Cosa ha fatto di tanto importante Nicholas Flamel?

Answer 1

Fu' un famoso Alchimista francese vissuto nel 1300-1400.
Si dice che sia riuscito a realizzare la Pietra Filosofale.
Naturalmente sono solo storie fantastiche da Medioevo!

Answer 2

Wisdom has various means for making its way into the heart of man. Sometimes a prophet comes forward and speaks. Or a sect of mystics receives the teaching of a philosophy, like rain on a summer evening, gathers it in and spreads it abroad with love. Or it may happen that a charlatan, performing tricks to astonish men, may produce, perhaps without knowing it himself, a ray of real light with his dice and magic mirrors. In the fourteenth century, the pure truth of the masters was transmitted by a book.

This book fell into the hands of precisely the man who was destined to receive it; and he, with the help of the text and the hieroglyphic diagrams that taught the transmutation of metals into gold, accomplished the transmutation of his soul, which is a far rarer and more wonderful operation.

Thanks to the amazing book of Abraham the Jew all the Hermetists of the following centuries had the opportunity of admiring an example of a perfect life, that of Nicolas Flamel, the man who received the book. After his death or disappearance many students and alchemists who had devoted their lives to the search for the Philosopher's Stone despaired because they had not in their possession the wonderful book that contained the secret of gold and of eternal life. But their despair was unnecessary. The secret had become alive. The magic formula had become incarnate in the actions of a man. No ingot of virgin gold melted in the crucibles could, in color or purity, attain the beauty of the wise bookseller's pious life.

There is nothing legendary about the life of Nicolas Flamel. The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris contains works copied in his own hand and original works written by him. All the official documents relating to his life have been found: his marriage contract, his deeds of gift, his will. His history rests solidly on those substantial material proofs for which men clamor if they are to believe in obvious things. To this indisputably authentic history, legend has added a few flowers. But in every spot where the flowers of legend grow, underneath there is the solid earth of truth.

Whether Nicolas Flamel was born at Pontoise or somewhere else, a question that historians have argued and investigated with extreme attention, seems to me to be entirely without importance. It is enough to know that towards the middle of the fourteenth century, Flamel was carrying on the trade of a bookseller and had a stall backing on to the columns of Saint-Jacques la Boucherie in Paris. It was not a big stall, for it measured only two feet by two and a half. However, it grew. He bought a house in the old rue de Marivaux and used the ground floor for his business. Copyists and illuminators did their work there. He himself gave a few writing lessons and taught nobles who could only sign their names with a cross. One of the copyists or illuminators acted also as a servant to him.

Nicolas Flamel married Pernelle, a good-looking, intelligent widow, slightly older than himself and the possessor of a little property. Every man meets once in his life the woman with whom he could live in peace and harmony. For Nicolas Flamel, Pernelle was that woman. Over and above her natural qualities, she had another which is still rarer. She was a woman who was capable of keeping a secret all her life without revealing it to anybody in confidence. But the story of Nicolas Flamel is the story of a book for the most part. The secret made its appearance with the book, and neither the death of its possessors nor the lapse of centuries led to the complete discovery of the secret.

Nicolas Flamel had acquired some knowledge of the Hermetic art. The ancient alchemy of the Egyptians and the Greeks that flourished among the Arabs had, thanks to them, penetrated to Christian countries. Nicolas Flamel did not, of course, regard alchemy as a mere vulgar search for the means of making gold. For every exalted mind the finding of the Philosopher's Stone was the finding of the essential secret of Nature, the secret of her unity and her laws, the possession of perfect wisdom. Flamel dreamed of sharing in this wisdom. His ideal was the highest that man could attain. And he knew that it could be realized through a book, for the secret of the Philosopher's Stone had already been found and transcribed in symbolic form. Somewhere it existed. It was in the hands of unknown sages who lived somewhere unknown. But how difficult it was for a small Paris bookseller to get into touch with those sages.

