Good day dear community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! In this article, I would like to discuss alchemy and describe the important role of Prague in this context.
The Czech city of Prague had a high priority in Europe when it comes to alchemy and especially during the time of the Renaissance in the 16th century, it was considered an important center and can also be considered a golden age. One of the best-known sponsors of alchemy was the former Emperor Rudolf II (1552 - 1612) from the House of the Habsburgs who was very enthusiastic about this occult science and he dealt a lot with alchemical topics and was and also did experiments himself and during his reign, he had the ideology of promoting scholars from different fields and bringing them to Prague and so numerous alchemists from different countries also came to work at his court. Rudolf II was generally considered very fascinated by various supernatural topics and he took many alchemists into his care who carried out various experiments under his supervision and produced elixirs or tried to artificially produce gold and he also had a great interest in mystical topics and so he was also a supporter of the Jewish secret doctrine Kabbalah. He managed to make Prague an international center of scholars from different fields and so many artists, mathematicians, astrologers and other scholars came to Prague and it made more and more the round that the Habsburg Emperor was a great supporter and this was particularly beneficial to some alchemists because during this time alchemy was not popular with everyone and had to be practiced in secret and so some underground laboratories were created where the alchemists could practise their work undisturbed. Some of these underground facilities still exist today and there are opportunities in Prague to visit them and some laboratories had tunnel systems into which they could escape and the reason why alchemists had to hide were certain religious principles that did not want to allow someone to intervene in the work of nature although the alchemists believed that they would only complete the work of nature and strive for perfection. Some of the underground laboratories were probably even connected to castle complexes and Rudolf II was also considered a strong promoter of blacksmithing and he employed some goldsmiths who were very familiar with the processing of metals and it can be said that Prague was one of the most important centers in Europe when it comes to alchemy.
Many thanks for the visit and I hope you could learn something new about alchemy! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.
