Nicholas Flamel

Date of Birth: 10/13/1330 | Date of Passing: 03/12/1418 | Date of Funeral: 03/12/1418

Nicolas Flamel Pontoise, ca 1330 Paris, March 22, 1418 was a successful French scrivener and manuscript-seller who developed a posthumous reputation as an alchemist due to his reputed work on the philosopher’s stone. According to the introduction to his work and additional details that have accrued since its publication, Flamel was the most accomplished of the European alchemists, and had learned his art from a Jewish converso on the road to Santiago de Compostela. As Deborah Harkness put it, “Others thought Flamel was the creation of 17th-century editors and publishers desperate to produce modern printed editions of supposedly ancient alchemical treatises then circulating in manuscript for an avid reading public.” The modern assertion that many references to him or his writings appear in alchemical texts of the 16th century, however, has not been linked to any particular source. The essence of his reputation are claims that he succeeded at the two magical goals of alchemy: that he made the Philosopher’s Stone, which turns base metals into gold and ordinary stones into precious gems, and that he and his wife Perenelle achieved immortality through the “Elixir of Life”. Nicolas and his wife Perenelle were French Catholics. Later in life they were noted for their wealth and philanthropy as well as multiple interpretations on modern day alchemy. Flamel lived into his 80s, and in 1410 designed his own tombstone, which was carved with arcane alchemical signs and symbols. The tombstone is preserved at theMusée de Cluny Paris.Records show that Flamel died in 1418. He was buried in Paris at the Musée de Cluny at the end of the nave of the former Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. Expanded accounts of his life are legendary. An alchemical book, published in Paris in 1613 as Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques;and in London in 1624 as Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures was attributed to Flamel. It is a collection of designs purportedly commissioned by Flamel for a tympanum at the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, long disappeared at the time the work was published. In the publisher’s introduction Flamel’s search for the Philosopher’s Stone was described. According to that introduction, Flamel had made it his life’s work to understand the text of a mysterious 21-page book he had purchased. The introduction claims that, around 1378, he travelled 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 Abramelin the Mage. 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. In addition, Flamel is said to have studied some texts in Hebrew. Flamel had achieved legendary status within the circles of alchemy by the mid 17th Century, with references in Isaac Newton’s journals to “the Caduceus, the Dragons of Flammel”. Interest in Flamel revived in the 19th century; Victor Hugo mentioned him in The Hunchback of Notre Dame Erik Satie was intrigued by Flamel, Albert Pike makes reference to Nicholas Flamel in his book Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. One of Flamel’s houses still stands in Paris, at rue de Montmorency. It is the oldest stone house in the city.There is an old inscription on the wall: “We, ploughmen and women living at the porch of this house, built in 1407, are requested to say every day an ‘Our Father and an ‘Ave Maria’ praying God that His grace forgive poor and dead sinners.” The ground floor currently contains a restaurant.A Paris street near the Louvre Museum rue Nicolas Flamel, has been named after him; it intersects with the rue Perenelle, named after his wife. The house of Flamel in Paris, now a restaurant.Rue Nicolas Flamel street sign in Paris Plaque on home Claude Frollo’s scientific inspiration in Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). Frollo seems to be obsessed with Flamel’s work with the Philosopher’s Stone. Michael Roberts’s poem “Nicholas Flamel”, collected in These Our Matins 1930). Flamel has been alleged to be the eighth Grand Master Priory of Sion French National Library Dossiers Secrets. This resulted in him being mentioned in the 1982 pseudohistory book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail Umberto Eco’s 1988 novel Foucault’s Pendulum 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 Philosopher’s Stone (1995) by Max McCoy. Flamel is mentioned throughout Fullmetal Alchemist (manga 2001, television 2003 and 2009) as the author of alchemic books and the originator of the Philosopher’s Stone legend. The Flamel Cross and the Philosopher’s Stone are also seen in the series, which is based on transmutations and the finding of the Philosopher’s Stone. Nicolas Flamel is significant to the plot of J. K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (1997). In the novel Flamel and his wife are still alive in the early 1990s (when the stories are based), having gained immortality from the eponymous Philosopher’s Stone. Grand Materia (2005) by the Swedish Morgana Lefay is about Nicolas Flamel, his life, and how he made the Philosopher’s Stone. Nicholas and his wife are central characters in Michael Scott’s series of six fantasy novels, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, started in 2007. Works ascribed to Flamel Le Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques (The Book of hieroglyphic figures), first published in Trois traictez de la philosophie naturelle, Paris, Veuve Guillemot, 1612 Le sommaire philosophique (The Philosophical summary), first published in De la transformation métallique</em>, Paris, Guillaume Guillard, 1561.