Equivocal quintessence. Spiritual Alchemy and counterfeit money in 16th-century Spain

Abstract

One of the main obsessions of the Early Modern Era was that of determining the notions of true and false, in order to apply them to various fields of knowledge and thus establish the divide between the lawful and the unlawful. This trend was to have a particular impact on the fields of re ligion and science, where it became necessary to distinguish not only between true and false spirits, relics or miracles, but also between genuine and fake astrologers and alchemists. Situated in the middle ground between idealism and materialism, alchemy was prime territory for such tensions, as was demonstrated by a trial held in 1593 at the Jeronymite monastery of Santa Engracia in Saragossa, whose prior accused a friar of making «silver out of smoke and jewels from goblins».