Transcription
For centuries, a tympanum graced the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris. Its imagery was so classic that one might not spend more than a glance on it. If you were to see it, a man and a woman kneel before Christ on the Day of Judgment. So, they were flanked by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, both with angelic accompaniment.
To modern eyes, the imagery is stereotypically medieval. But for a person gazing at the image centuries ago, it would have seemed just so slightly odd. Saint Peter and St. Paul are opposite their usual positions. The kneeling man and woman are clothed when they should be naked on the Day of Judgment. Below, there are dragons locked in combat.
The iconography, while typical, is also just out of place enough to signal to the medieval viewer that perhaps something else is being half communicated. That the tympanum, among the dead, symbolizes something beyond the Christian promise of resurrection. That hunch may very well be onto something.
Commissioned in 1407 by the wealthy scribe Nicola Flamel, the tableau is claimed to hold the secrets of nothing short of the alchemical Philosopher's Stone, the substance capable of extending life and transmuting base metals into gold. Flamel would go on to immortal legend, both for his alchemical powers and his near immortality.
In this episode, let's explore an early text attributed to that alchemist, Nikola Flamel: the 1612 Exposition of the Hieroglyphic Figures, a volume that caused his fame to truly blossom, appearing even in contemporary video games and Harry Potter books. If you're interested in magic, hermetic philosophy, alchemy, or Kabbalah, make sure to subscribe and check out my other content on topics and esotericism. And also, if you want to support the work of providing accessible, scholarly, and free content on topics and esotericism for free here on YouTube, I'd hope you consider supporting my work on Patreon or with a one-time donation. You can find those links below, and I really do appreciate your consideration of supporting the channel and the project of making esoterica widely available.
Now, let's turn to Nicola Flamel's Hieroglyphical Figures and to the tympanum, which is said to hold the secrets of alchemy itself. I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion.
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Separating the life of the historical Nicola Flamel from the alchemical legends around that Flamel is the first order of business, and it's by no means easy. Flamel himself was actually born around 1340 and died in 1418. Thus, his life was bookended by the arrival of the Black Death in 1348 and the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Cheery bookends in his life.
He worked as a professional scribe, running a studio in what is now the fourth arrondissement, on the street that actually currently bears his name. In 1368, he became a sworn bookseller attached to the powerful University of Paris, thus making his wealth tax-exempt. Around 1370, he married the wealthy widow Pernelle, and the two spent lavishly on the repair of religious buildings, public burial sites, poorhouses, and various arcades around the city of Paris. They also invested in real estate, with one of Flamel's houses surviving to this day. In fact, it's one of the oldest, if not the oldest, surviving home in Paris. It's, it's a restaurant now, so you can go, you can go eat there. I think it's even Nicola Flamel themed somehow. Go eat there.
Following his wife's death in 1397, Flamel would continue these building projects, which, in the context of the economic depression that came in the wake of the Hundred Years' War, made his substantial wealth appear even greater. That wealth and its origins are going to matter a lot, a lot here in just a moment. Flamel prepared his own tombstone and died on March 22, 1418. That tombstone survives, by the way. By the 19th century, it was actually being used as a cutting board by a grocery vendor, and you can actually go see it in the Cluny Museum. In fact, his will also survives and extended his charitable givings beyond his own death, making him endearingly well-loved in Parisian history, regardless of the legends attached to him, alchemical or otherwise.
So, how did Nicola Flamel, the bourgeois scrivener, become Flamel, the immortal alchemist? Well, that probably has to do with the exact origins and the extent of his wealth. So, there's no denying that Flamel was rather wealthy, though even during his lifetime, the rumors of the extent of that wealth were already being exaggerated. The simple truth, as far as we can tell it, and evidence from his will, was that he was moderately wealthy, mostly from his wife's previous marriages, his investments, and that whole not having to pay taxes bit. That's not bad. Also, there is some evidence that he may have financially benefited from several expulsions of Jews that happened during France in his lifetime, so that kind of makes the story a little bit more depressing.
