Greek Alchemy in the Fifteenth Century: The Case for the Role of Georgios-Gennadios Scholarios’ Circle

This paper examines the intellectual contexts of two of the most important sources of alchemical knowledge in the fifteenth-century Greek-speaking milieu, namely: the Greek translation of the Semita Recta traditionally ascribed to Albertus Magnus, contained in MS Paris, BNF, grec 2419 (fols. 279r–288v), copied by Georgios Meidiates between the 1440s and the 1480s; and the discussion of alchemy contained within the commentary on Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s Roman Antiquities which was composed by Ioannes Kanaboutzes probably around the 1450s. Both testimonies display the pervasive influence of medieval Latin alchemy on its Greek counterpart, thus constituting a remarkable case of cross-cultural influences. This paper proposes for the first time that both testimonies share a precise context: the circle of Georgios-Gennadios Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople on multiple occasions between 1454 and 1465, as well as the head of a renowned circle of scholars in late Byzantium. These connections suggest that Scholarios’ circle acted as a fundamental cultural mediator, introducing not only Latin theology and logic into the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean, but also Western medieval occult sciences and alchemy. This analysis thus attempts to integrate Scholarios’ circle into the history of alchemy, highlighting a role in cross-cultural dissemination hitherto completely overlooked.