BODENSTEIN, ADAM OF

(b. Kemberg/Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, 1528; d. Basel, Switzerland, March 1577), medicine, alchemy, natural history. For the original article on Bodenstein see DSB, vol. 2.

Research since 1970 has resulted in new information and insights about Bodenstein’s life and publications. Programmatic dedications and other texts by Bodenstein in numerous Paracelsian printed works have undergone additional editing and annotation. This subsequent research confirms Bodenstein’s central position in the field of early German Paracelsianism.

Life. The son of the theologian Andreas Bodenstein (A. Carolostadius/Karlstadt; 1486–1541) spent his youth in Basel, which had been his father’s workplace since 1534. He obtained his baccalaureate at the local university in 1546 and MA degree in 1548, then continued his studies in Freiburg, Leipzig, Mainz, and Ferrara, Italy, where he received his doctorate in medicine in 1550. In 1547 Bodenstein married Esther Wyss, who died in Basel in 1564. One year later he married Maria Jakobea Schenck zu Schweinsberg, who died in 1618 at Sinnershausen near Meiningen.

Following a stay in Vienna (1551) Bodenstein was, at least until 1559, in the service of Count Palatinate Ottheinrich (1502–1559; elector since 1556), a sovereign favorably disposed toward alchemical Paracelsianism. He appointed Bodenstein in 1553 to the position of “servant by order of the house” (not to the position of “court physician” [Trevor-Roper, 1990, p. 82] or “personal physician” and “colleague” of Thomas Erastus [Nutton, 1995, p. 112]), and “admonished” him several times around 1556 to read Paracelsus. In part because of certain successful therapies with Paracelsian medicine in Basel (1556), Bodenstein became, about this time, receptive to the medicina nova of Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus). Whether he was already disseminating “Paracelsian thinking and writings” in the “1550s” (Nutton, 1995, p. 112) remains uncertain; there are no testimonies or proofs of documents. However, undoubtedly Bodenstein’s “Paracelsian turn” combined with an orientation toward alchemia transmutatoria metallorum(transmutational alchemy). Encouraged by an itinerant alchemist (possibly Denis Zecaire) and two friends from Basel, the councillor of the margrave Ludwig Wolfgang of Habsburg and the university mathematician Johannes Acronius. Bodenstein made himself out to be an expert on the philosopher’s stone (1559–1560) and published Paracel-sian writings from 1560 until his death.

Bodenstein was a professed follower of John Calvin and Théodore de Bèze (Geneva); he participated in religious-confessional controversies in Basel and accused Sebastian Castellio (1515–1563) of heresy (“Pelagianism”) and of a “libertinism” dangerous to youth (1563). At about the same time, Bodenstein’s editions of Paracelsus brought him into serious conflict with the Basel-based Consilium Facultatis Medicae ( Council of the Faculty of Medicine), to which he had belonged since November 1558. Because he was apparently adhering to Hohenheim’s “false doctrines,” on 27 January 1564 Bodenstein was excluded from the university faculty and the consilium owing to the decisive influence exerted by Theodor Zwinger (1533–1588). The claim that Bodenstein had been teaching “iatrochemistry at the University of Basel” (Walton, 2000, p. 319) lacks any firm basis.

By the 1560s many members of the res publica medica viewed Bodenstein as a leading figure of the Theophrastians that were gradually forming at the time. He combined his medical practice with the preparation of iatrochemical medications and spent time on the laboratory-based production of gold (around 1570 in collaboration with Pierre de Grantrye, the French royal envoy in Rhaetia), but he first devoted himself to an extensive publishing effort relating to Paracelsian writings.

Bodenstein was among the well-known personalities of early modern Basel. The number of his dedications to secular grandees (including Emperor Maximilian II, Arch-duke Ferdinand II, and Cosimo de’ Medici) and members of the urban elites—though not to the representatives of the humanistic educational elites at postsecondary schools—testify to Bodenstein’s wide-ranging network of connections extending beyond the German-speaking cultural area as far as Italy and France. In the course of both his pro-Paracelsian publishing offensive and his iatro-chemical practice, Bodenstein supported such famous Paracelsians as Michael Toxites, Gerhard Dorn, and Georg Forberger, as well as Samuel Schlegel, the personal physician of Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ans-bach, and other medical practitioners. After Bodenstein’s death (on Palm Sunday, 1577), Theodor Zwinger (then no longer an opponent but a sponsor of the Paracelsians) formulated a highly appreciative epitaph for his fellow traveler: “Adamus a Bodenstein, Theophrasti Paracelsi ut primus sic fidus scitusque et opere et ore interpres, palmam victoriae suae regi triumphanti oblaturus” (Adam of Bodenstein, about to offer the palm of his victory to the triumphant king, as the first and so faithful and wise interpreter of Theophrastus Paracelsus, both in deed and in speech.)

Work. During his literary beginnings Bodenstein dealt with Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim’s De occulta philosophia, Book 3 (translation and commentary, produced before 1556; subsequently lost). He then entered the publishing market as a Galenic physician: Bodenstein increased the plethora of German-speaking prognostics with a translation of a practica for the year 1557 written by Luca Gaurico (Weyssagung Sibylle Tyburtine, 1557) as well as contributing to the literature on podagra (gout) and on astro-medicine (Wie sich meniglich vor dem Cyperlin … waffnen solle. Vnnd bericht diser kreüter/So den himmelis-chen zeichen Zodiaci zugeachtet, 1557). Soon, however, he emerged as an adherent of the pre-Paracelsian alchemia transmutatoria metallorum, believing himself to possess the deepest secrets of the philosopher’s stone (Isagoge to the Rosarium chymicum [Ps.-]) by Pseudo-Arnald of Villanova, 1559; with an Epistola to Anton, Johann Jacob, Georg, and Ulrich [Huldricus] Fugger). With the exception of a Philosophischer rhatschlag(a philosophical counsel on how to fight the plague, 1577), all of the writings Bodenstein published from 1560 onward were related to Paracelsian topics.

