Flamel, Nicolas (1330-1418)

Trésor des trésors. Transcript. Illustrated with small pen-drawn symbolic figures in the margins.

c. 1750

1 volume 39 pp. + 2 bl. ll. 4to. 24 × 18 cm. Unbound. A title-page is perhaps wanting.

Purchased 1935.

Albert Poisson [1868-1894] in his work on Nicolas Flamel, published at Paris in 1893, pp. 142-145, speaks of a manuscript which he regards as undoubtedly written by Flamel himself. It is stated to have been without a title, and to have been written in the margins of a Psalter. Hence Poisson has given it the arbitrary title of 'Psautier chimique'. Wellcome MS. No. 2384 is apparently another version of this MS., and bears the title of 'Trésor de trésors', which has been adopted for the present MS. discussion. According to Poisson this MS. was described by Dom Antoine Joseph Pernéty [1716-1801] in Fréron's 'Année littéraire' in 1758 and 1762, and the extracts given agree almost verbatim with the text of our MS.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).