The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Frank James (University College London) who will present

Trying to Return Europe to the Ancien Régime: Humphry Davy in Naples Chemically Recovering Ancient Literature, 1817-1820

This will be live on Thursday 29 September 2022 beginning at 5.00pm BST (6.00pm CEST, 12 noon EDT, 9.00am PDT). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.

As with the last seminar the Zoom link can be accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, via this following Eventbrite link.

Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel.


Frank James

Chairman, SHAC

Synopsis:

Following the destruction of Herculaneum in 79CE after the eruption of Vesuvius, the library, now known as the Villa dei Papiri, remained untouched until the 1750s.Then around 2000 papyri, all in a very fragile state, were excavated. It was hoped that these rolls might contain many of the lost works of antiquity and much effort was put into unrolling them and transcribing the contents. Their fragility meant that work was painfully slow and from 1800 the Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent and then George IV) began taking a strong personal interest in speeding up the process, boosted when the King of the Two Sicilies presented a few rolls to him in 1817. One of the members of the commission established with the task of unrolling, was the leading English chemist Humphry Davy. Davy, fresh from his success with the miners’ safety lamp, began to develop chemical methods of unrolling. His work met with sufficient success for the Prince Regent to personally command Davy to go to Naples to continue his work with the full support of the British state. In Italy Davy antagonised many of the savants in the Naples Archaeological Museum with his arrogance. Furthermore, once texts began to be transcribed, the thorny issue arose of who owned the intellectual property so produced. The most interesting feature to this whole story was the (unsuccessful) attempt, combining modern science and ancient literature, to restore something of the pre-1789 norms of courtly exchange between Hanoverian London and Bourbon Naples.

The Summer 2022 issue of Chemical Intelligence is now out! As always with lots of information about past and upcoming events and the latest news.

In person at Bowen Hall, PRISM, Princeton University / Livestreamed via Zoom webinar
Thursday May 26 – Saturday 28, 2022

Register for in person or virtual attendance at the conference website: https://ripleyscrolls.princeton.edu/. A link will be sent to everyone who registers for livestream access.

The call for submissions for the 2023 Partington Prize is now open.  It is awarded every three years for an original and unpublished essay on any aspect of the history of alchemy or chemistry. The competition is open to anyone with a scholarly interest in the history of alchemy or chemistry who, by the closing date of 31 December 2022, has not reached thirty-five years of age, or if older is currently enrolled in a degree programme or has been awarded a master’s degree or PhD within the previous three years. 

13 and 14 May, the SHAC Postgrad Workshop will take place.

This two-day virtual workshop follows the (al)chemical sciences beyond their traditional laboratory remit (which has long been a productive object of historical inquiry) and focuses instead on less archetypal locations of chemical substance and practice: mines, libraries, courtrooms, ecosystems, hospitals, domestic spaces, classrooms, and so forth. What happens to our understanding of alchemy, chemistry, and (al)chemical practitioners once we highlight these (secondary) spaces? How might key insights from laboratory studies, such as the attention to apparatus and other chemical materialities, inform historical work on alchemy and chemistry once they exit laboratory walls? How have chemical practitioners adjudicated the boundary between laboratory and not-laboratory at different times and places, with what consequences for the discipline and its participants?

For the programme and to register, please click here.

On Friday 6 May 2022 SHAC will be joining with the Faculty of the History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Society of Apothecaries to mark the 350^th anniversary of the opening of a laboratory at Apothecaries’ Hall. The meeting will take place in the splendid surroundings of Apothecaries’ Hall, London and speakers include Anna Marie Roos, Patrick Wallis, Peter Elmer and Anna Simmons. There will also be archive talks, tours, and a drinks reception.

For the full programme, including details of the call for posters on laboratories and medicine (deadline 11 March 2022) and booking details please see here.