three books written in praise of alchemy, the Pope gave the 

 poet an empty purse with the remark that he who knew so 

 well how to create gold would have no difficulty in keeping 

 it full. 



The character of the tidings communicated to Rudolph 

 can be conveniently surveyed by a study of the policy and 

 craft of contemporaneous alchemists. These wily pretenders 

 to occult power and knowledge of processes for creating at 

 will precious stones, universal panaceas and silver and gold, 

 were usually poverty stricken wanderers who preyed on rich 

 men willing to listen to their captivating claims ; they were 

 certainly industrious and some had a blind hope of eventually 

 attaining the goal that they believed others had reached, but 

 the larger number were downright swindlers who resorted to 

 stratagems to bolster up their pretensions. They generally 

 maintained that the small amount of "tincture" in their 

 possession had been given them by a mysterious stranger 

 who appeared and disappeared with equal unconcern, or had 

 been discovered in some secret hiding-place, the half-ruined 

 wall of an abbey or the crypt of an ancient church, where it 

 had been concealed for centuries. To give statements an air 

 of mystery, those possessing the secrets of alchemy were said 

 to have derived their knowledge during sojourn in oriental 

 countries, or through the sheer philanthropy of an Eastern 

 sage encountered in travel. 



"A Turkish priest happened to enter a copper foundry 

 where great kettles were being cast ; in the furnace were three 

 hundred pounds of molten copper into which he threw a small 

 package containing a powder, and then he immediately with- 

 drew. On cooling the metal was found to be prre gold." 

 No place, no date, no responsible names are given by the 

 writer, and yet this bold assertion is typical of the statements, 

 made in support of the art of Hermes. 



66 



