BORRI.

Joseph Francis Borri, in Latin Burrhus, a famous chemist, quack, and heretic in the 17th century, was a Milanese. He finished his studies in the seminary at Rome, where the Jesuits-admired him as a prodigy for his memory and capacity. He applied himself afterwards to the court of Rome, but that did not hinder him from making several discoveries in chemistry. He plunged himself into the most extravagant debaucheries, and in the year 1654 was obliged to take refuge in a church. A little while after he set up for a

religious man, and privately scattered many visionary notions. Affecting a great zeal, he lamented the corruption of manners that prevailed at Rome, saying that the distemper was come to the height, and that the time of recovery drew near. A happy time, wherein there would be but one sheepfold on the earth, whereof the Pope was to be the only shepherd. “ Whosoever shall refuse,” said he, “ to enter into that sheepfold, shall be destroyed by the pope’s armies; God has predestinated me to be the general of those armies, and they shall want nothing; I shall quickly finish my chemical labours by the happy production of the philosophers’ stone, and by that means I shall have as much gold as is necessary for the business. I am sure of the assistance of the angels, and particularly of that of Michael the Archangel. When I began to walk in the spiritual life, I had a vision in the night attended with an angelical voice, which assured me that I should become a prophet: the sign that was given me for it was a palm that seemed to me quite surrounded with the light of paradise.” He also boasted that St. Michael the Archangel had taken post in his heart, and that whole bands of angels revealed to him the secrets of heaven, and what passed in the conclave of Alexander VIL I only mention a small part of his chimerical notions, which are sufficient to make one judge of the rest.

After the death of Innocent X., finding that the new pope Alexander VII. renewed the tribunals, and caused more care to be taken of everything, he despaired of having time sufficient to increase the number of his followers, as his design required; and therefore he left Rome and returned to Milan. He acted the devotee there, and by that means gained credit with several people; whom he caused to perform certain pious exercises, which

had a great appearance of a spiritual life. He engaged the members of his new congregation to take an oath of secrecy to him; and when he found them confirmed in the belief of his extraordinary mission, he prescribed to them certain vows by the suggestion of his angel, as he pretended. One of those vows was that of poverty, for the performance whereof he caused all the money which every one had, to be consigned to himself. The fifth of those vows engaged them to a most ardent zeal for the holy propagation of the kingdom of God. It was to be the reign of the Most High, the reign of one sole flock, in the jargon of this new sect. Borri was to be captain-general of the troops which were to bring all mankind into one sheep-fold; he was to be assisted in a particular manner by Michael the Archangel; he had already received a sword from heaven, on the handle of which appeared the image of the seven intelligences, and the pope himself was to he killed if he had not the requisite mark on his forehead. He taught among other things, that the Holy Virgin was a real goddess, and properly the Holy Ghost incarnate, for that she was born of St. Anne in the same manner as Jesus Christ was born of her. He called her the only daughter of God, conceived by inspiration, and caused this to be added to the mass when the priests his sectaries celebrated it. He said that as to her humanity she was present at the sacrament of the Eucharist, and alleged certain passages of scripture to maintain his doctrine. He took it in his head to dictate a treatise on his system to his followers. I have said already that he boasted of having a great share of heavenly revelations: and it was by that means he had learned, that St. Paul had communicated to him the same power which God conferred on that apostle to censure St. Peter's conduct. He boasted that he could communicate to others the gift of illumination for understanding mysteries, and made use of the imposition of hands, beseeching the trinity to receive the novice into the religion of the evangelical nationalists.

