Online Encyclopedia

NICOLAS IFLAMEL (c. 1330-1418)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 475 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NICOLAS IFLAMEL (c. 1330-1418)  , reputed French alchemist and scrivener to the university of Paris, was born in Paris or
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Pontoise about 1330, and died in Paris in 1418, bequeathing the bulk of his
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property to the church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, 1 where he was buried . During his
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life he contributed freely to charitable and religious purposes from the considerable
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wealth he amassed either by the practice of his craft, or, as some surmise without definite proof, by fortunate
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speculation or
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money lending, or, as legend has it, by
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alchemy . According to a document purporting to be written by himself in 1413 (printed in Waite's Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers,
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London, 1888), there fell into his hands in 1357, at the cost of two florins, a
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book on alchemy by Abraham the Jew, which taught in plain words the transmutation of metals . It did not, however, explain the materia prima, but merely figured or depicted it, and for more than 20 years Flamel strove in vain to find out the secret . Then, returning from a journey to Spain, he fell in with a Christian Jew, named Canches, who gave him the explanation, and after three more years'
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work he succeeded in preparing the materia prima, thus being enabled in 1382 to transmute mercury into both
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silver and gold . But this fantastic story was disposed of by the facts, derived from parish records, set forth in Vilain's Essai sue l'histoire de Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, 1758, and his Histoire critique de Nicolas Flamel et de Pernelle sa femme, recueillie d'actes anciens qui justifient l'origine et la mediocrite de
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leer fortune contre
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les imputations
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des alchimistes, 1761 . A book on alchemy in the Paris'Bibliotheque, Le Tresor de philosophie, professing to be written and illuminated by Flamel with his own hand, is ui very doubtful authenticity, and other
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treatises bearing his name, such as the Sommaire philosophique de Nicolas Flamel, published in 1561 in a collection of alchemist treatises entitled Trans-formation metallique, are certainly
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spurious .

End of Article: NICOLAS IFLAMEL (c. 1330-1418)
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