The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

transmutation‖. 19 Having employed Cecil‘s former secretary Richard Eden, the Vidame
clearly knew of Cecil‘s pronounced interest in alchemy.
Agnello‘s previous government career and associations within Elizabethan society
suggest that Cecil probably knew of the Venetian alchemist prior to the Vidame‘s
recommendation. Little is known of Agnello‘s earlier life. Agnello had certainly arrived in
England by the reign of Edward VI, when in 1548–9 John Baptista Agnelli & Company of
Venice were authorised to supply the mint with bullion. 20 At a time when Cecil was at the
heart of the Duke of Somerset‘s government, Agnello provided a valuable service, bringing
in 15,000 pounds weight of fine silver within seven months, before piracy and a lowering
of the mint‘s price forced him to cease. 21 Agnello was one of a few entrepreneurs who
took full advantage of the Treasury‘s desperate need for bullion in order to produce more
debased currency, and likely enriched himself considerably as a result. Deborah Harkness
has also identified Agnello as likely being the ―Johanni Baptistae Danieus‖ who gave John
Dee a copy of Pantheus‘ Voarchadumia in 1559; a contention supported by the fact that Dee
owned a copy of Agnello‘s Apocalypsis. 22 If so it would appear that Agnello was another
Elizabethan alchemist, like John Dee, Cornelius de Lannoy and Francis Thynne, influenced
by Pantheus‘ alternative alchemical procedures.
Within three days of receiving the ore Agnello returned to Lok with remarkable
results. From his tiny sample he had extracted ―a very letle powder of Gold‖. 23 Agnello
claimed that he had succeeded where the other experts had failed because he better
understood how to flatter nature, words that suggest the use of alchemical methods. 24
Certainly Sir Francis Walsingham, to whom Lok was secretly reporting, considered it ―to be
but an Alchamist matter suche as dyvers others before had byn brought to your Majesties
19 The Vidame de Chartres to Cecil, in Crosby (ed.), CSPF 1569-71, p. 142.
20 He may be the Venetian, John Baptiest, granted denization in 1541, See Pelling Medical Conflicts, p. 307n.
21 Challis, The Tudor Coinage, p. 181.
22 Deborah Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels, Cambridge, 1999, p. 204n.
23 Lok to Elizabeth, SP 12/112/25.
24 Ibid.
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