , Benedek Bánfihunyadi Mogyoró  [ hu ] . Benedek had written a text on the Bubonic plague in 1577 ( Az mirigyhalálról való rövid ker. értelem ), suggesting a family interest in science. His family was possibly descended from the noble Hunyadi family , more specifically King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus , though such reports aren't corroborated by any independent genealogical source other than his son's grave. It

1798-590: The Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood , beginning as the alchemist of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke , but ending as a rich usurer of poor reputation in London. His grave claims the, likely erroneous, descendance from the Hunyadi family. Johannes Banfi Hunyades never published anything during his lifetime, and his entire Nachlass consists of only a few inscriptions, letters and experimental notes surviving from his lifetime. The fact that, through

1860-499: 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 has been described by Martyn Rady as "a comment on the extent of the archival and literary sources which survive [...] after almost three and a half centuries". There are five extant contemporary portraits of Banfi Hunyades. Four of these portraits are contemporary engravings based on

1922-486: The Day Before as "Mr. d'Igby". He explains the principle of his sympathetic powder ( unguentum armarium ) to the main character. Courtier Monarchs very often expected the more important nobles to spend much of the year in attendance on them at court. Not all courtiers were noble , as they included clergy , soldiers , clerks , secretaries , agents and middlemen with business at court. All those who held

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1984-878: The Hungarian Károli Bible to the Bodleian upon a visit to Oxford , as a parting gift for a trip to Hungary. George Gomori has suggested that Banfi Hunyades was at Oxford to meet with Thomas Allen , as William Lilly later received a manuscript of Allen's from Banfi Hunyades. In 1619, Banfi Hunyades married Dorothy Colton, daughter of Sir Francis Colton of Kent. 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 as Pál Medgyesi  [ hu ] and Gábor Haller, with some even visiting him in London. Around this time it has been conjectured that Arthur Dee, son of John Dee , associated with Banfi Hunyades in

2046-592: The Immortality of Reasonable Souls . The latter was translated into Latin in 1661 by John Leyburn . These Two Treatises were his major natural-philosophical works, and showed a combination of Aristotelianism and atomism . He was in touch with the leading intellectuals of the time, and was highly regarded by them; he was a founding member of the Royal Society and a member of its governing council from 1662 to 1663. His correspondence with Fermat contains

2108-585: The Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell , who believed in freedom of conscience, Digby was received by the government as a sort of unofficial representative of English Roman Catholics, and was sent in 1655 on a mission to the Papacy to try to reach an understanding. This again proved unsuccessful. At the Restoration , Digby found himself in favour with the new regime due to his ties with Henrietta Maria,

2170-524: The Queen Mother. However, he was often in trouble with Charles II , and was once even banished from Court. Nonetheless, he was generally highly regarded until his death, a month before his 62nd birthday, from "the stone", likely caused by kidney stones . He was buried in his wife's tomb (which was damaged in the great fire of 1666 ), in Christ Church, Newgate Street , London. Digby published

2232-402: The college as late as 1642. 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. Banfi Hunyades' alchemical work was mostly preoccupied with the properties of mercury , the secrets of which he thought would reveal

2294-599: The courts of the Akkadian Empire where there is evidence of court appointments such as that of cup-bearer which was one of the earliest court appointments and remained a position at courts for thousands of years. Two of the earliest titles referring to the general concept of a courtier were likely the ša rēsi and mazzāz pāni of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . In Ancient Egypt a title has been found that translates to high steward or great overseer of

2356-405: The first evidence used by Josten and Taylor in their original biographical investigation into Banfi Hunyades. 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,

2418-458: The frame of the engravings is the monas sign, as described by John Dee in his Monas Hieroglyphica and each engraving is flanked by scientific instruments and alchemical symbols. The Hollar engravings with compass and protractor on the left and retort , alembic and curcubit on the right; the Marshall engraving supported by figures of Sol , Luna and Mercury . These engravings were

