Performing cures: Calderonian autos and the materia medica (Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spain)

The resolution of the sacramental allegories, or autos sacramentales , of Pedro Calderon de la Barca frequently dramatizes salvation as the product of medical processes in which the healing of the body mirrors the cure of the soul. To this end, Calderon employs Baroque insights about chemistry, pharmacology, and botany that are at the cutting edge of Spanish natural philosophical inquiry. Through an examination of the plays in light of Renaissance and Baroque literary criticism, scientific texts, and experimental philosophy, I argue that the composition, staging, and reception of these plays is profoundly marked by the culture of scientific investigation. This approach sheds light on the meaning and function of these masterful but confusing plays, while at the same time providing new insights into the character and diffusion of Baroque Spanish science.; Calderon's literary career spans a period of tremendous change in attitudes toward and knowledge of the natural world. The titles of the autos alone---La humildad coronada de las plantas, El lirio y la azucena, and La cura y la enfermedad to name only a few---point toward the fact that these plays mirror revolutions in medicine and plant knowledge associated with the "Age of Discovery." While the content of these plays shows the playwright's familiarity with contemporary science, the style of the play's representation demonstrates important similarities among the autos, botanical illustrations, and emblems of the day. The meeting of word and image in emblematic scenes functions as an allegory of sacramental consecration, that is, the conjoining of word and element.; In addition to affinities between typographical strategies for the representation of natural history and the staging of the autos, Calderon's plays employ devices that are strikingly similar to the coeval methodologies of scientific discovery. The concluding scene in Calderon's autos almost always includes a "descubrimiento" or revelation of the Eucharistic bread and wine. The technologies of literary representation and scientific demonstration become indistinguishable as the autos become themselves model environments for the testing and the ultimate proof of Counterreformational doctrine.