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The provided text is an excerpt from a scholarly book titled “Alchemy and authority in the Holy Roman Empire” by Tara E. Nummedal, detailing the social, cultural, and economic context of early modern alchemists. The book explores the complex identity of the alchemist, moving beyond stereotypes of fraud or philosopher to present practitioners as entrepreneurial figures whose status depended on skill and patronage within the Holy Roman Empire. Significant attention is given to princely patrons like Duke Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and Duke Friedrich of Württemberg, who invested heavily in alchemy for economic and political gain, often resulting in contracts for the Philosophers’ Stone and subsequent legal trials for fraud (Betrüger) when practitioners failed. The text further examines the role of laboratories and secrecy in alchemical work and the contemporary debates, fueled by humanists and alchemical authors, over the alchemist’s persona, contrasting the ideal of the scholar-prophet-artisan with the pervasive figure of the fraudulent charlatan.

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