Johannes Banfi Hunyades

János Bánfihunyadi (; 1576 – 28 August 1646), better known by his Latinized name Johannes Banfi Hunyades or his pseudonym Hans Hungar, was a Hungarian alchemist, chemist and metallurgist. He emigrated to England in 1608 and built a reputation among the academic circles of England and Hungary, associating with such figures as the alchemist Arthur Dee, astrologer William Lilly, physician Jonathan Goddard and scientist Kenelm Digby.

Born in Nagybánya, Hungary, in 1576, Banfi Hunyades took an apprenticeship in goldsmithing in his hometown. Between 1606 and 1608 he took a journey through Europe, passing through Germany and arriving in England by 1608. Upon his arrival he became a successful goldsmith in London, visiting Hungary several times before settling in England upon his marriage to Dorothy Colton in 1619, to whom he had 4 children. Banfi Hunyades kept up his contacts with several eminent Hungarian figures and, in 1633, he was invited by the Prince of Transylvania to occupy a position at his planned academy. As of 1633, Banfi Hunyades took a position at Gresham College, lecturing and experimenting in chemistry with several eminent scientists at the college until as late as 1642. In 1646, before a planned trip with Arthur Dee to Hungary in search of antimony, Banfi Hunyades died on 28 August.

Biography Banfi Hunyades was born in 1576 in Rivulus Dominarum (Nagybánya), then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now known as Baia Mare, Romania. He was born to Hungarian Calvinist priest and superintendent for Tiszántúl. Benedek had written a text on the Bubonic plague in 1577 (Az mirigyhalálról való rövid ker. értelem), suggesting a family interest in science. His family was possibly descended from the noble Hunyadi family, more specifically King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus, though such reports aren't corroborated by any independent genealogical source other than his son's grave. It is more likely Bánfihunyadi is a toponymic surname, based on Benedek's birthplace of Bánffyhunyad (present-day Huedin, Romania).

Municipal records of Baia Mare indicate Banfi Hunyades owned and operated a vineyard and pressing house. He became an apprentice of goldsmithing in his birthplace, working under a coiner. As of 1606, Banfi Hunyades was in Kassa (today Košice in Slovakia), a popular destination for journeymen goldsmiths. It is not definitely known that he passed through either country, but a later notebook reveals a method of transmutation which he attributes to 'a certain famous and generous Bohemian lord', alongside a reference to Edward Kelley, who worked in the court of Rudolf II. Banfi Hunyades was in Germany around 1608, where he bought a Károli Bible. In 1613, he sent a letter to his brother informing him of his position and wealth, promising to visit Nagybánya the next year and asking him to take care of his books and instruments left in Hungary. He clearly kept close links to Hungary, conversing and corresponding in Hungarian with Hungarians in London and in his home country. On 5 July 1617, he donated a lavishly bound German edition of the Hungarian Károli Bible to the Bodleian Library upon a visit to Oxford, as a parting gift for a trip to Hungary. George Gomori has suggested that Banfi Hunyades was at Oxford to meet with Thomas Allen, as William Lilly later received a manuscript of Allen's from Banfi Hunyades.

In 1619, Banfi Hunyades married Dorothy Colton, daughter of Sir Francis Colton of Kent. Presumably this limited his travel to Hungary, but he continued to keep up his contacts by corresponding in Hungarian with several eminent Hungarian scholars, such as and Gábor Haller, with some even visiting him in London. Around this time it has been conjectured that Arthur Dee, son of John Dee, associated with Banfi Hunyades in a trip to Hungary in search of antimony, valued as an alchemical substance. This is evidenced by some suggestive passages in the manuscript of Arcana Arcanorum where Dee mentions sending a Hungarian friend to collect some "prima materia" (here referring to antimony), how he would not dare visit Hungary without this "faithful friend", alongside some lines echoing inscriptions on Banfi Hunyades's engraved portraits. Dee would later plan a trip to Hungary to collect antimony with Banfi Hunyades, though it fell through after Banfi Hunyades's death.

