Alchemy in popular culture: Leonardo Fioravanti and the search for the philosopher's stone

This article examines the alchemical ideas and practices of the sixteenth-century Italian surgeon Leonardo Fioravanti. I argue that Fioravanti's "search for the philosopher's stone" was as much an effort at self-fashioning as a search for alchemical gold. Exploiting the fashion for alchemical drugs, he framed a "new theory" of healing that relied on the use of distilled drugs as a means of purging bodily corruptions. His theory resonated with popular culture, and made him the focus of an alternative medical movement. I conclude that Fioravanti's alchemy was not Paracelsianism, but relied much more on more immediate sources such as Arnald of Villanova, the pseudo-Lull, and the contemporary Milanese alchemist Ettore Ausonio.