His design was, in case he could get a sufficient number of followers, to appear in the great square in Milan, there to represent eloquently the abuses of the ecclesiastical and secular government, to encourage the people to liberty, and so to profess himself of the city and country of Milan, and then to pursue his conquests as well as he could. But all his designs miscarried by the imprisonment of some of his disciples, and as soon as he saw that first step of the inquisition, he fled with all the haste he could, and took care not to appear to the summons of that formidable tribunal. They proceeded against him for contumacy in 1659, and 1660: he was condemned as a heretic, and burnt in effigy, with his writings, in the field of Flora at Rome, by the hands of the executioner, the third of January, 1661. He staid some time in the city of Strasburg, where he found some support and assistance, as being persecuted by the inquisition, and also as a great chemist; but he wanted a larger theatre. He looked for it in Holland in the year 1661, and found it at Amsterdam. He made a great noise there; people flocked to him as to the universal physician for all diseases; he appeared there in a stately equipage, and took upon him the title of excellency; they talked of marrying him to the greatest fortunes, &c., but the tables turned, his reputation began to sink, either because his miracles no longer found any credit, or because his faith could work no more miracles. In short he broke, and fled one night from Amsterdam with a great many jewels and sums of money which he had pilfered. He went to Hamburgh, where queen

Christina was at that time; he put himself under her protection, and persuaded her to venture a great deal of money in order to find out the philosophers’ stone, which came to nothing. After-wards he went to Copenhagen, and inspired his Danish majesty with a strong desire to search for the same secret. By that means he acquired that prince’s favour so far as to become very odious to all the great persons of the kingdom. Immediately after that king’s death, whom he had put upon great expenses in vain, he left Denmark for fear of being imprisoned, and resolved to go into Turkey, Being come to the frontiers, at a time when the conspiracy of Nadasti, Serini, and Frangipani was discovered, he was taken at Goldingen for one of the accomplices; wherefore the lord of the place invited him to lodge at his house, and secured his person; and understanding that his prisoner’s name was Joseph Francis Borri, he sent that name to his imperial majesty, to see if he were one of the Conspirators. The pope’s Nuncio had audience of the emperor at the same time when the count of Goldingen’s letter was brought. As soon as he heard the name of Borri, he demanded, in the pope’s name, that the prisoner should be delivered to him. The emperor having consented to it, ordered that Borri should be sent to Vienna; and obtained a promise from the pope that he should not be put to death, and sent him to Rome, where he was condemned to remain all his life in the prison of the inquisition, and to make theamende honorable.

It was on the last Sunday of the month of October, 1672, that this impostor was condemned to make an abjuration of his errors in the churchdella Minerva; for which end, he was brought upon a scaffold that was raised on purpose for him, where one of his adversaries, who was a priest, read the

trial aloud, with his confession and abjuration. The sentence was pronounced by the holy office; he was upon his knees, with a torch in his hands, whilst his abjuration was reading; which being done, he arose, and thanked the sacred college for the mildness wherewith he had been treated, in not inflicting a greater punishment upon him, which he confessed he deserved. This was done in the presence of a vast crowd of people, who were curious to see so famous a man, and so solemn and extraordinary an action. He was surrounded with a great many archers, and officers of the holy office. Many prelates were also present there with the sacred college, and an innumerable multitude of other persons. The said Borii, seeing so many archers, and other men of the same profession about him, fell twice into a swoon. The ceremony being over, he was sent back into prison, with express orders to make him say the creed every day, and the penitential psalms once every week. He was also ordered by his sentence, to receive the sacrament once every day. Before he came out of the prisons of the inquisition, he was visited by several men and women, and also by some princes and princesses, knights, and other persons of quality. When be came out of the prison, they made him pass through a troop of the pope’s lancers, who made a lane. He mounted on the scaffold with his hands bound, between which, there was a burning wax taper, and he continued kneeling all the while his sentence was reading, by which he was condemned to a perpetual imprisonment, for having been (these are the very words of the sentence) an inventor of a new heresy; and for a penance, to wear the habit of the inquisition all his life-time, with a red cross on the stomach, and one on his back He was astonished to hear of a perpetual imprisonment; but the inquisitors comforted him by saying, that if that. expedient had not been preferred, they would certainly have taken away his life; the pope was so pleased with his abjuration, that he gave a plenary indulgence of all sins to all those that were present there; for that ceremony lasted above five • hours.