In 1633, Prince of Transylvania George I Rákóczi saw Banfi Hunyades fit to occupy a professorship at his planned academy in Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania), being that he had experience within the English academic system and knowledge in chemistry. There is no evidence he accepted this position and by 1633 he was in the employ of Gresham College. There is circumstantial evidence Digby sent Banfi Hunyades out on expeditions to Hungary in search of antimony, as he had allegedly done before with Dee. Hunyades also gave lectures in chemistry, one of which is recorded by John Webster, who studied under Banfi Hunyades, in his Metallographia (1671). He also worked with Gresham Professor of Physic, Jonathan Goddard; an experiment recorded in a notebook of Goddard's has been speculated by C. H. Josten and F. Sherwood Taylor to constitute the first record of temperature measurement in distillation. Banfi Hunyades may have had a position at the college as late as 1642. He erroneously claimed to be a professor in a letter to Medgyesi, and has since been misidentified as a professor of the college, but there are no records of him as such, and his marriage and field disqualified him from professorship.

Banfi Hunyades's alchemical work was mostly preoccupied with the properties of mercury, the secrets of which he thought would reveal the secret of transmutation. He saw mercury as the prima materia of alchemy. According to William Lilly, in his dedicatication to Banfi Hunyades in Anglicus, peace, or no peace (1645), the Latin phrase "Est in Mercurio quicquid quaerunt sapientes" was Banfi Hunyades's motto and the phrase is featured in all of his engraved portraits. An inscription on his portrait describes one such alchemical accomplishment of his, an experiment in which he destroyed gold and silver by way of mercury, reduced the resultant substance into mercury and precipitated the mercury into a red powder. He was clearly proud of the experiment, as it is inscribed on the frame of each of his engraved portraits – based on a Gowy portrait showing him holding the vessel he used to perform the experiment. and Martyn Rady suggests the red powder was probably only oxidized mercury.

His characterization as a purely alchemical figure by writers such as Granger, who called him a "smoke-dried mercurialist", has been criticized by some Modern scholars. Schultheisz and Tardy claimed that, in his experiments, "the ingredients of the prescriptions, the chemical techniques applied, the methods of preparation all doubtlessly prove that Bánfihunyadi must have been a true chemist".

Banfi Hunyades died suddenly on 28 August 1646 at the age of 70 in Amsterdam, where he was to meet Dee, destroying his plans of returning to Hungary with Dee. Though not a wealthy man for most of his life, Banfi Hunyades died with a reasonably large fortune; as of September 1644, his son Johannes was made sole heir of his possessions, making quite a large sum of money as the manager of his estate. His place of burial is unknown.

Banfi Hunyades and Dorothy had four children. Two of his children, Johannes (1621–1696) and Elizabeth (1620–1710), have large memorials in the crypt of St Leonard's, Shoreditch. Johannes was educated in the Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, beginning as the alchemist of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, but ending as a rich usurer of poor reputation in London. His grave claims the, likely erroneous, descendance from the Hunyadi family.

Historical investigation

Johannes Banfi Hunyades never published anything during his lifetime, and his entire Nachlass consists of only a few inscriptions, letters and experimental notes surviving from his lifetime. The fact that, through the 20th-century, Anglophone and Hungarian scholars have been able to piece together the life of a relatively obscure Hungarian alchemist from contemporary comments, manuscript notes and municipal records The engraved portraits show Banfi Hunyades bearded and elderly, holding the glass vessel which he utilized in his mercurial experiments. The engraved portraits are all enclosed within a frame of alchemical quotations and biographical inscriptions on Banfi Hunyades, revealing his preoccupation with alchemy, mathematics and mercury as well as his birthplace of Nagybánya. These engravings were the first evidence used by Josten and Taylor in their original biographical investigation into Banfi Hunyades. The Hungarian inscription on the page after describes his giving of the book to "the Oxford Library, to be remembered forever" on 15 July 1617. This inscription gives the definite date for his arrival to England as 1608, describing how in 1617 he had "lived here in England for 9 years".