Federico Gualdi

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Federico Gualdi (probably born around 1600 ) was an Italian alchemist .

He declares himself of German origin but the information is not certain because it is not documented. A portrait of Gualdi is frontispiece of La critica della morte , a work published in 1690 by Sebastiano Casizzi.

The facts proved

It is undeniable that Gualdi stays in Venice between 1660 and 1678 . But we do not know everything about his life until 1660 .

In 1660 , then in 1663 , Gualdi submitted to the Republic of Venice two proposals to remedy the recurring floods causing the Acqua alta . To do so, it uses a specific right in Venice known as "Raccordo", which is a "request for any citizen to present to the Council of Ten or another magistracy a subject of great importance to the State" 1 . The drawings of the two Gualdi projects have been published recently 2 . These projects against the Acqua alta remain unfulfilled .

Gualdi also holds a know-how in the mining field. In this capacity, from 1663 to 1666, he was either a mining operator, or an ore miner in the service of the wealthy Crotta family, who owned deposits in Val Imperina ( Belluno province ). He is experimenting with a new process of "dry" and "wet" ore smelting that increases copper production . This discovery allows as much its personal enrichment as that of the family Crotta 3 .

The great lifestyle of Gualdi during his stay in Venice aroused many jealousies. They do not fail to lead to a denunciation to the court of the Inquisition for alchemical activities and belonging to the hermetictic-alchemical movement of the "Aurea Croce". In this respect, among the disciples of this "Aurea Croce" are the Marquis and Poet Francesco Maria Santinelli (close to Queen Christina of Sweden ). But the Inquisition , after questioning some people who have been around Gualdi in his daily life, will not summon him. The trial will not take place, which may suggest that Gualdi had relations with representatives of the power of the Serenissima 4 .

Leibniz does not mention the presence or figure Gualdi when staying in Venice in February / March 1690 5 .

Regarding the date of death of Gualdi, no historical trace has been found to date.

An alchemical work found: De lapide philosophorum

Gualdi leaves a long alchemical text written in German and Latin, De Lapide philosophorum (The Philosopher's Stone), which we know to date that a copy written in the xviii th century by Christophorus Trokhmayr 6 and several partial Italian adaptations entitled Filosofia ermetica .

This De Lapide philosophorum is a text divided into 55 paragraphs. Here we read the sweet dream of the alchemist who aspires to turn lead into gold . Indeed, the common gold could not be used as materia prima in the process of creation of the philosopher's stone because this metal is pure and unalterable, not perfectible; on the other hand, nature offers other imperfect metals and minerals: copper , iron , lead , mercury , tin or antimony.. But why this attraction of lead, precisely? Toxic metal for the human body since it causes kidney failure, it represents, in the eyes of the alchemist, the vile matter coveted to work.

Gualdi will synthesize this quest in a charade :

"In the man is a kidney, which consists of six letters (lumbus), to which, if you add a P (plumbus), you know how to turn the S into M (plumbum), - Hush! such will be our bronze, it is also the philosopher's stone. Solution: philosopher's lead, or antimony, but by the fixed route " 7 .

Note that this charade allegiance to the darling of the treaties of alchemy: the antimony , which, since the beginning of the xvii th century, is very popular in the process of creating the philosopher's stone. Let us also note that the number of letters of lumbus could evoke the six days of labor of creation, and that of plumbum the last day when the divine work was accomplished.

By composing his De Lapide philosophorum , Gualdi projects on the human more than the empirically perceptible phenomenon, thinking the symbolic and the real as if they both formed one.

The lucubrations

Gualdi disappears from Venice as mysteriously as he appeared there. In the xviii th century , several people claimed as Federico Gualdi, including a quack doctor Enlightenment German, Melech Augustus Hultazob. Joseph Balsamo also wanted to pass for him and the Comte de Saint-Germain said he knew him.

In 1988, Umberto Eco , fond of occultism, alludes to the character in his Foucault Pendulum creating for the needs of the cause a new street in Milan : "Via Marchese Gualdi", which is supposed to house the publishing house Manunzio specialized in esoteric publications 8 .