1 84 CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY. 



The Inquisition burnt the hooks on alchemy and magic written by 

 'Arnauld de Villeneuve; but, through the intermediacy of Pope Clement V., 

 two of his works, the " Rosarium Philosophorum " and the "Flos Florum," 

 were spared, though modern science has not been able to extract much that 

 is useful from these obscure and diffuse compilations. The encyclopaedic 

 writings of Albertus Magnus, piously preserved at Cologne, were not in any 

 danger of ecclesiastical censure, and, as soon as printing was discovered, they 

 were published in several towns of the Rhine provinces. The " Opus Ma jus " 



d 



Fig. 131. Casting of a Bell, in presence of a Bishop who gives it his benediction. After the 

 "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," by William Duraud. Manuscript of the Fourteenth 

 Century. In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



of Roger Bacon found in the library of the Vatican the hospitality which it 

 deserved, and it may be said that this book, dedicated to Pope Clement IV., 

 was a deposit for all the science of the Middle Ages. 



Most of the disciples of Roger Bacon, Arnauld de Villeneuve, and Albertus 

 Magnus abandoned the chimerical attempt to effect the transmutation of 

 metals, and devoted little time to operations in the laboratory, and those who 

 continued to practise the experimental method derived scarcely any benefit 

 from the discoveries which they really did make, on account of their absurd 

 efforts to discover the philosopher's stone (Fig. 132). 



