Nicolas Flamel
1330 – 1418 French scribe, manuscript seller, reputed alchemist
Paris scribe turned, by later legend, into a famous alchemist.
- Religion
- Catholic Christianity. The alchemical legend around him is a later invention.
- Affiliations
- None documented. The story of his alchemical success first appeared in works published long after his death.
Nicolas Flamel was a real Paris scribe and manuscript dealer whose wealth funded churches and charities. More than two centuries after his death, books falsely credited to him described how he had made the Philosopher's Stone from a mysterious book of Abraham the Jew. That legend, which historians regard as fiction, turned him into one of the most famous names in alchemy.
Connections
- influenced Hermes Trismegistus — The Flamel legend drew on the Hermetic alchemical tradition.