In terms of the history of science, Bodenstein gained significance as a publicizing herald of Hohenheim’s teachings. To foster understanding of Paracelsian technical terms, he compiled an Onomasticon (Strasbourg, 1566; Basel 1575, a revised separate edition), marking the beginning of printed lexicography on Paracelsus, and completed more than forty editions of Paracelsian writings. They reveal Bodenstein as a harsh opponent of the Aristotelian-Galenic natural history and medicine, who lent strong impulses to the Paracelsian revival by adopting the priscasapientia idea and further Neoplatonic didactic material, critically examining the basic concepts of the Aristotelian-academic philosophy of nature. In conjunction with the Paracelsus editions by M. Toxites, G. Dorn, and G. Forberger (partly supported by Bodenstein), his work played a crucial role in fostering the emergence and further development of European Paracelsianism. Certainly some of Bodenstein’s tracts are testimony, as Pearl Kibre wrote in the original DSB, to “the strength of tradition in both medicine and alchemy in the sixteenth century.” However, viewed as a whole, the subversive, pro-Paracelsian fundamentals of his publishing efforts, having an eroding effect on tradition, ensure Bodenstein’s standing in the history of science.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bodenstein’s main literary achievements are the well over forty Paracelsian editions appearing between 1560 and 1576. These editions were recorded by Sudhoff, 1894 (standard); see also Jüttner, 1985. Numerous Paracelsian printed works offer programmatic dedications and other supplementary texts by Bodenstein. The bulk of these early testimonials of European Paracelsianism have undergone editing and annotation; see Corpus Paracelsisticum, edited by Wilhelm Kühlmann and Joachim Telle, 2001, nos. 6–30, pp. 104–544.

WORKS BY BODENSTEIN

Weyssagung Sibylle Tyburtine … aussgelegt RECTE: auügelegt für das 1557 jar, by Luca Gaurico. Translated into German and edited by A. von Bodenstein, without place name (probably Basel), 1557.

Wie sich meniglich vor dem Cyperlin Podagra genennet waffnen solle. Vnnd bericht diser kreüter/So den himmelischen zeichen Zodiaci zügeachtet. Basel, Bartholomäus Stähelin, 1557;

Amberg, Michael Forster 1611. The statement in Kibre’s DSB article that this tract has not been “identified or located” in modern times is not correct.

Isagoge in excellentissimi philosophi Arnoldi de Villa Nova, Rosarium chymicum, per Adamum à Bodenstein … paraphratsticè et magna diligentia tradita. With Epistola … ad dominos Fuggeros, in qua argumenta Alchymiam infirmantia et confirmantia adducuntur, quibus et eam artem esse certissimam demonstratur, lapisque uerè inuentus ostenditur. Basel, Gabriel Ringysen, 1559.

Onomasticon: Theophrasti Paracelsi eigne ausslegung RECTE: auülegung etlicher seiner wörter vnd preparierungen. Basel, Pietro Perna 1575. Not an independent first version. In Paracelsus, opus chyrugicum. Strasbourg: Paul Messerschmidt 1566.

Herrlicher Philosophischer rhatschlag zu curirn Pestilentz/Brustgeschwer/Carfunckl. Without place name (Basel), 1577.

OTHER SOURCES

Jüttner, Guido. “Adam von Bodenstein.” In Die Deutsche

Literatur: Biographisches und bibliographisches Lexikon. Reihe 2:Die Deutsche Literatur zwischen 1450 und 1620, edited by Hans-Gert Roloff. Vol. 1, no. 43, part A, pp. 135–156; part B, p. 33. Bern: Peter Lang 1985.

Kühlmann, Wilhelm, and Joachim Telle, eds. Corpus Paracelsisticum. Vol. 1, Der Frühparacelsismus: Erster Teil. Early Modern Period, vol. 59, pp. 104–544. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001. Includes a biography and further readings.

Nutton, Vivian. “Der Luther der Medizin: Ein paracelsisches Paradoxon.” In Paracelsus: Das Werk, die Rezeption, edited by Volker Zimmermann. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1995.

Perifano, Alfredo. “Considérations autour de la question du Paracelsisme en Italie au XVIe siècle: Les dédicaces d’Adam de Bodenstein au Doge de Venise et à Côme Ier de Medicis.” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 62 (2000): 49–61.

Sudhoff, Karl. “Ein Beitrag zur Bibliographie der Paracelsisten.” Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 10 (1893): 317–320; 11 (1894): 170.

———.Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriften. I. Theil: Die unter Hohenheim’s Namen erschienenen Druckschriften. Berlin: Georg Riemer, 1894. Reprographic reprint under the title Bibliographia Paracelsica: Besprechung der unter Theophrast von Hohenheims Namen 1527–1893 erschienenen Druckschriften. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1958.

Telle, Joachim. “Adam von Bodenstein.” In Literaturlexikon, edited by Walther Killy. Vol. 2. Gütersloh and Munich: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1989.

Trevor-Roper, Hugh. “The Court Physician and Paracelsianism.”

In Medicine at the Courts of Europe, 1500–1837, edited by Vivian Nutton, 79–94. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.

Walton, Michal T. “Iatrochemistry.” In Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: From Copernicus to Newton, edited by Wilbur Applebaum. New York: Garland, 2000.

Joachim Telle