Michael Sendivogius (; pl, Michał Sędziwój; 2 February 1566 – 1636) was a Polish alchemist, philosopher, and medical doctor. A pioneer of chemistry, he developed ways of purification and creation of various acids,

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

s and other chemical compounds. He discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substance—later called

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as ...

—170 years before Scheele's discovery of the element. He correctly identified this 'food of life' with the gas (also oxygen) given off by heating nitre (

saltpetre Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitra ...

). This substance, the 'central nitre', had a central position in Sendivogius' schema of the universe.

Biography

Little is known of his early life: he was born in a noble family that was part of the Clan of Ostoja. His father sent him to study in university of

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

but Sendivogius visited also most of the

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an countries and universities; he studied at

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Altdorf,

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

. His acquaintances included John Dee and

Edward Kelley Sir Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot (; 1 August 1555 – 1597/8), was an English Renaissance occultist and scryer. He is best known for working with John Dee in his magical investigations. Besides the professed ability to ...

. It was thanks to him that King

Stephen Báthory Stephen Báthory ( hu, Báthory István; pl, Stefan Batory; ; 27 September 1533 – 12 December 1586) was Voivode of Transylvania (1571–1576), Prince of Transylvania (1576–1586), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1576–1586) ...

agreed to finance their experiments.''Praktyk i mistyk'', Andrzej Datko, Wiedza i życie
(2012-06-12) (in Polish) In the 1590s he was active in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

, at the famously open-minded court of Emperor Rudolf II. In Poland he appeared at the court of King

Sigismund III Vasa Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to ...

around 1600, and quickly achieved great fame, as the Polish king was himself an alchemy enthusiast and even conducted experiments with Sendivogius. In

Wawel The Wawel Royal Castle (; ''Zamek Królewski na Wawelu'') and the Wawel Hill on which it sits constitute the most historically and culturally significant site in Poland. A fortified residency on the Vistula River in Kraków, it was established o ...

castle, the chamber where his experiments were performed is still intact. The more conservative Polish nobles soon came to dislike him for encouraging the king to expend vast sums of money on chemical experimentation. The more practical aspects of his work in Poland involved the design of mines and metal

foundries A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

. His widespread international contacts led to his employment as a diplomat from about 1600. In his later years, Sendivogius spent more time in Bohemia and Moravia (now in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

), where he had been granted lands by the Habsburg emperor. Near the end of his life, he settled in

, in the court of Rudolf II, where he gained even more fame as a designer of metal mines and

. However the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle ...

of 1618-48 had effectively ended the golden age of alchemy: the rich patrons now spent their money on financing war rather than chemical speculation, and he died in relative obscurity.

Works

Daniel Stolcius in his ''Viridarium Chymicum'' (1624) praises Sendivogius as the author of twelve books. The most famous of these was his "New Chemical Light", published in 1604. Besides a relatively clear exposition of his theory on the existence of a 'food of life' in air, his books contain various scientific, pseudo-scientific and philosophical theories, and were repeatedly translated and widely read among such worthies as

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

into the 18th century.

Sendivogius in fiction

The first appearance of this character in fiction was in the 1845 book ''Sędziwoj'' by , a writer during the times of romanticism in Poland. In early 2000s he appeared in several books by the Polish writer Andrzej Pilipiuk (''Kuzynki'' 2003, ''Księżniczka'' 2004, ''Dziedziczki'' 2005). Sendivogius is also a character in the novel of

Gustav Meyrink Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel '' The Golem''. He has been described as the "most respected Germa ...

(part of ''Goldmachergeschichten, August Scherl Verlag, Berlin 1925''), a German author from Prague, Bohemia, who often wrote about alchemy and alchemists. The Polish 19th-century realist painter Jan Matejko depicted Sendivogius demonstrating a transmutation of a base metal into gold before King

. He was also shown (thinly disguised) as the Alchemist Sendivogius in a Polish TV series in the 1980s.

Writings

*''De Lapide Philosophorum Tractatus duodecim e naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromti''. 1604. ** Also known as ''Novum Lumen Chymicum'' (New Chemical Light), the first Latin editions were published simultaneously in Prague and Frankfurt. *''Dialogus Mercuriii, Alchemistae et Naturae''. Cologne, 1607. *''Tractatus de sulphure altero naturae principio''. Cologne, 1616.

Notes

References

* Prinke, Rafał T. �
Beyond Patronage: Michael Sendivogius and the Meanings of Success in Alchemy
�� In Chymia: Science and Nature in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by Miguel López Pérez, Didier Kahn, and Mar Rey Bueno. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. * Prinke, Rafal T

''The Hermetic Journal'' (1990), 72-98. * Prinke, Rafał T. “Nolite Me Inquirere (Nechtějte se po mně ptáti): Michael Sendivogius.” In ''Alchymie a Rudolf II: Hledání Tajemství Přírody ve Střední Evropě v 16. a 17. Století'', edited by Ivo Purš and Vladimír Karpenko, 317–35. Praha: Artefactum, 2011. * Sendivogius, Michael.''The Alchemical Letters of Michael Sendivogius to the Rosicrucian Society''. Holmes Pub Group Llc. * Szydło, Zbigniew. ''Water which does not wet hands. The alchemy of Michael Sendivogius''. London-Warsaw, 1994. ** Polish edition: ''Woda, która nie moczy rąk. Alchemia Michała Sędziwoja.''. Wydawnictwa Naukowo-Techniczne: Warszawa, 1997.

External links

Sendivogius.pl
website about the life and works of MIchal Sedziwoj

* ttp://www.levity.com/alchemy/send10.html LETTERS OF MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS TO THE ROSEYCRUSIAN SOCIETY FOUND IN AN OLD MANUSCRIPT BY EBENEZER SIBLY M.D. 1791
A letter from Michael Sendivogius to Vincenzo II Gonzaga, duke of Mantua (1562-1612)

The 16th Century Alchemist Who Discovered Oxygen

TRANSMUTATION
an episode of the podcast Stories From The Eastern West all about Sendivogius and alchemy in the Middle Ages
Works by Michael Sendivogius
in digital library

Polona Polona is a Polish digital library, which provides digitized books, magazines, graphics, maps, music, fliers and manuscripts from collections of the National Library of Poland and co-operating institutions. It began its operation in 2006. Colle ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sedziwoj, Michal Clan of Ostoja 16th-century Polish nobility 1566 births 1636 deaths 16th-century alchemists 17th-century alchemists Jagiellonian University alumni People from Limanowa County Polish chemists 17th-century Polish philosophers Polish alchemists Polish inventors 17th-century Polish nobility