User:Kmd43p/Caterina Sforza

Information From the Article that I'm Adding to:

In her book The Warrior Queens: Boadicea's Chariot, British historian Antonia Fraser presents Caterina Sforza as a contrasting figure to her contemporary Isabella I of Castile. Fraser points out that whilst the murders ordered by Caterina were no worse than the massacres ordered by Isabella, historians have been much harsher in their judgment of the former. Fraser accounts for this by pointing out that Isabella's actions were sanctioned by the Church, as they were carried out in the name of Catholicism, whilst Caterina's were motivated by the personal, secular desire to preserve her property and rights.

Experimenti

Caterina Sforza had a thirst for knowledge and had interests in alchemy, cosmetics, and medicine.^{[page needed]} She crafted a manuscript containing 454 recipes, with the recipes and experiments listed in alphabetical order. The recipes within her manuscript can be divided into three categories: “Lisci” (Cosmetics), “Chimica” (Chemistry), and “Medicine” (Medicine). Some of her medicinal recipes include remedies for lice, fever, and to heal wounds. Additionally her medicinal work focused on creating quintessence and the philosopher's stone. Both of which are thought to have healing and protective properties that would advance her medicinal work. She also created cosmetic recipes for perfume, and methods to lighten skin and hair. Many of the experiment's cross categories as the cosmetic and medical recipes relied on the same procedures and ingredients as the chemical recipes.

When Sforza relocated to Forlì in 1484, she continued her experiments. She had medicinal gardens constructed where she was able to develop the ingredients she needed for her recipes. Along the exterior border of the fortress, an extensive garden was developed where she could grow various fruit trees.

After her death, her manuscript was passed down to her son, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. It was then passed down from generation to generation and stayed within the Medici family. The manuscript eventually was lost. In the 19th century, Pier Desiderio Pasolini (1844-1920), a descendant of Caterina Sforza and a historian from Ravenna, spent approximately five years acquiring documents written by Sforza. He then went on to publish the majority of her manuscript titled “Experimenti”.

Article Draft

Ideas for the article: The paragraph will cover her contributions to alchemy, and what exactly she did in her experiments. Maybe lead into how alchemy is connected to all the before mentioned things she had done in Experimenti.

• There where alot of blurred lines between medicine and alchemy for her work
• "Some of the more overtly alchemical recipes likely derive from Caterina’s political concerns as regent of a territory in constant need of financial backing: for example, alchemical recipes for coloring or adding weight to metal so that it appears to be gold. " -from daughters of alchemy pp 25
• "Among Caterina’s medicinal recipes are a number of dis- tilled waters, unguents, and elixirs produced through alchemical procedures such as multiplication, a kind of progressive distillation whereby a substance assumes greater and more diverse powers during the course of preparation." -pp25
• Her ideas and process for creating "elisir vitae, an elixir capable of conferring perpetual health and youth—a principal goal of therapeutic alchemy."
• pages 34-36 talk a lot about her work in alchemy and what she was going/ experiments
  

The PARAGRAPH:

Caterina Sforza was a daughter of alchemy. She strived, as almost all alchemists did, to find the elixir of life and the philosophers stone. She created over 400 different alchemical recipes in her lifetime, from cosmetics to medicinal cures. In her Experimenti, she had procedures and recipes for many cosmetics ranging from lotions and lip colors to hair dyes. Additionally, she listed several medicinal recipes such as cures for sciatica, cancer, fevers, and coughs. While she focused on alchemy, her recipes became a foundation for historical pharmacology.Additionally her letters provided evidence that there was a large network of shared information and practices between male and female alchemists.

As an alchemist Caterina's manuscript has many overlaps between what is strictly medicinal and cosmetic and what is alchemy, as she incorporated it into many of the over 400 recipes wrote about. For instance she had made cosmetics such as hair dyes and lotions, and these cosmetic recipes used alchemical principles and methods for production. For example these cosmetic recipes would, "use of herbs and plants dis-tilled in alchemical vessels", the distillation process mentioned was a foundational part of alchemy at the time, and used throughout her manuscript across all disciplines.

In many places her work with medicine, becomes alchemical due to the spiritual and philosophical nature of what she was producing.For example in "Experimenti" Caterina wrote about was "elisir vitae, an elixir capable of conferring perpetual health and youth" which is described "principal goal of therapeutic alchemy." She claims this elixir has the ability to "to raise the dead", cure the incurable, and achieve many other feats that were thought to be impossible. The instructions for this elixir written in her manuscript, "recall the principal stages of the alchemical process as described in many formal alchemical texts", and describe her using glass vessels that were used by most alchemist at the time. Using these same principles Caterina also produced a “marvelous and divine water” which would improve memory, treat Leprosy, and cure many other aches and illnesses.

This water is a medicinal remedy, but is alchemical due to its extraordinary and 'divine' nature much like the "elisir vitae". Although there is overlap between all these disciplines in her writing she has other more apparent alchemy related endeavors that did not have any cosmetic or medicinal advantages. For instance Caterina was regent of Forlì and Imola, and needed to alleviate financial burden to further her political standing, so she utilized alchemy. She would make metal appear to be gold by changing its weight and color via principles of alchemy.

Add here how she made gold and such.

Response to Peer Review:

I think both my reviewers brought up great points about my article contributions, and I am happy with the feedback they gave me. Starting with Can7f5's peer review, With this feedback I plan to change the repetitiveness that they mentioned in the beginning. I'm going to keep the same concepts, but make it less like the paragraph preceding it. I am not planning on adding this to the original paragraph since that would end up completely reworking that persons work (pretty much just re-doing it to fit alchemy into it). As for the sources I believe my partner has another source so when our work is combined there will be another one. I really like the idea the first sentence more of a lead in of here is an example of her thirst for knowledge, and restructure to make it more about the further knowledge on those subjects. I plan on adding a photo of something related to alchemy, but I'm just not sure yet.

Next was the review from Miguel Nunez 1119. For the similarity between the second and sixth sentences I don't think they are very similar since this one is tackling a more specific area of what was mentioned in the lead in sentence at the beginning. Although I do think cutting down on repetition is something I need to do. Adding in her motivation is something I was planning on doing when I got the section about that. I agree that adding on how she was introduced to it could be interesting, but I don't believe that information is something ive come across yet.

References

Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (2015)---Found Online

Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture (2010)--- Found a PDF