Fioravanti, Leonardi (d. 1588)
Fioravanti, Leonardi (d. 1588)
Italian alchemist, doctor, and surgeon of the sixteenth century. Fioravanti was born in Bologna, studied medicine, and practiced in Palermo from 1548 to 1550. He traveled to Africa with the Spanish fleet, returning in 1555 and going on to Rome, Venice, and Bologna, where he was appointed a doctor and count. He published a number of books, the most well known being Il compendio dei secreti di scienza rationali intorno alla medicina, cirugia et alchimia (Summary of the Arcana of Medicine, Surgery, and Alchemy). Published in Venice in 1564, it was reprinted in many editions. This venture into alchemy included an application of the principles and methods of hermetica to medicine. Fioraranti's account of the petra philosophorum or philosophers' stone claimed its designation to be purely arbitrary. It was a mixture of mercury, potassium nitrate, and other ingredients intended as a stomachic and had no connection with the transmuting lapis of the alchemists, he said.