One of the most dominant humanists during the Middle Ages was Albertus Magnus (1193–1280). Of Germanic birth, he was educated in Padua and Bologna. On account of his encyclopedic knowledge, he was generally known as the Doctor Universalis.
Professor of theology, scientist, teacher, he achieved, both by his voluminous writings and his lectures, an almost legendary reputation. In one of his treatises, De Secretis Mulierum, he expounds on feminine matters and then proceeds to discuss, in his De Virtutibus Lapidum Quorundam Libellus, the virtues and properties of certain precious and semi-precious stones. In an amatory direction, Albertus Magnus gives suggestions, as if they were prescriptive and categorically assertive, on how to win the favor and affection of a person:
Take the stone called Chalcedony. It may be black or red, and is extracted from the stomach of swallows. Wrap the red stone in a linen cloth or in calf skin and place it under the left armpit.
Although the philtre that is intended to inspire erotic excitations is normally a drink, a fluid, Albertus Magnus’ recipe is virtually and in its ultimate sense a potion. He adds, on a later occasion in the same text:
If you want to promote love between two people, take the stone called Echites, by some termed Aquileus—because eagles place it in their nests. It is purple in color and is found on the sea shore: sometimes, too, in Persia. And it always contains within itself another stone that makes a sound when moved. The ancient philosophers say that this stone, worn suspended on the left arm, effects love between a man and a woman.
In the thirteenth century, a certain Arnold of Villanova, a physician who traveled widely throughout Europe and in Africa, was reputed to be a powerful karcist, believed to have occult contacts and interests. He dabbled, also, in alchemy, and, as legend rumored, was proficient in actual transmutations. In his medical practice he relied largely on herbal concoctions, on magic formulas, on amatory potions prepared according to traditional prescriptions.
Potions and love philtres pervaded all life, at all levels, throughout the middle centuries. Peasant and pilgrim resorted to aged creatures who were reputed to possess cryptic formulas, hidden resources transmitted to them orally by their forbears. Even in the Eucharistic rite the poculum amatorium made its contorted intrusion. In the Eucharistic rite, the wafer often became an ingredient in love potions and acquired a particularly efficacious renown.
Most dealings in love devices, secret formulas, erotic phials, were nameless, both the client and the practitioners remaining unknown by name to each other. Until the practitioner became so assertive, so prosperous and so much in demand that people flocked from remote regions, from distant cities, from foreign countries, to acquire the ultimate elixir. Count Alessandro Cagliostro was shrewd and unscrupulous enough to profit by such conditions. He was an Italian alchemist, magician, and hermetic, but basically his qualifications and capacities were at least dubious. What was not at all dubious was his facility in outwitting all Europe, in amassing great wealth from gullible clients, in escaping, on all but the ultimate occasion, from merited penalties. His original name was Giuseppe Balsamo, and his restless life extended from 1745 to 1795.
In the heyday of his quackery he became both known and notorious throughout Europe. He was persona gratissima among the most distinguished social circles and families. With the aid of his wife Lorenza Feliccani he amassed enormous wealth by the sale of alchemical compounds, magic elixirs, and love potions. Scandals followed his movements and implicated him in fantastic incidents, salacious episodes. Hence, for security or secrecy, he was constantly changing his abode. In his last years, he suffered imprisonment, in the fortress of San Leo. And with his death, the legends proliferated and multiplied. Strange feats were recorded of him. Mystic phenomena appeared at his potent will. According to such traditions, he was a necromancer, having exorcised a dead woman. At a public banquet he invoked the dead spirits of Diderot and Voltaire. And he was the founder of a secret organization known as The Egyptian Lodge, where goetic practices and sorcery were attempted and consummated.