Nicolas Flamel

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Nicolas Flamel (traditionally c. 1330 – 1418) was a successful scrivener and manuscript-seller who developed a reputation as an alchemist due to his reputed work on the Philosopher's Stone.

Flamel was the attributed author of an alchemical book, published in Paris in 1612 as Livre des figures hiéroglypiques and in London in 1624 as Exposition of the Hieroglyphicall Figures.^[1] It is an exposition of figures purportedly commissioned by Flamel for a tympanum at the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, long disappeared at the time the work was published. In its publisher's introduction Flamel's search for the Philosopher's Stone was described. According to it, Flamel made it his life's work to understand the text of a mysterious twenty-one-page book he had purchased; the introduction recounts that around 1378, he traveled to Spain for assistance with translation. On the way back, he reported that he met a sage, who identified Flamel's book as being a copy of the original Book of Abraham also known as the Codex. With this knowledge, over the next few years Flamel and his wife allegedly decoded enough of the book to successfully replicate its recipe for the Philosopher's Stone, producing first silver in 1382, and then gold. Some experts speculate that around the time he allegedly was able to replicate the recipe he became extremely wealthy.

According to the introduction to his work and the additional details that have accrued since its publication, Flamel would thus have been the most accomplished of the European alchemists, who would have learned his art from a Jewish converso on the road to Santiago de Compostela. "Others thought Flamel was the creation of seventeenth-century editors and publishers desperate to produce modern printed editions of supposedly ancient alchemical treatises then circulating in manuscript for an avid reading public," Deborah Harkness put it succinctly.^[2] The modern assertion that many references to him or his writings appear in alchemical texts of the 1500s, however, has not been linked to any particular source. The essence of his reputation is that he succeeded at the two magical goals of alchemy -- that he made the Philosopher's Stone which turns lead into gold, and that he and his wife Perenelle achieved immortality.

Contents 1 Life 2 In Pseudo-Science And Legends 3 In popular culture 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Life

Flamel lived into his 80s, and in 1410 designed his own tombstone, which was carved with arcane alchemical signs and symbols. Some believe that he died shortly after the tombstone was created. Later after that a local criminal, who wished to acquire Flamel's reputed gold, went to Flamel's residence. Finding nothing, but undeterred, he was said to have then gone to the gravesite with only a spade and a lantern, and dug up the grave. Upon opening the coffin, he was disappointed to find an absence of gold, but shocked to find no trace of the corpse of Nicolas Flamel. Some claim that it was just the grave of the wrong person who was not dead at the time, while still others claim that he faked his own death, and they cite as proof the fact that long after 1410, several books were published in his name. The tombstone is preserved at the Musée de Cluny in Paris.

Expanded accounts of his life are taken as legendary. In addition to the mysterious book of twenty-one pages filled with encoded alchemical symbols and arcane writing, he may also have studied some texts in Hebrew. Interest in Flamel revived in the nineteenth century: Victor Hugo noted him in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Eric Satie was intrigued by Flamel.^[3] Flamel is often referred to in late twentieth-century fictional works such as the Harry Potter books and movies as well as The Da Vinci Code.

[edit] In Pseudo-Science And Legends

• According to Alchemic Texts, namely the Testament of Flamel, Nicholas Flamel saw his wife Perenelle die and then became obsessed with unlocking the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone. He then moved from place to place changing his name and his location every so often and eventually re-married and had at least one son who he told the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone to and that he had lived for 300 years after his recorded death because of the stone and the Elixir of Life.

[edit] In popular culture

• Nicolas Flamel's story is alluded to in J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone in the United States), in which he is an unseen character. He was friends with Albus Dumbledore and is said to have lived for hundreds of years until the Philosopher's Stone was destroyed following the events of the book (see Nicolas Flamel in Harry Potter.)
• Flamel has been alleged to be the eighth "Grand Master of the Priory of Sion" (1398-1418) as part of a 1960s hoax where his name was planted in the French National Library in the "Dossiers Secrets". This resulted in him being mentioned in the 1982 pseudohistory book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Umberto Eco's 1989 novel Foucault's Pendulum, and Dan Brown's 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code. Many of the names of "Grand Masters" were evidently chosen for some sort of connection with alchemy.
• Nicolas and his wife Perenelle Flamel are important characters mentioned in the Indiana Jones story Indiana Jones and the Philospher's Stone by Max McCoy (1995), and an elderly couple named "Nicolas and Pernelle" save Indy during one scene, before professing to have followed Jones's career closely.
• Nicolas and his wife Perenelle Flamel are central characters in Michael Scott's novel The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (2007).
• He is the subject of Michael Roberts' poem "Nicholas Flamel", collected in These Our Matins (1930).
• The concept album Grand Materia (2005) by the Swedish metal-band Morgana Lefay is about Nicolas Flamel and his life and how he made the Philosopher's Stone.
• Flamel was once referenced in the anime Fullmetal Alchemist, when Edward Elric was researching alchemy in Central.
• Flamel is thought to be a inprashion for the Millennium Earl the main antagonist of the manga D-Gray Man.
• In the DC comics universe, Zatanna is a direct descendant of Flamel.
• Nicolas Flamel is also a character in the 1999 novel "The Burning Road" by Ann Benson. The Book of Abraham also plays a significant role in the novel.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Decoding the Past: The Real Sorcerer's Stone, November 15 2006 History Channel video documentary
• The Philosopher's Stone: A Quest for the Secrets of Alchemy, 2001, Peter Marshall, ISBN 0-330-48910-0
• Creations of Fire, Cathy Cobb & Harold Goldwhite, 2002, ISBN 0-7382-0594-X
• The Alchemyst: The Secrets of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel",2007,Michael Scott, ISBN 9780739350324

[edit] External links

• Nicolas Flamel
• Blog "Los secretos del inmortal Nicolas Flamel"
• An explanation of some of the alchemical figures on Flamel's tomb
• Flamel Technology French based company named after the alchemist includes a biography of his life and major accomplishments
• Reginald Merton, "A Detailed Biography of Nicolas Flamel" Highly detailed legend.