Nicolas Flamel | AlchemyHQ

The house at 51 rue de Montmorency in Paris is the oldest stone house in the city, and the plaque on the facade claims that Nicolas Flamel built it. Flamel was a real person — a Parisian scrivener, a property owner, a generous donor to churches and hospitals — and the house is the most tangible evidence that the historical Flamel existed. The historical Flamel died in 1418 and was buried in the church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie. The church was demolished during the French Revolution, and Flamel’s tombstone was moved to the Musée de Cluny, where it can still be seen. The historical Flamel is documented in property records, in notarial archives, in the books he copied in his shop, and in the small alchemical treatise that bears his name (Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013, pp. 191-198; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 2004; Calcagni, “Nicolas Flamel: A Critical Edition,” 1995).

The legendary Flamel is a different figure entirely. The legendary Flamel succeeded in preparing the philosopher’s stone in 1382, used the stone to fund charitable works, and achieved personal immortality with his wife Perrenelle — allegedly appearing to witnesses in the centuries after their supposed deaths. The legendary Flamel is one of the most influential figures in the alchemical tradition, and the legend has been growing for more than five hundred years. The reader who wants to understand the alchemical tradition needs to hold both Flamels in mind: the historical scrivener and the legendary alchemist, and to keep them separate.

The historical Flamel

Nicolas Flamel was born in Pontoise, near Paris, around 1330. He moved to Paris as a young man and worked as a scrivener, a professional copyist and seller of manuscripts. The scrivener was an important profession in the late medieval period, and the scriveners were responsible for the production and the dissemination of the written word. Flamel was successful in his profession, and he accumulated enough wealth to acquire several properties in Paris, including the house at 51 rue de Montmorency. The house is a real historical document, and the visitor who goes to see it should know what they are looking at: a real piece of medieval real estate, not a legend.

Flamel married Perrenelle, a widow, in 1368, and the couple was known for their generosity to the church and to the poor. The charitable works included the foundation of hospitals, the restoration of churches, and the endowment of Masses for the dead. The charitable works were a major feature of the historical Flamel’s reputation, and they were the basis of the later legend that Flamel and Perrenelle had used the philosopher’s stone to fund their generosity. The historical generosity is well documented. The alchemical source is not.

Flamel was also involved in the alchemical and mystical traditions of late medieval Paris. He was a friend of several artists and craftsmen, and he was associated with the Jewish community of Paris, several members of which were known to be interested in the kabbalistic and alchemical traditions. The association with the Jewish community was the basis of the later legend that Flamel had acquired a mysterious Jewish book — the Book of Abraham the Jew — that contained the secret of the philosopher’s stone. The association with the Jewish community is documented. The book is not.

The alchemical treatise

Flamel is the author of a short alchemical treatise, the Le Livre des Figures Hiéroglyphiques (“The Book of Hieroglyphic Figures”), probably written in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. The treatise presents a series of alchemical figures and a short accompanying text. The figures are richly colored and detailed, and the text is a typical alchemical allegory (Calcagni, 1995).

The treatise is not a major work of alchemical literature, and the figures and the text are typical of the late medieval alchemical tradition. The treatise is significant as the only surviving alchemical work of the historical Flamel, and as the basis of the later legendary tradition. A reader who reads the Livre des Figures looking for proof that Flamel had discovered the philosopher’s stone will be disappointed. The text is allegorical, and the allegories are conventional. The treatise is best read, in my view, as evidence that the historical Flamel was interested in the alchemical tradition, and as a small piece of evidence about what the late medieval Parisian alchemical tradition looked like from the inside.

The legend

The legend of Flamel and the philosopher’s stone grew up rapidly after Flamel’s death. The legend, in its classic form, runs as follows:

In 1357, Flamel acquired a mysterious book, the Book of Abraham the Jew, for two florins. The book was bound in copper, finely engraved with strange figures and characters, and written in a language that Flamel could not read. Flamel consulted Jewish and Muslim scholars in Spain, who helped him translate the book and understand its contents.

According to the legend, the book contained the secret of the philosopher’s stone, and Flamel spent twenty-one years trying to apply the secret. In 1382, Flamel succeeded in preparing the stone, and he and his wife Perrenelle used the stone to transmute base metals into gold. The gold funded their charitable works, and the couple allegedly achieved personal immortality, appearing to various witnesses in the centuries after their death.

The legend was enormously influential in the later alchemical tradition. Flamel became a stock character in alchemical fiction, and the visual tradition of alchemy in art includes many treatments of the Flamel story. The legend was also a major source of the modern popular image of the alchemist, and the image of the alchemist who has discovered the secret of the stone and used it to achieve wealth and immortality is one of the most enduring in Western culture.

