Dyeing to be Cured: Paint Colors, Dyes, and Varnishes as Medicine at the Medici Court

• In Event: Body in the City I: "Sperimentato": Testing Medical Recipes in Early Modern Italy

Abstract

As written and malleable forms of empirical medical knowledge that required practical experience and individual adaptation, recipes were an important way through which early modern medicines were tried, modified, and tested. It was through recipes that the principles of alchemy were put into practice, experimented with, and expanded upon to create more effective chemical substances. Within Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici’s collection of over 200 recipes are numerous recipes and “secrets” dealing with rare paint colors, dyes, and varnishes. Today these seem out of place in a collection of medicinal simples and therapeutic cures. In the seventeenth century, however, these were all products of the same alchemical processes. My paper will explore how dye, varnish, and tincture were used therapeutically at the Medici Court to create more effective chemical substances to treat or prevent illness.

Author

• Ashley Buchanan, University of South Florida