They are placed in the fifteenth century by conjecture, from the fact that they do not cite any philosophers subsequent to that period. They speak of Geber, Dastin, Morien, and Arnold, but not of more modern authorities, while, on the other hand, their references to aquafortis and aqua-regiæ, which were discovered in the fourteenth century, prevent us from assigning their labours to an anterior epoch.
The two Isaacs were particularly skilful in the manufacture of enamels and of artificial gem-stones. They taught that the Grand Magisterium could convert a million times its own weight into gold, and declared that any person taking weekly a small portion of the philosophical stone will be ever preserved in perfect health, and his life will be prolonged to the very last hour which God has assigned to him.
The Opera Mineralia Joannis Isaaci Hollandi, sive de Lapide Philosophico is a long and elaborate treatise on the one method of exalting the dead and impure metals into true Sol and Luna. The first matter is said to be Saturn, or lead, and the vessels in which it is to be calcined and otherwise adapted to the purposes of aurific art, are plainly figured in illustrations introduced into the text.
FOOTNOTES:
[T] “Lives of Alchemysticall Philosophers.” Ed. of 1815.
BERNARD TRÉVISAN.
Bernard Compte de la Marche Trévisane is accredited by the popular legends of France with the powers of a sorcerer in possession of a devil’s bird or familiar spirit; nevertheless, he is called “the good,” and enjoyed a particular reputation for benevolence.
Descendant of a distinguished Paduan family, Bernard Trévisan began to study the time-honoured science of alchemy about the time that Basil in Germany, and the two Isaacs in Holland were prosecuting their labours with supposed success. His father was a physician of Padua, where he himself was born in the year 1406. The account of his alchemical errors must rank among the most curious anecdotes in the annals of occult chemistry.
At the age of fourteen years, under the auspices of a grandfather, and with the full consent of his family, he devoted his attention to alchemy, which henceforth was the absorbing occupation of his life. Seeking initiation into the first principles of the art, he began by the study of Geber and Rhasis, believing they would supply him with a method of multiplying his patrimony a hundred fold. The experiments which he undertook during his costly tuition by these oracular masters resulted in the futile dissipation of eight hundred, or, according to another account, of three thousand crowns. He was surrounded by pretended philosophers, who, finding him wealthy and eager in the penetration of tantalising mysteries, proffered the secrets which they neither possessed nor understood, obtaining a fraudulent subsistence at the expense of the boy alchemist.
Disappointed, but not discouraged, he dismissed these impostors at length, and devoted his concentrated attention to the works of Rupecissa and Archelaus Sacrobosco, whom he literally followed for a time in all his practical operations. Hoping to profit by the help of a prudent companion, he associated himself with a good monk with whom he experimented in concert for the space of three years. They rectified spirits of wine more than thirty times “till they could not find glasses strong enough to hold it.” These operations cost nearly three hundred crowns.