Further, it wasn't uncommon for married couples who had no children to heavily invest in public and religious works. The most famous example of this was probably the commissioning of what we now call the Ghent Altarpiece by Josse Vyd and his wife Elisabeth Borluut, that was the mayor of Ghent at the time. And also, as I mentioned earlier, the economic depression of the Hundred Years' War also made his wealth appear larger than it probably actually was. Regardless, explaining just such a seeming fortune probably lies at the heart of the legends that he was an alchemist, despite there being basically no evidence of the historical Nicola Flamel practicing the Great Work. In fact, it was somewhat common practice that other wealthy people, especially merchants of the time, also began to be thought of as alchemists. You had to explain how they got so wealthy so fast. Oh, why not alchemy? Flamel simply became the most famous example of that process, though legends don't really care so much about, you know, facts. You know, really, even Thomas Aquinas, who argued against the possibility of substantial transmutation, he argued against the possibility of alchemy, was himself made into an alchemist in the 17th century, so take that, historical facts.
Regardless, by the end of the 15th century, the alchemist legend was already starting to take shape. And by the 1561 *Dictionaire des Sciences Occultes* by Robert Duval, not that Robert Duval, the idea that Flamel hid his alchemical secrets in the cemetery of the Innocents tympanum was already beginning to appear. It's also worth mentioning that the text would first appear as the first treatise in the volume of the absolutely monumental *Theatrum Chemicum*, first appearing in 1602. It's literally the first work in what is probably the greatest collection of alchemical works in history, thus greatly helping to cement the reputation of Flamel as a master alchemist. He's literally the first guy that you, you come to in the literature.
Through the late 16th century, the legend fully took shape, with Flamel being described as a poor scribe whose discovery of an ancient book allowed him to learn the secrets of transmutation, thus creating his vast wealth. With the legend reaching its full form by the early 17th century, the *Exposition of the Hieroglyphic Figures* appears in French first in 1612 and was subsequently translated into English in 1624. The text, which purports itself to be a translation from a Latin original made by Flamel himself, is a multi-layered alchemical study of a substantial sophistication, and it even has a kind of postmodern hypertextuality to it.
In the text, Flamel purports to have purchased an ancient bark book bound in copper by a certain Abraham the Jew, who, to help his fellow Jews pay tribute to the Roman Empire, actually taught them, well, taught them how to do alchemy. It's an easy way to pay your tribute, you just make gold. But there's a few problems. First, the book never describes the crucial first ingredient to start the process of producing the Stone of the Philosophers. And secondly, the process itself is actually encoded in a series of complex symbolic images that flummoxed Flamel. Sorry.
Curiously enough, Flamel describes the images from the Book of Abraham but doesn't go about reproducing them. He describes them verbally but doesn't show them to us. After laboring in vain for 21 years to decipher the work and produce philosophical gold, Flamel tells us that he went on a pilgrimage to Spain to seek out a "Jewish priest" that could help him decipher the text. And during a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, he met a Jewish physician who had converted to Christianity, who helped him finally decipher the text and then who promptly died on the journey back to Paris.
Thus, with the secrets of the Book of Abraham unlocked, Flamel tells us that he and his wife successfully produced silver and gold on three occasions, starting on January the 17th, 1382, which the book says was a Monday, but it was actually a Friday. Does that matter? I don't know. With the transmutation successful and Flamel fabulously wealthy, he and his wife began their philanthropic spending as thanks to God, including the tympanum in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents.
And it's here that the text pivots, first providing a more or less straightforward theological interpretation of the tympanum, followed by eight further chapters, which systematically interpret the symbolism of the tympanum "according to the mastery of Hermes." That's where we get the alchemical interpretation. Thus, we have Flamel learning the alchemical art from one symbolic book and then translating it into another set of symbols in the tympanum. I mean, why have one mysterious alchemical system of symbols when you can, when you can have two?
Speaking of that first set, from the alleged Book of Abraham, many of the symbols that Flamel describes in that text were unknown before the publication of the *Exposition*. But subsequent alchemical texts would actually go on to recreate the imagery and then claim to be editions of the book allegedly found by Flamel. This is kind of like the people that make up Necronomicon content after Lovecraft invented it, with a few quotations peppered throughout his weird tales. The most famous examples were the image descriptions from the Book of Abraham were actually recreated are probably in Michael Maier's *Atalanta Fugiens* and the *Thesaurus Alchemiæ* work, which claims to be an actual edition of the Book of Abraham. And there's also an *Abramelin* connection there. It gets all weird.
Of course, none of these works actually date prior to the 17th century, and certainly not to the 15th century. In fact, the *Exposition* itself cites a work that was only produced in the 16th century, right in 1599, I believe. This, along with several other anachronisms, including the name of the book, *Hieroglyphic*, pretty clearly shows that the historical Flamel did not compose the *Exposition*. That, however, didn't stop the book from rocketing into popularity after it was published, thus cementing the legend of Flamel the alchemist.