2480-593: The growing Puritan party. In the time between 1639 and 1640, he supported Charles I 's expedition against the Presbyterian Scots. He left England for France again in 1641. Following an incident in which he killed a French nobleman, Mont le Ros, in a duel, he returned to England via Flanders in 1642, and was jailed by the House of Commons . He was eventually released at the intervention of Anne of Austria , and went back again to France. He remained there during

2542-474: The head valet de chambre of Louis XIV , was a late example of a "menial" who managed to establish his family in the nobility. The key commodities for a courtier were access and information, and a large court operated at many levels: many successful careers at court involved no direct contact with the monarch. The largest and most famous European court was that of the Palace of Versailles at its peak, although

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2604-718: The house. The courts influenced by the court of the Neo-Assyrian Empire such as those of the Median Empire and the Achaemenid Empire had numerous courtiers After invading the Achaemenid Empire , Alexander the Great returned with the concept of the complex court featuring a variety of courtiers to the Kingdom of Macedonia and Hellenistic Greece . The imperial court of the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople would eventually contain at least

2666-403: The injured part, but on whatever had caused the injury. His book on this mythical salve went through 29 editions. Synchronising the effects of the powder, which allegedly caused a noticeable effect on the patient when applied, was actually suggested in 1687 as a means of solving the longitude problem. In 1644 he published together two major philosophical treatises, The Nature of Bodies and On

2728-399: The national interest. More positive representations include the role played by members of the court in the development of politeness and the arts. Examples of courtiers in fiction: Johannes Banfi Hunyades János Bánfihunyadi ( Hungarian : Bánfihunyadi János ; 1576 – 28 August 1646), better known by his Latinized name Johannes Banfi Hunyades or his pseudonym Hans Hungar ,

2790-524: The object of enough suspicion for the Crown to order an autopsy (rare at the time) on Venetia's body, secluded himself in Gresham College and attempted to forget his personal woes through scientific experimentation and a return to Catholicism. At Gresham College he held an unofficial post, receiving no payment from the college. Digby, alongside Hungarian chemist Johannes Banfi Hunyades , constructed

2852-527: The only extant mathematical proof by Fermat, a demonstration, using his method of descent , that the area of a Pythagorean triangle cannot be a square. His Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants (1661) proved controversial among the Royal Society's members. It was published in French in 1667. Digby is credited with being the first person to note the importance of "vital air", or oxygen , to

2914-588: 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". In 2016, Walter Übelhart (an author of Baia Mare) published În umbra lui Shakespeare: Un roman istoric din Transilvania (published in English as In Shakespeare's Shadow: A novel from Transylvania ),

2976-434: The red powder was probably only oxidized mercury. His characterization as a purely alchemical figure by writers such as Granger, who called him a "smoke-dried mercurialist", has been criticized by some Modern scholars. 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

3038-530: The remainder of the period of the English Civil War . Parliament declared his property in England forfeit. Queen Henrietta Maria had fled England in 1644, and he became her Chancellor. He was then engaged in unsuccessful attempts to solicit support for the English monarchy from Pope Innocent X . His son, also called Kenelm, was killed at the Battle of St Neots , 1648. Following the establishment of

3100-469: The resultant substance into mercury and precipitated the mercury into a red powder. 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. This alchemical preoccupation has been criticized with the biographer Reverend James Granger describing him as "far gone in his philosophical fanaticism" and Martyn Rady suggests

3162-672: The secret of transmutation . He saw mercury as the prima materia of alchemy. According to William Lilly , in his dedicatication to Banfi Hunyades in Anglicus, peace, or no peace (1645), the Latin phrase " Est in Mercurio quicquid quaerunt sapientes " was Banfi Hunyades' motto and the phrase is featured in all of his engraved portraits. 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

