91 



torn (for accounts vary) either at Bivillo near 

 kssisi, Cellullae or Ursaria near Cortona, or in Pied- 

 nont. In 1211 he joined the Order of St. Francis, 

 :hen just formed, thus becoming one of its earliest 

 nembers. His history as a Franciscan was rather 

 in eventful one. On the death of St. Francis 

 n 1226 he succeeded the Founder as General of 

 :he Order, but was deposed by the Pope in 1230 

 )n some suspicion that he favoured schism among 

 lis brethren. The Order re-elected him in 1236, 

 Dut he was finally removed from office by Gregory 

 three years later, and profited by the occasion 

 to join himself openly to the party of the Emperor. 

 For this he suffered excommunication in 1244, and 

 ivas not restored to the privileges of the Church till 

 L253, when he lay on his death-bed at Cortona. 

 Fhere is no doubt that he had the reputation of 

 possessing skill in alchemy, as a treatise is extant 

 called the Liber Fratris Eliae de Alchimia. 1 This 

 renown would not tend to his honour in religion. 

 [t seems indeed to invest with a cruel and pointed 

 neaning the words used by the Pope on the 

 occasion of his first deposition. 2 He is said to have 

 3een sent in early days on an embassy to the 

 Emperor of the East. Perhaps this may have been 

 s he occasion when he first acquired a taste for those 

 i-hemical studies which that nation still pursued. 

 Michael Scot addresses him in the De Alchimia as a 

 mipil (' Et ego, Magister Michael Scotus, sum opera- 

 :us super solem, et docui te, Fr. Elia, operari et tu 



1 In MS. Eicc. L. iii. 13, 119, No. 37. 



- See on the whole subject the Annales Minorum of Wadding, 

 j specially voL i. p. 109. In vol. ii. p. 242, we find the reproof addressed 

 >y the Pope to Fni Elias. The words referred to above are these : 

 i mutari color optimus auri ex quo caput (i.e. Franciscus) erat compactum.' 



