It does not appear that the alchemical works attributed to Nicholas Flamel have added anything to our knowledge of chemistry. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear from his history that the physical object of Alchemy was the end which he kept in view, and that also which he is supposed to have attained.
FOOTNOTES:
[Q] According to Louis Figuier, there were two minor persecutions of the Jews, one in 1346, when Flamel was merely a boy, and the other in 1354, when he was scarcely established in business.
PETER BONO.
This adept, born in Lombardy, was an inhabitant of Pola, a seaport of Istria, where he affirms that he made the much desired transmuting metal of the sages, in the year 1330. He wrote and published a complete treatise on the art under the title Margarita Pretiosa. Lacinius, a monk of Calabria, has printed a faithful abridgment of it, which appeared at Venice in 1546. An Introductio in Artem Divinam Alchimiæ, 1602, and De Secreto Omnium Secretorum, Venet. 1546, are ascribed to this adept.
The first of these works is an exceedingly comprehensive, conscientious treatise on the history, the theory, and the practice of alchemy, written after the manner of the scholastics, and naturally containing much irrelevant matter, but for all this very useful and even interesting. The difficulties of the art are manfully faced, the sophistications, deceptions, and contradictions of its professors are reproved, and the author attempts to show that alchemy is in reality a short art and a slight practice, though full of truth and nobility. His other opinions are also of a revolutionary character.
JOHANNES DE RUPECISSA.
This writer is considered one of the most remarkable of the Hermetic philosophers. He abounds with prophetic passages, and denounces the fate of nations, but in his alchemical explanation of things physical is obscure even for an adept. Nothing is known of his life,[R] beyond the nobility of his origin and his imprisonment in 1357, by Pope Innocent VI., whom he had reprehended. The illustrious Montfauçon was one of his descendants, and he poses as an initiate of the secret chemistry in the following works:—“The Book of Light,” “The Five Essences,” Cœlum Philosophorum, and his most celebrated treatise De Confectione Lapidis. There he declares that the matter of the philosophical stone is a viscous water which is to be found everywhere, but if the stone itself should be openly named, the whole world would be revolutionised. The divine science possessed by the wise is somewhat poetically celebrated as an incomparable treasure. Its initiates are enriched with an infinite wealth beyond all the kings of the earth; they are just before God and men, and in enjoyment of the special favour of Heaven.
FOOTNOTES:
[R] He is said to have been a French monk of the order of St Francis.