Some years after, he obtained leave to come out, in order to cure the duke d’Estrées, whom all the physicians had given over for lost, and he did cure him; which caused a saying, that an archheretic had done a great miracle in Rome. The duke obtained that his prison should be changed, and that he should be sent to the castle of St. Angelo. There was a report since that time, that he was permitted to go abroad twice a week, and to walk in the city with guards. I have it from very good authority, that the queen of Sweden sent for him sometimes in a coach; but that after the death of that princess he went no more abroad, and that none could speak with him without special leave from the pope. I have been assured that he pretended he was not a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, but that he lodged there, as it was a large palace, to apply himself to study and chemical operations, and that he neglected opportunities of making his escape, which frequently offered; but M. Masclari informed me that when he was at Rome, he saw the cavalier Borri several times, and that he could come no lower than a certain door in the middle of the stairs of the dungeon in the castle of St. Angelo; so far be waited upon those who came to see him; that he had a pretty good apartment, consisting of three rooms and a laboratory; that none could be admitted to see him without a note from cardinal Cibo, and that he looked upon that castle as a real prison to him, from which he did not despair but that the duke d’Estrées would deliver him. The

difference of these relations may be reconciled by distinguishing times, and those who know the character of our Borri, may easily see, that when he had obtained permission to go abroad sometimes, he might perhaps boast that he was no longer a prisoner.

Sorbiere thus expresses himself of Borri, “ I have only to add a few words concerning the famous cavalier Borri, whom I have seen at Amsterdam this last time I have been there. You have a mind to know how it came to pass that at such a distance he made so great a noise at Paris, that some persons of quality have been carried into Holland in litters to be cured by that quack; and that some ingenious persons have gone thither on purpose to see so great a man. I can say nothing more to it, sir, than this, that it is as true now, as it was formerly, that our poor humanity might be defined by the inclination to lying, and by credulity, ' homo animal credulum et mendax,’ man is a credulous and lying animal. Those that can so easily believe the stories which are told of those workers of miracles, such as Borri was taken to be before the world was undeceived, must have been accustomed without doubt in their infancy, to listen attentively to old wives’ tales; it is a mark of a good nature, and a very tractable disposition. Some people after they have laughed at physicians, on a sudden give entire credit to the promises of a quack, and suffer themselves to be bubbled by his new method, though he only sells the same ware. He whom I am going to describe to you, is a tall black man, pretty well shaped; he wears good clothes, and spends pretty high, though not so much as is imagined; for eight or ten thousand, livres will go a great way at Amsterdam. But a house of fifteen thousand crowns in a good situation, five or six footmen, a suit after the French

fashion, now and then a collation to the ladies, the refusing money in some cases, five or six rix-dollars distributed to the poor in a proper time and place, arrogant words, and such like arts, made some credulous persons, or some who could have wished it had been true, say that he gave handfuls of diamonds, that he had found the philosopher’s stone, and that he had the universal medicine. The truth is, the Sieur Borri is a cunning knave, the son of an able physician of Milan, who left him some estate; but he has added to it what he has got by the industry I am going to speak of. As he does not want for parts, and has some learning, he has found means to prevail with some princes to supply him with money, by giving them expectation that he would communicate to them the philosophers' stone, which he was upon the point of finding. He has without doubt some skill, or some practice in chemical preparations, some knowledge in metals, some imitation of pearls and jewels, and it may be some purgative or stomachical remedies, which are commonly very general. As most diseases come from that region, by this lure he has insinuated himself into the good opinion of those whom he stood in need of; and some merchants, as well as some princes, have fallen into the trap. Witness a promissory note for two hundred thousand livres, which he gave to one Demers, who had supplied his expenses, for which the heirs of that merchant are at law with the Spagyrist; for the spark has worded it in so odd a manner, that nobody knows what to make of it. At first he acquired some credit among the citizens; and maintained himself for some time by the support of an old burgomaster, whom he kept up with his cordial waters, till everybody discovered his knavery, and laughed at his artifices. They consist chiefly in a method of debasing coin with impunity, and in some alteration of metals, which is not yet well known.” This extraordinary impostor ended his life in the castle of St. Angelo, in the year 1695. The resemblance of the career and final fate of this impostor, to that of the celebrated Cagliostro, is very remark-able.—Ed. ⁶²—Art.Borri.