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3224-680: The subjects of the 2014 literary novel Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre . He is mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel The Scarlet Letter . In the chapter titled "The Leech", the narrator describes the antagonist, Chillingworth, as having an impressive knowledge of medicine, remarking that Chillingworth claims to have been a colleague of Digby "and other famous men" in the study of natural philosophy. Digby's "scientific attainments" are called "hardly less than supernatural". Digby also appears in Umberto Eco 's novel The Island of

3286-585: The sustenance of plants. He also came up with a crude theory of photosynthesis. Digby is known for the publication of a cookbook , The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened , but it was actually published by a close servant, from his notes, in 1669, several years after his death. It is currently considered an excellent source of period recipes, particularly for beverages such as mead . He tried out many of his recipes on his wife, Venetia, one of which

3348-652: The third and fourth Earls of Dorset and, consequently, which Earl was the father of Margery. Digby became a Catholic once more in 1635. He went into voluntary exile in Paris, where he spent most of his time until 1660. There he met both Marin Mersenne and Thomas Hobbes . Returning to support Charles I in his struggle to establish episcopacy in Scotland (the Bishops' Wars ), he found himself increasingly unpopular with

3410-401: Was capons fed on the flesh of vipers . Digby is also considered the father of the modern wine bottle . During the 1630s, Digby owned a glassworks at Newnham-on-Severn and manufactured glass onions , which were globular in shape with a high, tapered neck, a collar, and a punt. His manufacturing technique involved a coal furnace, made hotter than usual by the inclusion of a wind tunnel, and

3472-587: Was Mary, daughter of William Mushlo . His uncle, John Digby , was the first Earl of Bristol. He went to Gloucester Hall, Oxford , in 1618, where he was taught by Thomas Allen , but left without taking a degree. In time Allen bequeathed to Digby his library, and the latter donated it to the Bodleian . He spent three years on the Continent between 1620 and 1623, where Marie de Medici fell madly in love with him (as he later recounted). In 1623, in Madrid, Digby

3534-515: Was a Hungarian alchemist , chemist and metallurgist . He emigrated to England in 1608 and built a reputation among the academic circles of England and Hungary, associating with such figures as the alchemist Arthur Dee , astrologer William Lilly , physician Jonathan Goddard and scientist Kenelm Digby . Born in Nagybánya , Hungary in 1576, Banfi Hunyades took an apprenticeship in goldsmithing in his hometown. Between 1606 and 1608 he took

3596-419: Was a daughter, Margery. Born c. 1625, who married Edward Dudley of Clopton and had at least one child. She is never mentioned by Digby in his writings. She may have been the daughter of Edward Sackville , 4th Earl of Dorset and Venetia Stanley prior to her marriage to Sir Kenelm. The Earl of Dorset settled an annuity on her. There is some controversy and confusion about whether or not Venetia had affairs with both

3658-459: Was appointed to the household of Prince Charles, who had just arrived there. Returning to England the same year, he was knighted by James I and appointed gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles. He was granted a Cambridge Master of Arts on the King's visit to the university in 1624. Around 1625, he married Venetia Stanley , whose wooing he cryptically described in his memoirs. He had also become

3720-525: Was born at Gayhurst , Buckinghamshire , England. He was of gentry stock, but his family's adherence to Roman Catholicism coloured his career. His father, Sir Everard , was executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot . Kenelm was sufficiently in favour with James I to be proposed as a member of Edmund Bolton 's projected Royal Academy (with George Chapman , Michael Drayton , Ben Jonson , John Selden and Sir Henry Wotton ). His mother

3782-661: Was in the employ of Gresham College . Around 1633, Banfi Hunyades became the assistant of natural philosopher Kenelm 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 the Gresham Professor of Divinity where the two conducted botanical experiments. 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. Hunyades also gave lectures in chemistry, one of which

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3844-456: Was particularly the case in the early French court. But, the European nobility generally had independent power and was less controlled by the monarch until around the 18th century, which gave European court life greater complexity. The earliest courtiers coincide with the development of definable courts beyond the rudimentary entourages or retinues of rulers. There were probably courtiers in

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