The date and the birthplace of this celebrated adept are alike uncertain. Catalonia, Milan, and Montpellier have been severally named for the locality, and 1245 is, on the whole, the probable period.
Arnold studied medicine at Paris for twenty years, after which for ten more he perambulated Italy, visiting the different universities. He subsequently penetrated into Spain, but hearing that Peter d’Apono, his friend, was in the hands of the Inquisition, he prudently withdrew, and abode under the patronage of Frederick, King of Naples and Sicily, writing his tracts on medicine and his “Comment on the School of Salerno.” He is said to have perished in a storm during the year 1314, but a circular letter written by Pope Clement V. in 1311 conjures those living under his authority to discover, if possible, and send to him, the “Treatise on Medicine,” written by Arnold, his physician, who promised it to the Holy Father, but died before he could present it. In this case the date of his decease may be more accurately fixed at 1310.
Arnold was, according to the custom of the period, charged with magical practices. François Pegna declares that all his erudition in alchemy was derived from the demon. Mariana accuses him of attempting to create a man by means of certain drugs deposited in a pumpkin. But he is justified by Delrio from these imputations, and the orthodox Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes considers that Clement V. would not have chosen an initiate of magical arts as his physician. In 1317 the Inquisition of Tarragona condemned his books to be burned, but this was for the heretical sentiments which they contained. He wrote strictures on the monastic state and the service of religion, and maintained that works of divine faith and charity were more agreeable to God than the Sacrifice of the Mass.
His skill in Hermetic philosophy has been generally recognised. His contemporary, the celebrated Jurisconsult, John Andre, says of him:—“In this time appeared Arnold de Villeneuve, a great theologian, a skilful physician, and wise alchymist, who made gold, which he submitted to all proofs.” Arnold has also the character of writing with more light and clearness than the other philosophers. His alchemical works were published in 1509, in one folio volume. His Libellus de Somniorum Interpretatione et Somnia Danielis is excessively rare in its original quarto edition. Several alchemical and magical works are gratuitously ascribed to him. Among these must be classed the book called De Physicis Ligaturis, supposed to be translated from the Arabic—De Sigillis duodecim Signorum, which is concerned with the zodiacal signs—and the book of the “Three Impostors,” which the Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes denominates “stupid and infamous.”
The Thesaurus Thesaurorum and the Rosarium Philosophorum, the Speculum Alchemiæ and the Perfectum Magisterium, are the most notable of all his alchemical treatises. To these the student should add his Scientia Scientiæ and brief Testamentum. The editions are various, but the tracts will be found in collected form in the Bibliotheca Chemicæ Curiosa of J. J. Mangetus.
Arnold asserts that argent vive is the medicine of all the metals, that vulgar sulphur is the cause of all their imperfections, that the stone of the philosophers is one, and that it is to be extracted from that in which it exists. It exists in all bodies, including common argent vive. The first physical work is the dissolution of the stone in its own mercury to reduce it to its prima materia. All the operations of the magnum opus are successively described, including the composition of the white and the red elixirs, and the multiplication of the metallic medicine.
The marcasite frequently mentioned by Arnold is thought to be identical with bismuth. He was acquainted with the preparation of oil of turpentine, oil of rosemary, and performed distillations in a glazed earthen vessel with a glass top and helm.
JEAN DE MEUNG.
Poet, alchemist, and astrologer, a man of some fortune, and issued from an ancient family, Jean de Meung was one of the chief figures at the Court of King Philippe le Bel. He was born, according to the latest authorities, about the middle of the thirteenth century, and his continuation of the Roman de la Rose, which Guillaume de Lorris had begun some time before the year 1260, was undertaken not in his nineteenth year, as generally stated, but about or a little before the age of thirty, and at the instance of the French King.
The Romance of the Rose, “that epic of ancient France,” as Éliphas Lévi calls it, has been generally considered by alchemists a poetic and allegorical presentation of the secrets of the magnum opus. It professes, at any rate, the principles of Hermetic Philosophy, and Jean de Meung was also the author of “Nature’s Remonstrances to the Alchemist” and “The Alchemist’s Answer to Nature.” Hermetic commentaries have been written upon the romance-poem, and tradition has ascribed to the author the accomplishment of great transmutations. The sermon of Genius, chaplain and confessor to Dame Nature, in the Romance, is an exhibition of the principles of chemistry, as well as a satire on the bombastic and unintelligible preaching which was in vogue at that period. From verse 16,914 to verse 16,997 there is much chemical information.