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Alchemical Reproduction and the Career of Anna Maria Zieglerin

IN the summer of 1574 Duke Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbiittel (15281589) launched criminal proceedings against a group of alchemists in his employ. The pastor-turned-alchemist Philipp Sommering (c. 1540-1575), who also went by his classicized name 'Therocyclus', led the group, assisted by Heinrich Schombach (d. 1575) and Heinrich's wife Anna Maria Zieglerin (c. 1550-1575). The charges leveled against the group were serious and included murder of a courier, attempted poisoning of Duchess Hedwig, and copying keys to the Duke's chambers with intent to steal some papers. In addition, the Duke accused the group's members of failing to complete their promised alchemical works and fabricating an elaborate lie about an alchemical adept, whose secrets would enrich and enlighten the court. After several torture sessions, the alchemists admitted to these crimes and met their deaths in one of the more gruesome executions of the period. On February 7, 1575, Philipp and Heinrich were dragged to the site of the execution (the Miihlentor, roughly where the Herzog-August-Bibliothek now stands), their flesh was pinched with red-hot tongs, and they were quartered alive. Anna, whose skin was also pinched off, was burnt alive, strapped to an iron stool.1 This rather grisly episode offers the historian of alchemy a number of intriguing avenues for further exploration. Particularly striking is the fact that Anna Zieglerin, a female practitioner of alchemy, stood at the center of the case. Although she confessed only under torture to complicity in the poisoning and murder, Anna's involvement in the group's alchemical activities at court was undeniable. She maintained her own alchemical laboratory in Wolfenbiittel and in 1573 presented Duke Julius with a twenty-page manuscript she had written "Concerning the Noble and Precious Art of Alchamia." Moreover, the mysterious adept, Count Carl von Oettingen, was entirely Anna's invention. Claiming that he was the illegitimate son of no less than Paracelsus, Anna maintained that she had a special relationship with Count Carl in which he had served as her alchemical tutor, sharing with her the secrets that he had learned from his father. Duke Julius, in particular, was entranced by this story of the mysterious Count Carl, and it would playa central role in Anna's career at his court. . Anna's alchemical pursuits are surprising largely because historians tend to assume that few, if any, women were actively engaged with alchemy in medieval and early modern Europe. Antiquity provides the obvious example of Maria theJewess (fl. 300 AD), whose contributions to both the theory and practice of