In the history of chemistry, Giambattista della Porta occupies the ground between patient observation and the larger claims it makes possible.
Giambattista della Porta was born at Vico Equense in 1535.
This was the period in which observation began to outrank inherited authority, and in which printing let a result reach readers who would never meet its author.
His research centred on alchemy.
Among his principal works are De Furtivis Literarum Notis, Magia Naturalis and Phytognomonica. Chemistry is a discipline of purification: most of its history is the work of separating one thing from another.
Like many of his contemporaries, Giambattista della Porta moved between chemistry and astronomy without regarding the boundaries as real.
The measure that matters is durability. Results that survive re-examination become the floor of a discipline, and it is on that floor that everything afterwards is built.
Death came in 1615, at 80. By then the contribution had passed into the settled body of chemistry, where it is used without being credited - the surest sign that it was right.
Achievements
- Notable work: De Furtivis Literarum Notis
- Notable work: Magia Naturalis
- Notable work: Phytognomonica
- Notable work: Q23861732
- Fields of research: alchemy
