Nicholas Flamel

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For the Harry Potter character, see Historical characters in Harry Potter.

This imaginative portrait of Nicholas Flamel dates from the nineteenth century.

Nicholas Flamel (1340-1417) was a successful scrivener and manuscript-seller who developed a reputation as an alchemist that has overshadowed his historical reality.

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 the mysterious 21-page book he had purchased, and 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. 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.

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.

The house of Flamel in Paris.

[edit] Life

An attempt to separate fact from fancy was made in 1993 by Nigel Wilkins,^[3] who attributed his alchemical reputation to his genuine wealth in unstable times. The historical Flamel was born near Paris around 1330. He initially worked as a public scrivener, making copies of documents, and this developed into a career as a bookseller, as he bought and sold manuscripts. In addition, he was a master scribe and calligrapher, finding, producing and reproducing manuscripts under the purview of the University of Paris as a libraire-juré, a "bonded bookseller". He funded many building projects around Paris, hospices for the poor and repairs to churches, notably Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, near which there are a rue Nicolas Flamel, renamed from him in 1851^[4] and a rue Pernelle, named for his wife in 1853^[5] in Paris IVe. A house of 1407 built by him still stands, the oldest stone house in Paris, at 51 rue de Montmorency (IIIe arrondissement); the ground floor, always a tavern, currently houses the Auberge Nicolas Flamel.^[6]

Whatever the source of his wealth, Flamel probably had more means than the typical poor scrivener. He funded the construction of several buildings around Paris, opened several Parisian poorhouses, and according to a biography written in 1761, his will donated large quantities of money to various charities. Many people believed that his wealth came from successes in alchemy. Others pointed out that he was a shrewd businessman who had made some astute deals, and that his wife also contributed to the fortune, with property from her previous two marriages.

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 gravesight with only a shovel and a lantern, and dug up the grave. Finally hitting the surface of the coffin, he opened it, to find not only no gold, but also no 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. He is said to have purchased a mysterious book of twenty-one pages, which was filled with encoded alchemical symbols and arcane writing, including 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.^[7] 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] Allusions

• Nicolas Flamel's story is alluded to in Howard Pyle's children's books "Empty Bottles" from the "Twighlight Land", and more recently J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (or, the Sorcerer's Stone), in which he is an unseen character. He was friends with Albus Dumbledore and 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 is listed as the 8th "Grand Master of the Priory of Sion" (1398-1418) as part of a 1950s 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 in 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.
• Flamel is mentioned on several occasions (chapters 20 and 44) in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
• He is the subject of Michael Roberts's poem "Nicholas Flamel", collected in These Our Matins (1930).
• One of the symbols on his grave (below), the serpent cross, is a symbol used by several characters in the anime and manga series Fullmetal Alchemist, which also draws on several of Flamel's works including the Philosopher's Stone and creation of homunculi.
• In the DC Comics universe, he is described as an immortal (JLA Annual 2), and an ancestor of Zatara and Zatanna (Secret Origins 27).
• In the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, the Chief Researcher of the Alchemist (Job) Guild is named Nicolas Flamel.
• 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.
• Map of Bones (publ. 2005) by James Rollins mentions Flamel as an alchemist
• 'L'Étoile des Amants', by Philippe Sollers (Gallimard, 2002) presents Flamel as a (deceptively) arbitrary idea for a character.
• A brief history of Flamel and the philosopher's stone is in an article in Uncle John's Top Secret! Bathroom Reader For Kids Only!
• Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel are featured as major characters in Michael Scott's novel The Alchemyst (2007).

Flamel had these mysterious alchemical symbols carved on his tomb in the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris.

[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

[edit] External links

• Nicholas 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.