Nothing, really, has changed since the fourteenth century. In our day also many men strive desperately towards an ideal, the path which they know but cannot climb; and they hope to win the magic formula (which will make them new beings) from some miraculous visit or from a book written expressly for them. But for most, the visitor does not come and the book is not written.

Yet for Nicolas Flamel the book was written. Perhaps because a bookseller is better situated than other people to receive a unique book; perhaps because the strength of his desire organized events without his knowledge, so that the book came when it was time. So strong was his desire, that the coming of the book was preceded by a dream, which shows that this wise and well-balanced bookseller had a tendency to mysticism.

Nicolas Flamel dreamed one night that an angel stood before him. The angel, who was radiant and winged like all angels, held a book in his hands and uttered these words, which were to remain in the memory of the hearer: "Look well at this book, Nicholas. At first you will understand nothing in it neither you nor any other man. But one day you will see in it that which no other man will be able to see." Flamel stretched out his hand to receive the present from the angel, and the whole scene disappeared in the golden light of dreams. Sometime after that the dream was partly realized.

One day, when Nicolas Flamel was alone in his shop, an unknown man in need of money appeared with a manuscript to sell. Flamel was no doubt tempted to receive him with disdainful arrogance, as do the booksellers of our day when some poor student offers to sell them part of his library. But the moment he saw the book he recognized it as the book that the angel had held out to him, and he paid two florins for it without bargaining.

The book appeared to him indeed resplendent and instinct with divine virtue. It had a very old binding of worked copper, on which were engraved curious diagrams and certain characters, some of which were Greek and others in a language he could not decipher.

The leaves of the book were not made of parchment, like those he was accustomed to copy and bind. They were made of the bark of young trees and were covered with very clear writing done with an iron point. These leaves were divided into groups of seven and consisted of three parts separated by a page without writing, but containing a diagram that was quite unintelligible to Flamel.

On the first page were written words to the effect that the author of the manuscript was Abraham the Jew - prince, priest, Levite, astrologer, and philosopher. Then followed great curses and threats against anyone who set eyes on it unless he was either a priest or a scribe. T

he mysterious word Maranatha, which was many times repeated on every page, intensified the awe-inspiring character of the text and diagrams. But most impressive of all was the patined gold of the edges of the book, and the atmosphere of hallowed antiquity that there was about it.

Nicolas Flamel considered that being a scribe he might read the book without fear. He felt that the secret of life and of death, the secret of the unity of Nature, the secret of the duty of the wise man, had been concealed behind the symbol of the diagram and formula in the text by an initiate long since dead. He was aware that it is a rigid law for initiates that they must not reveal their knowledge, because if it is good and fruitful for the intelligent, it is bad for ordinary men. As Jesus has clearly expressed it, pearls must not be given as food to swine. Was he qualified to read this book?

Nicolas Flamel considered that being a scribe he might read the book without fear. He felt that the secret of life and of death, the secret of the unity of Nature, the secret of the duty of the wise man, had been concealed behind the symbol of the diagram and formula in the text by an initiate long since dead. He was aware that it is a rigid law for initiates that they must not reveal their knowledge, because if it is good and fruitful for the intelligent, it is bad for ordinary men. As Jesus has clearly expressed it, pearls must not be given as food to swine.

He had the pearl in his hands. It was for him to rise in the scale of man in order to be worthy to understand its purity. He must have had in his heart a hymn of thanksgiving to Abraham the Jew, whose name was unknown to him, but who had thought and labored in past centuries and whose wisdom he was now inheriting.

He must have pictured him a bald old man with a hooked nose, wearing the wretched robe of his race and wilting in some dark ghetto, in order that the light of his thought might not be lost. And he must have vowed to solve the riddle, to rekindle the light, to be patient and faithful, like the Jew who had died in the flesh but lived eternally in his manuscript.

Nicolas Flamel had studied the art of transmutation. He was in touch with all the learned men of his day. Manuscripts dealing with alchemy have been found, notably that of Almasatus, which were part of his personal library.

He had knowledge of the symbols of which the alchemists made habitual use. But those that he saw in the book of Abraham the Jew remained dumb for him. In vain, he copied some of the mysterious pages and set them out in his shop, in the hope that some visitor conversant with the Kabbalah would help him to solve the problem. He met with nothing but the laughter of skeptics and the ignorance of pseudo-scholars just as he would today if he showed the book of Abraham the Jew either to pretentious occultists or to the scholars at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

Nicholas Flamel's Journey For twenty-one years, he pondered the hidden meaning of the book. That is really not that long. He is favored among men for whom twenty-one years are enough to enable him to find the key of life.

At age twenty-one Nicolas Flamel had developed in himself sufficient wisdom and strength to hold out against the storm of light involved by the coming of truth to the heart of man.

Only then did events group themselves harmoniously according to his will and allow him to realize his desire. For everything good and great that happens to a man is the result of the co-ordination of his own voluntary effort and a malleable fate.

No one in Paris could help Nicolas Flamel understand the book. Now, this book had been written by a Jew, and part of its text was in ancient Hebrew. The Jews had recently been driven out of France by persecution. Nicolas Flamel knew that many of these Jews had migrated to Spain.

In towns such as Malaga and Granada, which were still under the more enlightened dominion of the Arabs, there lived prosperous communities of Jews and flourishing synagogues, in which scholars and doctors were bred. Many Jews from the Christian towns of Spain took advantage of the tolerance extended by the Moorish kings and went to Granada to learn. There they copied Plato and Aristotle forbidden texts in the rest of Europe and returned home to spread abroad the knowledge of the ancients and of the Arab masters.

Nicolas Flamel thought that in Spain he might meet some erudite Cabalist who would translate the book of Abraham for him. Travelling was difficult, and without a strong-armed escort, safe passage was nearly impossible for a solitary traveler. Flamel made therefore a vow to St James of Compostela, the patron saint of his parish, to make a pilgrimage. This was also a means of concealing from his neighbors and friends the real purpose of his journey.

The wise and faithful Pernelle was the only person who was aware of his real plans. He put on the pilgrim's attire and shell-adorned hat, took the staff, which ensured a certain measure of safety to a traveler in Christian countries, and started off for Galicia.

Since he was a prudent man and did not wish to expose the precious manuscript to the risks of travel, he contented himself with taking with him a few carefully copied pages, which he hid in his modest baggage.

Nicolas Flamel has not recounted the adventures that befell him on his journey. Possibly he had none. It may be that adventures happen only to those who want to have them. He has told us merely that he went first to fulfil his vow to St James. Then he wandered about Spain, trying to get into relations with learned Jews.

But they were suspicious of Christians, particularly of the French, who had expelled them from their country. Besides, he had not much time. He had to remember Pernelle waiting for him, and his shop, which was being managed only by his servants. To a man of over fifty on his first distant journey, the silent voice of his home makes a powerful appeal every evening.

In discouragement, he started his homeward journey. His way lay through Leon, where he stopped for the night at an inn and happened to sup at the same table as a French merchant from Boulogne, who was travelling on business.

This merchant inspired him with confidence and trust, and he whispered a few words to him of his wish to find a learned Jew. By a lucky chance the French merchant was in relations with a certain Maestro Canches, an old man who lived at Leon, immersed in his books. Nothing was easier than to introduce this Maestro Canches to Nicolas Flamel, who decided to make one more attempt before leaving Spain.


Avrei voluto scriverlo in italiano ma lo aveva già scritto Centopassi...

Answer 3

Nicolas (o Nicholas) Flamel (Pontoise 1330 circa - Parigi 1418), scrivano e copista dell'università di Parigi, fu un celebre alchimista del XV secolo. La sua vita non è un mito: la sua casa a Parigi, costruita nel 1407, è ancora in piedi e si trova al numero 51 di rue de Montmorency, dove ora c'è un ristorante. Le sue imprese, tuttavia, sono materia da leggenda.
Si suppone che Flamel sia stato il più completo fra gli alchimisti europei. Le leggende narrano che riuscì a perseguire due magici traguardi dell'alchimia, quelli che sono ritenuti gli obiettivi principali di questa pseudoscienza, che creò la Pietra filosofale, in grado di trasformare il piombo in oro, e che assieme a sua moglie Perenelle raggiunse quindi l'immortalità.
Si suppone che Flamel abbia ricevuto da uno straniero un libro misterioso, scritto da un antico personaggio noto come Abramo L'Ebreo. Il libro era pieno di parole cabalistiche in greco ed ebraico. Flamel dedicò la sua vita al tentativo di comprendere il testo di questi segreti perduti. Viaggiò per le università in Andalusia per consultare le massime autorità ebraiche e musulmane. In Spagna incontrò un misterioso maestro che gli insegnò l'arte di comprendere il suo manoscritto.
Dopo il suo ritorno dalla Spagna, Flamel fu in grado di diventare ricco: la conoscenza che ricavò durante i suoi viaggi lo resero un maestro dell'arte alchemica. Flamel diventò un filantropo, donando ospedali e chiese grazie ai ricavi provenienti dal suo lavoro alchemico. Flamel fece sì che degli arcani simboli alchemici venissero scolpiti sulla sua lapide, attualmente conservata al Musée de Cluny di Parigi. La sua tomba è vuota; alcuni dicono che fu saccheggiata da persone in cerca dei suoi segreti alchemici. D'altra parte, se Flamel ha di fatto raggiunto il segreto dell'immortalità, la sua tomba vuota può avere altra spiegazione.

Answer 4

ha creato la pietra filosofale nel 1600 circa e poi l'ha distrutta perché è stato minacciato fino alla morte. ha vissuto 200 anni però ha sempre cambiato nome perché non voleva che lo riconoscessero. ha avuto 3 mogli e 15 figli. poi l'hanno scoperto e il giorno dopo aver distrutto la pietra è morto di vecchiaia

Answer 5

Ma xkè, è esistito realmente??!!!

Answer 6

Nicolas (o Nicholas) Flamel (Pontoise 1330 circa - Parigi 1418), scrivano e copista dell'università di Parigi, fu un celebre alchimista del XV secolo. La sua vita non è un mito: la sua casa a Parigi, costruita nel 1407, è ancora in piedi e si trova al numero 51 di rue de Montmorency, dove ora c'è un ristorante. Le sue imprese, tuttavia, sono materia da leggenda.

Si suppone che Flamel sia stato il più completo fra gli alchimisti europei. Le leggende narrano che riuscì a perseguire due magici traguardi dell'alchimia, quelli che sono ritenuti gli obiettivi principali di questa pseudoscienza, che creò la Pietra filosofale, in grado di trasformare il piombo in oro, e che assieme a sua moglie Perenelle raggiunse quindi l'immortalità.

Si suppone che Flamel abbia ricevuto da uno straniero un libro misterioso, scritto da un antico personaggio noto come Abramo L'Ebreo. Il libro era pieno di parole cabalistiche in greco ed ebraico. Flamel dedicò la sua vita al tentativo di comprendere il testo di questi segreti perduti. Viaggiò per le università in Andalusia per consultare le massime autorità ebraiche e musulmane. In Spagna incontrò un misterioso maestro che gli insegnò l'arte di comprendere il suo manoscritto.

Dopo il suo ritorno dalla Spagna, Flamel fu in grado di diventare ricco: la conoscenza che ricavò durante i suoi viaggi lo resero un maestro dell'arte alchemica. Flamel diventò un filantropo, donando ospedali e chiese grazie ai ricavi provenienti dal suo lavoro alchemico. Flamel fece sì che degli arcani simboli alchemici venissero scolpiti sulla sua lapide, attualmente conservata al Musée de Cluny di Parigi. La sua tomba è vuota; alcuni dicono che fu saccheggiata da persone in cerca dei suoi segreti alchemici. D'altra parte, se Flamel ha di fatto raggiunto il segreto dell'immortalità, la sua tomba vuota può avere altra spiegazione.

viene citato anche in Henry Potter e la pietra filosofale

ciaooooooooo

Answer 7

il telegrafo???? :) 2 punti