Nicholas Flamel

Nicolas Flamel
Flamel as represented in 1402 on the portal of Sainte-Geneviève des Ardens (From Étienne François Villain, 1761)
Born	c. 1330 Pontoise

Nicolas Flamel (French: [nikɔla flamɛl]; probably Pontoise, ca 1340 - Paris, March 22, 1418) was a successful French scribe and manuscript-seller. After his death, Flamel developed a reputation as an alchemist believed to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone and achieved immortality. These legendary accounts first appeared in the seventeenth century.

According to texts ascribed to Flamel almost two hundred years after his death, he had learned alchemical secrets 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." He has since appeared as a legendary alchemist in various fictional works.

The historical Flamel lived in Paris in the fourteenth and fifteenth century and his life is one of the best documented in the history of medieval alchemy. He ran two shops as a scribe and married Perenelle in 1368. She brought the wealth of two previous husbands to the marriage. The French Catholic couple owned several properties, and contributed financially to churches, sometimes by commissioning sculptures. Later in life they were noted for their wealth and philanthropy.

Flamel lived into his 80s, and in 1410 designed his own tombstone, which was carved with the images of Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul. The tombstone is preserved at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Records show that Flamel died in 1418. He was buried in Paris at the end of the nave of the former Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. His will, dated 22 November 1416, indicates that he was generous but that he did not have the extraordinary wealth of later alchemical legend. There is no indication that the real Flamel of history was involved in alchemy, pharmacy or medicine.