Giovanni Aurelio Augurello

Who was Giovanni Aurelio Augurello?

Giovanni Aurelio Augurello was an Italian humanist scholar, poet and alchemist. Born at Rimini, he studied both laws in Rome, Florence and Padova where he also consorted with the leading scholars of his time. At Florence he befriended Marsilio Ficino and Angelo Poliziano and later while teaching classics in Treviso joined Aldo Mantius' humanist circle in Venice. Apart from his academic and literary work he practically experimented in metallurgy and provided colour pigments for his friend the Hermetic painter Giulio Campagnola He is best known for his 1515 allegorical poem on the making of gold, Chrysopoeia, which was dedicated to Pope Leo X; leading to the famous but forged anecdote that the Pope had rewarded Augurello with a beautiful but empty purse as an alchemist like him should on his own to be capable of replenishing it — he was actually bestowed with a sinecure at the cathedral of Treviso.

Augurello's other works include Carmina, Geronticon liber, Iambici libri, and Sermonum libri.