So, if Flamel didn't write it, who did? Well, no copies of the text have been found which date to prior to the 16th century, nor has any Latin original ever been discovered. In fact, the French doesn't even really read like it was originally in Latin. I tend to accept the thesis that it was probably composed by Beroald de Verville, maybe even as a kind of prank, but the evidence is admittedly thin, and it's gonna likely remain so.
Despite the work probably dating to the early 17th century, the alchemical theory of the *Exposition* is truly medieval and serves as an excellent introduction to alchemy more generally. That's probably why it was put at the very beginning of the *Theatrum Chemicum*. According to the *Exposition*, the tympanum details the process by which mercury and sulfur interact to produce the Stone of the Philosophers. Thus, the allegory is one of fixing the volatility of mercury, subjecting this substance to classical alchemical processes, especially noting the colors and their changes as the process reaches the red, purple of projection, the actual stone, which produces gold and silver.
As one might imagine, there's a great deal of focus on the processes of putrefaction and albification, with the resurrection of the dead being a core trope. I mean, the tympanum is in a cemetery. The resurrection of the divine Christ, here standing in for the Stone of the Philosophers, an alchemical symbol, which is surprisingly late in the history of philosophy. Though, interestingly enough, the text also takes Pernelle Flamel, his wife, as you probably remember, as the earthly version of the Philosopher's Stone because of her feminine fecundity. While she had no children in life, she becomes the symbol for the ability to produce children in the form of gold and silver.
Each aspect of the tympanum is described in alchemical terms, although the, the fit isn't always perfect, probably because the tympanum was never meant to be an alchemical allegory to begin with. The rather traditional, even conservative and romantic take on alchemy in the *Exposition* is interesting for a few reasons. One is that such an alchemical text would have appeared kind of old-fashioned by the early 17th century, at least one with that theory. Of course, this is the time period where Paracelsus had come along and shaken the alchemical world to its core, and recall that Boyle's *The Sceptical Chymist* was only a few decades away. This is a very medieval alchemical text, what would have been kind of old-fashioned.
Though this more conservative and especially Catholic alchemical symbolism may have played an important role in cementing Flamel's legacy. The text seems to self-consciously paint Flamel as a kind of foil to the Protestant Paracelsus, and that would have resonated in areas dominated by the Counter-Reformation. He becomes a kind of anti-Paracelsus. He becomes the Catholic French version, not the German guy. Thus, the alchemical supersession of the base metals into gold is mirrored in the theological supersession: Flamel, the Catholic, superseding the Jewish Book of Abraham, but still very much within a specifically Catholic orbit.
The *Exposition of the Hieroglyphic Figures* was an immediate alchemical bestseller and went into numerous editions and even spawned a host of pseudo-Flamelian works. The tympanum also became a site of alchemical pilgrimage until it was destroyed in 1742, as the cemetery of the Holy Innocents was cleared and the bones of the charnel house moved to the Empire of the Dead and the catacombs of the city. The remains of Flamel and his wife would actually similarly be relocated. Nearly all the works they commissioned would vanish from history, many perishing during the convulsions of the French Revolution.
Flamel and his legend, however, would survive and thrive. In fact, sightings of him and his wife continue to this day. People have reported seeing them everywhere from the streets of India to the opera houses of Paris. And he certainly lives on in popular culture, appearing in recent video games, Dan Brown novels, and in Harry Potter, of course. French occultists from Eliphas Lévi to Fulcanelli praise him as one of the only true adepts of the Great Work.
And if you'd like to read this wonderful alchemical volume, the best edition of the *Exposition of the Hieroglyphic Figures* is edited by Lorinda Dixon in the English Renaissance Hermeticism series. She reproduces and annotates the 1624 English translation with a very helpful introduction and really helpful notes. You can also read the text over at Adam McLean's absolutely wonderful website. And if you want to have a very, very beautiful copy of the *Hieroglyphical Figures*, make sure to check out the edition by Ouroboros Press. You can find those links below.
And again, I hope you subscribe, check out my other content, and consider supporting my work of making scholarly and free content on topics and esotericism here on YouTube by taking a look at my Patreon or considering a one-time donation. Again, you can find those links below. Until next time, I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and thank you for watching Esoterica, where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion.