iatrochemistry The medical theory that disease results

from a chemical reaction and that it can be both defined

and treated chemically. The idea was originally associated

with the remarkable Swiss physician PARACELSUS, and the

Latin word iatrochymista (from Greek iatrikos, healing +

chemist) appears to have originated in late 16th-century

translations of his work, although it was not adopted into

English until the mid-17th century. For iatrochemists the

creation of the universe itself, as well as most natural

processes, were essentially chemical operations; it fol-

lowed inevitably that medicine would be absorbed into

the scheme. Iatrochemistry was helped by the total failure

of traditional medicine to control the spread of major dis-

eases such as syphilis and PLAGUE. Its practitioners, with

their use of such potent chemical medicines as arsenic and

antimony, seemed initially to be successful, and the move-

ment prospered. This early success is signaled in the

growing tendency for the printed PHARMACOPOEIAto in-

clude chemical preparations. Although opposition was en-

countered in Paris, where the authorities declared

antimony a poison and banned its therapeutic use, else-

where, and particularly in Britain and Germany, iatro-

chemistry spread rapidly and widely in the 17th century.

iconoclasm The breaking or destruction of images set up

for religious veneration, especially practiced by Protes-

tants during the century of the Reformation. Protestants

based their hostility to images on the Old Testament pro-

hibition (Exodus 20:4–5) and on their belief that religious

statues and pictures encouraged superstition among the

ignorant multitude. The ANABAPTISTSat Münster were an

example of the radical Protestant sects who took this line.

Not all reformers shared their view: LUTHERapproved of

religious pictures as an aid to piety, and intervened

forcibly at Wittenberg to restrain Andreas CARLSTADTand

his supporters, who were bent on their destruction

(1522). CALVIN, however, attacked superstitious practices

with particular severity, and many of the most violent

episodes were perpetrated by his followers, notably the so-

called “Iconoclastic Fury” in the Netherlands (1566).

Carel van MANDERrecords among the losses paintings by

Pieter Aertsen, Hieronymus Bosch, and Jan van Scorel,

and other famous works such as the Eyck brothers’ GHENT

ALTARPIECEonly narrowly escaped destruction. Such out-

bursts were widely deplored, and even Protestant regimes

hostile to images usually tried to secure their orderly re-

moval, in order both to discourage riotous conduct and to

prevent plunder. But undoubtedly iconoclasm resulted in

the destruction of many priceless works of art and the de-

facement of numerous church buildings.

Further reading: Margaret Aston, England’s Icono-

clasts: Laws Against Images (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon

Press and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; repr.

1991); Phyllis M. Crew, Calvinist Preaching and Iconoclasm

in the Netherlands (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1978).

iconography The study of icons, that is, images which

are often, though not necessarily, sacred and which ex-

press in a concentrated visual way some deep moral or

spiritual truth. The Church in the Middle Ages had elabo-

rated a complex set of rules for the interpretation of icons

and these were based on assumptions about the nature of

the relationship between the image and the object it de-

picts. The Renaissance, in this area as in so many others,

took over medieval concepts and modified them.

225500

I