[57] One hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous Physitian Theophrastus Paracelsus, whereunto is added . . . certain Secrets of Isaac Hollandus, concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work (1652), p. 35.
Bernard Trévisan (1406-1490).
§ 43. Bernard Trévisan, a French count of the fifteenth century, squandered enormous sums of money in the search for the Stone, in which the whole of his life and energies were engaged. He seems to have become the dupe of one charlatan after another, but at last, at a ripe old age, he says that his labours were rewarded, and that he successfully performed the magnum opus. In a short, but rather obscure work, he speaks of the Philosopher’s Stone in the following words: “This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing in the World can be generated and brought to light without these two Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that although these two Substances are not of one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, Argent-vive.”[58] He appears, however, to have added nothing to our knowledge of chemical science.
[58] Bernard, Earl of Trévisan: A Treatise of the Philosophers Stone, 1683 (see Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chemistry, 1684, p. 91).
Sir George Ripley (14—?-1490?).
§ 44. Sir George Ripley, an eminent alchemistic philosopher of the fifteenth century, entered upon a monastic life when a youth, becoming one of the canons regular of Bridlington. After some travels he returned to England and obtaining leave from the Pope to live in solitude, he devoted himself to the study of the Hermetic Art. His chief work is The Compound of Alchymie . . . conteining twelve Gates, which was written in 1471. In this curious work, we learn that there are twelve processes necessary for the achievement of the magnum opus, namely, Calcination, Solution, Separation, Conjunction, Putrefaction, Congelation, Cibation, Sublimation, Fermentation, Exaltation, Multiplication, and Projection. These are likened to the twelve gates of a castle which the philosopher must enter. At the conclusion of the twelfth gate, Ripley says:—