LASCARIS.
German writers have principally occupied themselves with the transmutations of this singular personage, who so successfully shrouded himself in mystery, that his name, his age, his birthplace, and everything which concerns his private life are completely unknown.
He called himself Lascaris, but also adopted other appellations. He claimed an Oriental origin, and as he spoke Greek fluently, he has passed for a descendant of the royal house of Lascaris. He represented himself as the archimandrite of a convent in the Island of Mytilena, and bore letters from the Greek patriarch of Constantinople. His mission in the West was the solicitation of alms for the ransom of Christian prisoners in the East. He appeared for the first time in Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a man seemingly some forty or fifty years old, of attractive mien, agreeable in manner, and fluent in his conversation. Finding himself indisposed at Berlin, he sent for a certain apothecary, who for some reason was unable to attend, and on several occasions was represented by a pupil at the bedside of the stranger. With this youth Lascaris fell into conversation, and a sort of friendship sprung up between them. The apothecary’s pupil had studied Basil Valentine, and had attempted experiments on the principles of this adept. Lascaris recovered, and at the moment of departing from Berlin he took the youth aside, and presented him with a quantity of the transmuting powder, commanding him to be silent as to whence he had derived it, and while forbidding him to make use of it till some time after his departure, assured him that when Berlin unbelievers beheld its amazing effects, no one would be able to tax the alchemists with madness.
The name of this young man was John Frederick Bötticher. Intoxicated at the possession of such an unexpected treasure, he determined to devote himself entirely to alchemy. The apothecary, his master, vainly endeavoured to dissuade him from a pursuit which he considered chimerical, for he astonished both him and his friends by changing silver into gold in their presence.
The experiment was repeated with mercury for the benefit of a friend of Bötticher, the tale spread, and the apothecary’s pupil became the lion of Berlin, more especially as he spread the report that he was able to compose himself the philosophical tincture.
He was summoned before the King, Frederick William I., who wished to witness his performances, but he fled to an uncle at Wittenburg. He was claimed from the authorities of that town as a Prussian subject, but he was now a prize of value, and the Elector of Saxony opposed a counter claim for the possession of his person, and to him Bötticher decided to proceed. He was warmly welcomed, and when his transmutations had been witnessed, the title of baron was conferred on him. He took up his residence at Dresden, living in a style of great magnificence and prodigality, till every particle of his powder was expended, when his extravagance involved him in debt. His servants, whom he was unable to repay, spread the report that it was his intention to take flight, and the purblind Elector, refusing to perceive in this sudden failure of resources a proof that Bötticher was unable to compose or increase the philosophers’ stone, surrounded his house with guards, and detained him practically as a prisoner.
At this juncture, Lascaris, who was still wandering in Germany, took pity on the misfortunes of his young neophyte, and endeavoured to extricate him from his embarrassing position by means of a young doctor named Pasch, who was a personal friend of the ennobled apothecary’s boy. Their manœuvres resulted in the imprisonment of Pasch at the fortress of Sonneinstein, while Bötticher was closely confined in another castle at Kœnigstein.
Two years and a half passed away. At the end of that time Pasch succeeded in escaping at the expense of his limbs, and died after a few months, bitterly complaining of the treachery of the adept Lascaris, who had deserted him completely in his danger.
Bötticher remained in confinement with every opportunity to manufacture the philosophical stone, which, however he failed to accomplish; but what with his apothecary’s training and his prison experiments, he had become skilled in several departments of chemistry. He discovered the process for the production of red porcelain, and afterwards that of white, very superior in quality to the substances already known by that name. These inventions proved as valuable to the tyrannical Elector as the accomplishment of the magnum opus. Bötticher was restored to his favour, and again enjoyed his baronial title, but in his liberty he surrendered himself to an immoderately luxurious life, and died in 1719 at the age of thirty-seven years.
Bötticher was by no means the only apothecary’s boy who was enriched with the powder of Lascaris, and despatched to preach the gospel of alchemy with practical demonstrations. Godwin, Hermann, Braun, and Martin of Fitzlar are mentioned among these half-initiated labourers, who shone till their stock-in-trade was exhausted, and then disappeared in succession.
In the meantime, Lascaris himself was not idle. On the 16th February 1609 he is believed to have changed mercury into gold and gold into silver, a double transmutation, considered by alchemical connoisseurs to be the evidence of an unparalleled adeptship. Liebkneck, counsellor of Wertherbourg, was a witness of this transmutation.
In the same year a goldsmith of Leipsic was visited by a mysterious stranger, who is unanimously identified with Lascaris, and who showed him a lingot, which he declared was manufactured by art, and which proved in assaying to be gold of twenty-two carats. It was purified by the goldsmith with antimony, and part of it was presented to him by the unknown as a memorial of the alleged transmutation.
Shortly after, a lieutenant-colonel in the Polish army, whose name was Schmolz de Dierbach, and who had inherited from his father a belief in alchemical science, was conversing on the subject at a café, when he was accosted by a stranger, who presented him with some powder of projection. It was of a red colour, and a microscopic examination revealed its crystalline nature. It increased the weight of the metals which it was supposed to transmute to an extent which chemical authorities declare to be physically impossible. The recipient made use of it generously, distributing to his friends and acquaintance the gold it produced in projection. The unknown donor is identified in the imagination of German historians with the mysterious Lascaris, who is supposed, in the same anonymous and unaccountable manner, to have enriched the Baron de Creux with a box of the precious powder, and to have gratified the amateur Hermetic ambition of the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt through the commonplace medium of the post. In a word, every anonymous adept who appeared at this period in or about Germany is supposed to be Lascaris.
The last of his debtors or victims was the son of a Neapolitan mason, Domenico Manuel, who claims to have been mysteriously initiated into the transmutatory art in the year 1695. He was put in possession of a small quantity both of the white and red tinctures. Being insufficient to really enrich himself, he determined to trade upon the wonders they produced, and obtained large sums from wealthy amateurs for the privilege of beholding the consummation of the great work. He perambulated Spain, Belgium, and Austria, obtaining large sums, under the pretence of preparing the tincture, not only from private individuals, but from the Emperor Leopold and the Palatine Elector. In different places he assumed names that were different. Now he was Count Gaëtano, now Count de Ruggiero; at other times he called himself Field Marshal to the Duke of Bavaria, Commandant of Munich, a Prussian major-general, and by other titles. In 1705 he appeared at Berlin, where he imposed on the King himself for a brief period, after which, unable to ratify his transmutatory engagements, he was convicted of treason and hanged. This occurred on the 29th of August 1709.