Partington Prize - Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

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The Partington Prize 2026

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry is delighted to announce that the winner of the 2026 Partington Prize is Dr Flavio Bevacqua of University of Padua for the entry “Alchemy in 15th-Century Byzantium: The Case for the Role of Georgios-Gennadios Scholarios’ Circle”.

Flavio’s entry brings together for the first time two medieval texts in the history of alchemy, reconstructing the intellectual milieu surrounding the Byzantine scholar Georgios-Gennadios Scholarios. The author diligently and judiciously integrates manuscript evidence with philological analysis and cultural contextualization, illuminating a previously underexamined dimension of alchemical history in Byzantium. We congratulate Flavio Bevacqua for his groundbreaking work.

Flavio Bevacqua is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padua. He graduated from the same university with a bachelor’s degree in Classics and a master’s degree in Classics and Ancient History. He then obtained his doctorate in Classical Philology and Ancient Philosophy in 2025 in a joint agreement (cotutelle) between the University of Padua and the Sorbonne Université in Paris, with a dissertation focused on the works of the so-called Anepigraphos Philosopher, a seventh- or eighth-century author transmitted within the Greek alchemical corpus. His main research interests lie in the study of history of science and natural philosophy in all their aspects, including alchemy, biology, botany, physics, and metaphysics; the transmission of scientific and philosophical knowledge from Antiquity to Byzantium and the Islamicate world, on to early modern Europe; and Greek manuscripts, palaeography, and codicology, with a focus on the history of texts and philology

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry established the Partington Prize in memory of Professor James Riddick Partington, the Society’s first Chairman. It is awarded every three years for an original and unpublished essay on any aspect of the history of alchemy or chemistry. The prize-winning article will be published in the Society’s journal, Ambix, in 2026.

Previous Winners

Below can be found an overview of previous winners. All past prize-winning entries are available to download here.

2023

Cornu, Armel. 2023. “Senses and Utility in the New Chemistry.” Ambix 70 (4): 380–98. doi:10.1080/00026980.2023.2265681.

2020

Mike A. Zuber, “Alchemical Promise, the Fraud Narrative, and the History of Science from Below: A German Adept’s Encounter with Robert Boyle and Ambrose Godfrey”, Ambix, 68 (2021), 28-48.

2017

Stephen T. Irish, “The Corundum Stone and Crystallographic Chemistry,” Ambix 64 (2017), 301-325.

2014

Winner: Evan Hepler-Smith, ‘“Just as the Structural Formula Does”: Names, Diagrams, and the Structure of Organic Chemistry at the 1892 Geneva Nomenclature Congress’ Ambix, 62 (2015), 1-28.
Highly commended: ‘Joel Klein, Daniel Sennert, the Philosophical Hen, and the Epistolary Quest for a (Nearly-)Universal Medicine’, Ambix, 62 (2015), 29-49.

2011

Dr Marcos Martinon-Torres, ‘Inside Solomon’s House: An archaeological study of the Old Ashmolean chymical laboratory in Oxford’ Ambix, 59 (2012), 22-49.
Dr Evan Ragland, ‘Chymistry and taste in the seventeenth century: Franciscus Dele Boe Sylvius as a chymical physician between Galenism and Cartesianism’, Ambix, 59 (2012), 1-21.

2008

Jennifer Rampling, ‘Establishing the Canon: George Ripley and his Alchemical Sources’, Ambix, 55 (2008), 189-208.
Georgette Taylor, ‘Tracing Influence in Small Steps: Richard Kirwan’s Quantified Affinity Theory’, Ambix, 55 (2008), 209-231.

2005

Dane T. Daniel, “Invisible wombs: Rethinking Paracelsus’s concept of body and matter”.

Published as: Dane T. Daniel, ‘Invisible Wombs: Rethinking Paracelsus’s Concept of Body and Matter’, Ambix, 53 (2006), 129 – 142.

2002 (no award)

1999

Tara E. Nummedal, “Alchemical reproduction and the strange career of Maria Zieglerin”.

Published as: Tara E. Nummedal, ‘Alchemical Reproduction and the Career of Anna Maria Zieglerin’, Ambix, 48 (2001), 56 – 68.

1996 (no award)

1993

Katherine D. Watson, “The chemist as expert. The consulting career of Sir William Ramsay”.

Published as: Katherine D. Watson, ‘The Chemist as Expert: The Consulting Career of Sir William Ramsay’, Ambix, 42 (1995), 143 – 159.

1990

Marco Beretta, “The history of chemistry in the eighteenth century”.

Published as: Marco Beretta, ‘The Historiography of Chemistry in the Eighteenth Century: A Preliminary Survey and Bibliography’, Ambix, 39 (1992), 1 – 10.

1987

T. D. Moy, “A chemical mediator. Emil Fischer’s role as liaison during the First World War”.

Published as Timothy D. Moy, ‘Emil Fischer as “Chemical Mediator”: Science, Industry, and Government in World War One’,Ambix, 36 (1989), 109 – 120.

1984

T. M. Luhrman, “An interpretation of the Fama Fraternitas with respect to Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica”.

Published as: T. M. Luhrman, ‘An Interpretation of the Fama Fraternitas with Respect to Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica’, Ambix, 33 (1986), 1 – 10.

1981

William Newman, “Thomas Vaughan as an interpreter of Agrippa van Nettesheim”.

Published as William Newman, ‘Thomas Vaughan as an Interpreter of Agrippa von Nettesheim’, Ambix, 29 (1982), 125 – 140.

1978

Reinhard Low, “The progress of organic chemistry during the period of German RomanticNaturphilosophie, 1795-1825”.

Published as Reinhard Löw, ‘The Progress of Organic Chemistry during the Period of German Romantic Naturphilosophie’,Ambix, 27 (1980), 1 – 10.

1975

P. C. Barratt, “Speculative chemistry in the 1880s – Prout’s legacy for the chemical elements”.

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