The evidence

The evidence for the legend is weak, and the honest reading is that the legend is legend. The historical Flamel was a wealthy man, but his wealth is easily explained by his successful career as a scrivener and his shrewd property investments. The historical Flamel was a generous benefactor of the church and the poor, but his generosity is explained by the religious and social conventions of the late medieval period. The historical Flamel was associated with Jewish scholars, but the association is explained by the cultural and intellectual life of late medieval Paris.

The Book of Abraham the Jew has never been identified, and it may never have existed. The first reference to the book is in a text of 1612, more than two centuries after Flamel’s death, and the book may be a later invention. The transmutations allegedly performed by Flamel have never been verified, and the immortality claims are clearly mythical.

The most important piece of historical evidence against the legend is the 1760s excavation of the Flamel grave by the traveler Paul Lucas, in the course of his antiquarian mission to the East. Lucas reported that the grave contained only a single male skeleton, suggesting that Perrenelle was legendary (or at least not buried with her husband). The Lucas account is preserved in the Recueil des antiquités and discussed by Douet-d’Arcq in the Revue archéologique (1860s). The Goose Quill Manuscript tradition and the Infernal Legend, both part of the legendary accretion around Flamel from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, also need to be set aside (Principe, 2013, pp. 195-198). The standard scholarly view is the right view, in my opinion, and the evidence supports it.

The pseudo-Flamel works

The alchemical works attributed to Flamel are numerous, and they are mostly later inventions. The Le Livre des Figures Hiéroglyphiques is the only work that can be confidently attributed to the historical Flamel, and even this attribution is uncertain (Calcagni, 1995). The other works are probably by later writers who used the Flamel legend to lend authority to their work.

The most important of the pseudo-Flamel works are the Sommaire Philosophique and the Explication des Figures Hiéroglyphiques, both probably by later authors. The Sommaire is a comprehensive exposition of the alchemical work, and the Explication is a commentary on Flamel’s original figures. Both works are documents of the later alchemical tradition. A reader who wants to understand the alchemical tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries should read the pseudo-Flamel works alongside the genuine Livre des Figures. The contrast is itself informative.

The visual tradition

The visual tradition of Flamel is a major part of the alchemy in art tradition, and the Flamel image has been a major feature of the alchemical visual program since the seventeenth century. The most famous of the Flamel images is the illustration of the Livre des Figures Hiéroglyphiques in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which shows Flamel at work in his study, with the mysterious book open before him and the alchemical apparatus arranged around him. The illustration is in a nineteenth-century manuscript copy, not in a contemporary print, and the dating matters.

The visual tradition includes portraits of Flamel, illustrations of the legendary events of his life, and allegorical representations of the alchemical work. The portraits show Flamel as a typical Parisian bourgeois of the late medieval period — long robe, fur-trimmed hood, thoughtful expression. The allegorical representations show Flamel as the alchemical sage, the master of the secret of the philosopher’s stone, the man who has conquered death. The two kinds of image tell different stories, and the difference is part of the legend.

The significance of the legend

Flamel’s place in the alchemical tradition is paradoxical, and the paradox is the point. The historical Flamel was a minor figure, a scrivener who wrote a short treatise and was known for his charitable works. The legendary Flamel is one of the most important figures in the alchemical tradition, the lay alchemist who succeeded where the professionals had failed, the alchemist who used the philosopher’s stone not for his own enrichment but for the benefit of the church and the poor.

The legendary Flamel is a model for the alchemical practitioner, and the Flamel story is one of the most powerful narratives in the alchemical tradition. The story combines the religious, the practical, and the social dimensions of the alchemical work: Flamel is a Christian who serves God through his charity, a practitioner who has mastered the alchemical art, and a citizen who has used his wealth for the benefit of his community. The story has been influential in the development of the alchemical tradition.

The Flamel legend remains a major feature of the contemporary alchemical and popular imagination. The Flamel story has been the subject of numerous books, films, and television programs, and the Flamel image is recognizable. The Flamel legend has also been an important source of the modern esoteric revival, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and the various modern Rosicrucian orders have all drawn on the Flamel tradition.

The Flamel legend is a testament to the power of the alchemical tradition to capture the human imagination, and the legend is, in my view, more interesting as a piece of cultural history than as a piece of alchemical history. The story of the humble scrivener who discovers the secret of the philosopher’s stone, uses it to help his community, and allegedly achieves personal immortality is a story that has resonated with the human spirit for more than five centuries. The story is legend, not history, and the story is also one of the better introductions to the alchemical tradition.